The Lies of the Anti 4WD Lobby Group

There is a concerted campaign by some in the community to make owning a four-wheel drive very difficult.  Much of this campaign is based on myths and lies. The following tries to address some of the facts about 4WDs.

Introduction

It is an admitted fact the large four-wheel drive is not an ideal car for driving a single person around the city.  Many people require a large heavy vehicle for work purposes: they have to carry heavy tools and/or loads or access difficult work sites. They may have to tow heavy equipment such as heavy trailers or small bobcats or compressors etc. No other vehicle can server these purposes.

But most 4WD owners have other interests apart from getting to and from work during the week. Many people who own 4WDs have large families and use the larger interior space and carrying capacity of a 4WD to carry the family and all the attachments!  For some people its simply a matter of necessity. In my family I am 194cm (6'4" on the old scale) and my wife and children not much less. The simple fact is that I cannot fit into a small car and neither can my family.

The 4WD may be an absolute necessity for that person's recreational pursuits whether it be towing a caravan, a horse float or a large boat.  It may be that once the year fishing trip to the Gulf or weekends up in the country somewhere, whatever the reason it doesn't matter: a 4WD may be a necessary part of that pursuit. The single biggest thing the government could do is to allow for the registration of two vehicles as one. So you only have to pay one registration fee, one insurance fee etc and you only get one set of registration plates to swap as necessary.

The anti-four-wheel-drive lobby group has learnt from their extreme green cousins (in fact there is a lot of common faces!) and have no compunction about lying and completely misrepresenting the truth in their campaign advertising and statements. This is a link to an article in the Newcastle Herald by Harold Scruby and it shows just how far even "respected" people are prepared to go with their anti four-wheel-drive obsession.

The Use of US Statistics!

The US statistics may support the anti 4WD case in some cases. However there are four serious flaws with the US statistics:

1. Only 11 of the US states have seat belt laws which can be enforced by financial or points penalty. This completely skews any comparison of crash statistics but is especially relevant to rollovers for obvious reasons.

2. The types of vehicles in the US are completely different from those found in Australia. Some of the US’s most popular vehicles (Chevy and Fords) are simply not found in Australia. Conversely some of the most popular vehicles in Australia (eg Nissan Patrol and Toyota Land Cruiser 75/78) are not available in the US. To compare vehicle characteristics in these very different environments is simply wrong!

3. The US crash statistics are completely skewed due to the Ford Explorer and Firestone tyre fiasco. This is where Firestone tyres fitted to Ford Explorers exploded without warning causing many hundreds of deaths and thousands of crashes. It resulted in the largest automotive recall in history.

4. The ATSB statistics tell us that, unlike the US, the accident rate for 4WDs and sedans is almost identical in Australia.

5. NSW RTA statistics for 2003 tell us that in country driving sedans are nearly twice as likely as four-wheel drives are to be involved in single vehicle accidents.

Light and Heavy 4WDs

Its hard enough to actually decide what a 4WD is because there are so many variations in the theme but to lump all 4WDs together is ludicrous! It is ridiculous to compare a Honda CRV with a Nissan patrol.

It is no different than combining 4WDs with heavy vehicles such as trucks. Even if you classify them into Heavy (>2  tonnes) and Light you have problems: where do you put the Holden and Ford AWD models, the Chrysler Voyager, the Toyota Tarago and Landcruiser 78 which all weigh in at just under 2 tonnes?

Even within the "obvious" candidates for Heavy 4WDs to compare the handling characteristics of a Toyota Troop Carrier with a BMW X5 is ludicrous in the extreme: they are totally different vehicles in every possible aspect.

Heavy 4WDs (>2 tonnes and with a chassis and live axles) handle differently from a normal sedans and other 4WDs. But so does any vehicle of the same weight and design, whether it is a people mover full of people or a delivery van.

There may be some justification for special licenses as recommended by the Federal Road Safety Committee. The case for high powered motorcycles was a convincing one and has been reflected in the statistics for young riders.

However the justification for Heavy 4WDs would also apply to any vehicle outside of the “normal” sedan variety: small delivery vans can also exceed 2.5 tonnes when loaded as can people movers and many large and luxury sedans!

Centre of Gravity and Rollovers

There seems to be this perception that 4WDs have some inherent centre of gravity problem. It goes without saying that any larger vehicle has a higher centre of gravity. But it should be noted that the height of the BODY of a vehicle is almost irrelevant to its centre of gravity: the majority of the mass of a heavy 4WD vehicle is in the engine, gearbox, chassis, fuel tanks and drive train.

The centre of mass of these components is actually only a little higher than a sedan vehicle: it is only that height which is the difference of the larger tyres and rims that are fitted plus a little. Any engineer will tell you why: it’s to do with how drive trains and how universal joints have to work (this does not take into account highly “lifted” competition vehicles).

In order of rollover ease (highest to lowest) you could classify vehicles: B-Double, Semi Trailer, Heavy Truck, Bus, Light Truck/Delivery Van, Heavy 4WD, People Mover, Light 4WD, Sedan, Sports Car, Go Kart.

This is completely consistent with a study carried out by Monash University and the Victorian police which in fact found that the large four-wheel drives are not as easy to roll over as has been portrayed.  In fact several of the utility style vehicles were substantially more likely to roll over than the Heavy 4WDs.

As to dynamic handling there are many vehicles which have scored less than a sports car in the moose/swerve/hook/slalom test. The classic was the Mercedes A160 which rolled when a journalist tested the vehicle! Further a fully loaded vehicle will have very different characteristics than an unloaded one: a delivery van for example. Why is the 4WD is singled out for special mention as to its handling?

Collisions With Other Vehicles

It is an obvious result of physics that the heavier the vehicle the more damage it will do when it collides with another vehicle. A Heavy 4WD will do exactly the same amount of damage as a large sedan, van, mini bus or people mover of the same weight. Its just simple physics about how much energy has to be dissipated in the crash.

The anti-four-wheel-drive lobby always present the worst possible statistic with the largest of the 4WDs crashing into the smallest  possible sedan. What they fail to mention when they release the statistic is that any large sedan of similar weight will cause exactly the same amount of damage.  It's simply a matter of physics! They are being deliberately deceptive because they are comparing an average which includes small cars. Compared to large sedans, people movers, vans and other such vehicle 4WDs are no better or worse.

The other issue is the height of the bumper bar of Heavy 4WDs. Although many of the "soft" 4WDs (Mercedes, BMW and Volvo) have front ends which are no different than that of a normal vehicle this still persists. The problem is that for any sort of off road a higher ground clearance is required. But what the deceptive anti-4WD lobby fail to tell you is that the difference between a normal sedan car and a sports cars is actually greater than that between a Heavy 4WD and the average sedan! Ergo all vehicles higher than a sports car should be banned! 

Overall Size and Blocking of Vision

They often heard catch cry on the anti-four-wheel-drive movement is how large four-wheel drives are and how much parking space they take out and how much vision they block.  Well as you can see from the figures below they are simply telling lies: there is no other way to describe the misinformation that is spread by the anti-four-wheel-drive lobby

The very vehicle often suggested to replace 4WDs is longer, wider and higher than most 4WDs? Even a seven seat Commodore is longer and wider than a Nissan Patrol. Put on a loaded roof rack and voila: you have a longer, wider and higher vehicle (which is also probably dangerously overloaded!).

Pedestrian Safety 

4WDs are under-represented in child deaths in terms of numbers of vehicles on the road (and  sedans even more so!) whereas heavy vehicles and large utilities are over represented. Unfortunately it is a known fact that the heavier the vehicle that strikes a child pedestrian the more likely it is to cause serious injury or death. If a child is hit by a semitrailer then they are almost certain to die.

4WDs seem to be almost exclusively blamed for overall pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Despite the much-hyped belief that 4WDs contribute significantly to pedestrian fatalities, available statistics indicate that this is not the case and that sedans are the major contributors and in proportion to road usage. Even when lumped with other “utility” vehicles 4WDs are still underrepresented in overall pedestrian deaths for road usage (as are larger vehicles!) Is this because larger vehicles are slower or more easily seen? 

Load Carrying 

Consider for the moment which is safer for the trip north:

1. A sedan loaded with two adults, two children, bikes, gear, luggage, camping supplies, water, food, surfboards and other associated holiday requirements and a boat attached to the rear or
   

2. A Toyota Landcruiser similarly outfitted

 It’s a no contest to which is the safer and more comfortable option! 

The “only 10% go off road” or “Toorak Tractor” Myth!

