Safe Speed Forums

Good grief! Clarkson appears to have a pop at 4by4's as a lifestyle choice here....

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/li ... 594539.ece

He'll be eating lentils next

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Perhaps the new VED banding should be geographical. If you live out of town then you can have a high emissions car at a discount.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Clarkson's had a low opinion of the so-called chelsea tractors for a long while.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

He was just pointing out the impracticality of a very large, powerful vehicle for travelling on narrow inner city streets where you are lucky to get up to 30mph. It's hard to argue with him.

You wouldn't buy a 150ft Sunseeker yacht to travel up and down the Kennet & Avon canal, would you?

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Now there's an interesting thought!

Mind you, I wouldn't buy a 150ft sunseeker anyway!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Oh I agree antera, but the part I found interesting was this...



This was always Paul's stance as well, i.e. that people will self regulate rather than put up with all the hassle of traffic and congestion. I thought he was wrong, and now Clarkson appears to agree. Whats more, some of the owners of these vehicles cannot seem to see that the lack of space is partly of their own doing. On a programme on TV a few weeks back a group of 4 by 4 owners were followed on their school run, sometimes just a few hundred yards up the road. One chap, in his highly impractical Jeep Grand Cherokee, was lambasting tradesmen in their vans and pickups for daring to try to go about their business using the same streets that he was using! What astonishngly selfish and contorted thinking!

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Quote:

One chap, in his highly impractical Jeep Grand Cherokee,

Highly impractical?

Because of size perhaps??

Size is a myth. I have an old landcruiser and an old range rover . Not because I am some sort of "Marlboro Man" wannabe, its just that I like vehicles that I can fix with a hammer rather than those that require a computer! (the landcruiser is diesel the range rover is LPG/petrol So I am covererd see! )

The much vaunted, eco freindly, CC free, Prius is huge, it is only a foot or so shorter than the landcrusier. I had the RR parked next to a Golf in the car park a while back and was astonished to see that the golf was bigger!

Sure 4x4's are Taller than other vehicles, they also tend to have vertical sides and so fill out their footprint Both make them look much bigger than other vehicles. but in reality only the very biggest take up any more space than a standard issue family saloon and many are rather smaller.

As for practicality, a vehicle that can be a van one day and a saloon car the next is pretty damn practical (at least it is for me anyway)

(Dont mention "People carriers" as an alternative they are either a crammed in and utterly innacessable FWD or have the engines under the front seats! both Bloody awfull to work on! Give me a "Proper RWD with a proper bonnet any day!)

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Highly impractical because he was trying to squeeze it down urban streets past other people in similar sized vehicles. Compared to a Fiesta, Citroen C1, Smart Car - much more practical vehciles for such a task - a 4by4 or a people carrier is a ridiculously impractical choice of vehicle.
For the record, I'm not bothered by other people's choice of car, we don't want to go down the road of restricting peoples choices. But for the driver of a large vehicle doing a task that could easily be accomplished in a much smaller one to complain about the presence of someone else in a large vehicle going about their work or business, is all very selfish and pot vs kettle ish to me.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I have to admit that I really do dispise these 'fashion' 4by4's. Not because of their size or impracticality (although you really do have to question the mentality of someone choosing to buy a family car that returns sub-20mpg), but because they give the rest of us 4by4 owners a bad rep.

I'm with Dusty re: maintenance, and I love the drive of our K-reg Isuzu - its so torquie (sp?) and the visibilty is so good that it's a really easy drive - but the fact remains that it returns about 35mpg on a run and gets used for towing large trailers. But, we're still planet murdering thugs in the eyes of the uneducated morons bleating on about the big nasty 4by4 monstrosities.

But then I'm also sick and tired of everyone assuming that congestion and pollution applies to the whole country in the same way as it applies to London.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I am disappointed Wandsworth is used as an example. Anyone who lives here knows that the traffic problem arises from the councils inability to say no to developers! The high street is gridlocked from about 7.30am onwards throughout the day, every day and the traffic lights on the roads joining the 2 main roads through the Borough certainly appear to have been rephased to minimise traffic flow.

I agree though that 4x4's in a City are very unpractical I just took issue with his example.

On London's narrow and overcrowded roads, it's width that causes the most problems, rather than length or height.

Check out the width figures of this selection from 2008 showrooms (SUVs highlighted in bold) and tell me which one you would like to thread down a double-parked, two-way Victorian street at 6 in the evening?

VW Touareg V10 DPF SE - 2230 mm
Porsche Cayenne GTS - 2200 mm
BMW X5 M Sport - 2190 mm
Land Rover Discovery 4.4 V8 S - 2190 mm
Range Rover Sport HSE - 2170 mm
Mercedes ML63 AMG - 2127 mm
Jaguar XJ6 3.0 - 2108 mm
Ford Mondeo Titanium - 2078 mm
Land Rover Freelander 2.0 Td4 - 2071 mm
Saab 9-5 saloon 2.3t Linear Sport - 2070mm
Renault Laguna 1.5 dCi Dynamique - 2060 mm
Mazda CX-7 2.3T - 2055mm
Vauxhall Astra 1.7CDTI Club - 2033 mm
Ford Focus 1.6 Zetec - 2019 mm
Honda Accord 2.0i VTEC EX - 2018 mm
VW Golf 1.9 TDI Match- 2010 mm
Renault Modus 1.5 dCi Expression - 1960mm
Dodge Nitro 2.8 CRD - 1856 mm
BMW 545i - 1846mm
BMW 318i - 1817mm
Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 CRD Limited - 1870 mm
Peugeot 308 1.4 VTi S - 1821 mm
Nissan X-Trail 2.0 dCi Sport - 1785 mm
Nissan Qashqai 2.0 Acenta - 1780 mm
Hyundai Coupe V6 - 1760 mm
Mitsubishi Outlander 2.4 MIVEC - 1750 mm
Toyota Prius T4 - 1725mm

In summary, then - not all SUVs are the big, unwieldy beasts people make them out to be, but the Porsche Cayenne GTS (the car he was actually reviewing) and it's direct rivals definitely are. I'm not saying these heavy old Hectors don't have their applications, but in London they are obviously impractical as a daily means of transport.

I reckon the long, tall, but narrow Toyota Prius would work well as a runabout in London. It's a car that has obviously been designed for that kind of environment.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken