Harry Potter, the Psychic Boss and the Laneways of Doom

Graeme wrote:

Hmmm, sounds nice. Need any more Citrix guys or do I have to marry
into the family before qualifying for a company car? (I'd settle
for a Greenspeed recumbent)

You seriously looking for a job? Citrix would be a good thing on your
resume.

Theo

Stuart Lamble wrote:

You aren't reading what has been written on the thread. Instead,
you're picking and choosing points to nitpicking, and ignoring those
that you can't nitpick.

Of course, thsi is usenet isn't it? :-)

It's not about the length of the car. It's
about the HEIGHT of the car.
Get in something around the size and shape of a Holden Barina, and go
for a drive.

Can I assume your personal vehicle is a Barina?

I don't give a damn if their length is more or less than another car.
What I give a damn about is their height -- when you're behind them,
you can't tell what's going on ahead, and that's one thing I *very*
much want to know as a driver.

I'm saying that many vehicles on the road (for whatever use) are as much of
a vision block as a 4WD. Yet you do not take umbrage at them because they
have some, to you, legitimate reason for blocking your view. I personally
don't see the difference.

*THAT* is what gets me riled about 4WDs, more than anything else. Yes,
the fuel guzzling part of it (refer to somebody else's post about
drive chain inefficiencies, wind resistance, and the like)
contributes to that annoyance, but it's the vision problem that gives
me the most grief. The Rav 4 is a lesser annoyance than other 4WDs,
but it still irks.

Try a three second gap. Another vehicle will possibly pull into the gap and
it may not be a 4WD and your problem will be gone. :-)

Theo

hippy wrote:

Lets ignore the fact that leaving a couple of seconds gap between cars
will be instantly filled by impatient arseholes trying anything to get
home quicker -

Hopefully a Barina will fill the gap ad your problem will be gone.

There's no need for these vehicles unless you are off-road in the bush
where a standard car wouldn't operate safely - 4wd owners should be
made to justify their use of such vehicles before being allowed to
purchase them. Yuppies using 2t of steel to drop of little Sarah to
MLC is NOT a justifiable use. Driving to the Yarra Valley for wine
tastings of a Sunday afternoon is NOT a justifiable use. Claiming you
need it to pack your kite-surfer or tow your boat, when a Commodore
will do, guess what? NOT a justifiable use.

I guess a RAV4 would be pretty useless off-road. When I go off-road I take
an 11 tonne 4WD with limited slip diffs. Our local fire-truck.

Theo

Theo Bekkers wrote:
I'm saying that many vehicles on the road (for whatever use) are as much of
a vision block as a 4WD. Yet you do not take umbrage at them because they
have some, to you, legitimate reason for blocking your view. I personally
don't see the difference.

Probably because there's a 4wd in front of you! :P

Try a three second gap. Another vehicle will possibly pull into the gap and
it may not be a 4WD and your problem will be gone. :-)

But then the braking distance is gone and you have to create another
gap, rinse, repeat.
You're just sticking up for them because you own one! :P

hippy

Lots of people wrote lots of stuff that I've snipped.... my 2cents worth:

Rant on:

I can't quite work out the 4WD thing. I've had some myself when I lived on a
small farm and went bush every couple of weeks. When I moved to the 'burbs I
bought another car, mainly because the Nissan Patrol I had was on the way to
stuffed. I thought about another 4WD (I share the irritation of the term
'SUV') but figured that with a smaller, ordinary car I can hire a 4WD
whenever I please for going bush, payed for with the fuel savings. That's
worked out pretty well. By the way, I count as 4WDs those vehicles that sit
high up and look much like trucks. Subarus and the like (similar to an
ordinary car) I don't refer to as 4WDs even when they have 4WD; more
accurately they are All Wheel Drives.

Of course the safety factor had to be taken into account, which made buying
an ordinary small car an even easier choice: less tendency to roll and more
manoeuvrable in traffic. I can't imagine why anyone with a synapse would buy
a 4WD for safety! Didn't anyone do physics at school?

My parameters for an ordinary car are simply that it loads and holds my
bikes/diving gear/whatever easily and that it's relatively cheap to buy and
run. So far a Commodore, Subaru Touring Wagon, Hyundai Excel and Hyundai
Elantra have fulfilled that OK. In fact I could fit more in the Subaru than
I could in the Patrol (more floor space). All the above cars held two bikes
easily inside with back seats folded down and front wheels removed from the
bikes. So why should I buy an unneccessary tank?

I can't see why one needs to expend the energy to move a couple of tons of
steel around all year for *maybe* the occasional trip into the bush. As for
the Rav 4s, Suzukis and other little toyboxes I see even less point in them.
They seem to have the poor road performance and lack of agility of the
larger 4WDs as well as a lack of off-road ability. They do nothing well
except, as has been pointed out, block the view of other drivers. All the
drawbacks of both types of vehicle rolled into one package! How come the
marketoids didn't include that in their blurbs?

I tend to go along with (I think it was) Billy Connely's view on guns: The
first question when applying for a gun license should be, "Do you live in
town?" If you reply, "Yes" then you're obviously too unstable to be trusted
with one. The same applies when licensing a 4WD...

Me (not trolling, just commenting... don't get me started on suburban bull
bars!)

Rant off.

On 2005-02-22, hippy wrote:
Stuart Lamble wrote:
You aren't reading what has been written on the thread. Instead, you're
picking and choosing points to nitpicking, and ignoring those that you
can't nitpick. It's not about the length of the car. It's about the
HEIGHT of the car.

"you took the words right outta my mouth.."
"it musta been.. um.. cut!"

Unless you're a female in her twenties or early thirties, we definitely
*don't* want to finish that quote.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

On 2005-02-22, hippy wrote:
There's no need for these vehicles unless you are off-road in the bush
where a standard car wouldn't operate safely - 4wd owners should be made
to justify their use of such vehicles before being allowed to purchase
them. Yuppies using 2t of steel to drop of little Sarah to MLC is NOT a
justifiable use. Driving to the Yarra Valley for wine tastings of a
Sunday afternoon is NOT a justifiable use. Claiming you need it to pack
your kite-surfer or tow your boat, when a Commodore will do, guess what?
NOT a justifiable use.

I like the suggestion made by a co-worker. They're trucks: they have
truck tyres; truck engines; truck chassis; and physics means they react
in a similar way to unloaded prime movers. Ergo, to drive one, you
should need a truck license.

Hm. Why have sales of 4WDs suddenly plummeted?

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

hippy wrote:

You're just sticking up for them because you own one! :P

Not really, my wife does. I get to drive it sometimes, like tomorrow, when
it needs to have a service. Guess who pays? :-)

I think we have pretty much worked out that the length, width, and fuel
consumption of 4WDs are pretty much irrelevant. After many posts it appears
that people dislike their height. So why pick on 4WDs. There's Taragos,
Tributes, Voyagers and a whole bunch of happy-vans that have the same height
without the 4WD and also block your view. Why does nobody complain about
them?
Shall we make a law that all cars must be no taller than the eyes of a
cyclist? How about the poor people in Ferraris, they can't see over or past
a Corolla. They must really be frustrated.

Theo

Plodder wrote:

I can't quite work out the 4WD thing. I've had some myself when I
lived on a small farm and went bush every couple of weeks.
snip sensible stuff

I pretty much agree with all that. I drive a ute as I need to carry stuff
more often than I have passengers. A bit hard to get a cement mixer in the
boot of a Corolla, or a RAV4.
Or a bicycle.

Theo

Stuart Lamble wrote:

I like the suggestion made by a co-worker. They're trucks: they have
truck tyres; truck engines; truck chassis; and physics means they
react in a similar way to unloaded prime movers. Ergo, to drive one,
you should need a truck license.

If you check your Drivers Licence (assuming your state has adopted the
so-called new 'standard') you will find your basic car licence allows you to
drive a truck, providing it has no more than two axles and weighs less than
4.5 tonnes. I think that pretty much covers a Hummer or a Mazda T4500.

Theo