RTA statistics indicate that as many as 32% of 4WDs are registered (via postcodes) in designated non-urban areas so what does this do to the much hyped  myth that 10% only ever go of road? No reliable source for what is the much quoted myth has ever been revealed so where did it come from? No one seems to know!

The Fuel/Greenhouse Argument Furphy

4WDs are often accused of excessive fuel consumption and therefore being wasteful of natural resources. It is true that some heavy petrol 4WDs do consume more fuel on average than petrol sedans, because of the weight factor in the main.

A 2 tonne 4WD uses no more fuel than a 2 tonne Statesman or People Mover! If there is such a thing as an environmental tax or environmental levy then it should be applied equally across the board to all vehicles regardless of their type or design.

To give an example the diesel Nissan Patrol or Toyota Landcruiser, can easily achieve 10.5 lt/100 km in highway driving conditions and actually less in urban driving. This is almost identical if not less than the average large station wagon.

With regard to pollution older and/or poorly maintained cars and erratically driven vehicles are by far the biggest contributors towards airborne pollution (Source - EPA). In fact any vehicle older than about 10 years emits between 30-50 times the pollution of a modern 4WD! The mere fact that a vehicle is a 4WD does not mean that the contribution to pollution is any greater than that of a conventional family sedan.

Diesels come in for special mention in some articles. However as engineers are well aware the modern common rail diesels (Euro 3 and 4) with low sulphur fuels are actually less polluting than either petrol or LPG engines. Further, modern small diesel emissions are already clean and do not require catalytic converters that petrol vehicles do (many of which can become infective shortly after new anyway!).

The latest small diesels pass the stringent European Euro 4 (2005) requirements WITHOUT a catalytic cracker! in order to combat the problem of particulates in the emission of diesel engines some of them also have PARTICULATE filters (Citroen and Peugeot since 2000 for example). These can be easily retro-fitted to make all modern diesels meet the Euro 4 (2005) standards (Mercedes and Peugeot are already offering these as a retro-fit to existing models).

When you add to this the extraordinary fuel economy of modern diesels it is overtly apparent they are not the “polluting” “fuel guzzlers” implied!  

Resources Used to Manufacture of 4WDs

4WDs are all described as being wasteful of resources because of their size and their complexity.  However this is untrue for three basic reasons:

1. Although there has been a trend to more sophisticated "luxury" vehicles in recent history the vast bulk of 4WDs are simple vehicles with little electronics and luxury fittings. In this sense they are more recyclable than many modern sophisticated vehicles.
   

2. Many 4WDs, particularly the heavier variety, are built substantially stronger and with more emphasis on long life and reliability.  As a direct result, a diesel Nissan patrol for example, would be expected to last somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 km. This is somewhere between five and seven times the lifespan of a small vehicle and yet the Nissan Patrol only consumes about twice the manufacturing resources of the smaller vehicle. In this sense the heavy 4WDs are far more efficient than smaller vehicles.

Economics of a 4WD for the Yearly Trip

Many people who own a 4WD get themselves out of bed every morning, go off to a job they probably don’t like just so they can go on that yearly holiday to Yamba or fishing trip to the Gulf! It’s their raison detre. They understand every time they go for a service or to buy a tyre how much a 4WD costs to maintain and they still do it!

For more information please do not hesitate to contact the Toyota Land Cruiser Club or the NSW 4WD & ACT Association or Dr Jon Jenkins at the respective websites:

Toyta Landcruiser Club:               www.tlcc.com.au

4WD NSW & ACT:                        www.4wdnsw.org

Dr Jon Jenkins:                            www.trac.org.au

Summary of the Anti 4WD Falsehoods

Crash Statistics!

• The US statistics are skewed by the different types of vehicles and the exploding Firestone tyre fiasco.

• Only 11 of the 50 US states use seatbelt enforcement. This is particularly relevant to rollover deaths. 

• Accident rates for sedans are almost the same as 4WDs in Australia. Many 4WDs are used in country areas on the worst roads at high speeds: this is a very positive statistic.

• In regional areas sedan cars are over represented in single vehicle accidents and 4WDs are under represented (RTA 2003).

 Stability and Light Vs Heavy 4WDs

• There are different types of 4WDs. The “light” 4WDs such as the Subaru Forrester are no different from sedans.>

•  Heavy 4WDs will rollover more easily than a sedan but sedans will rollover more easily than a sports car: where do we draw this imaginary line?

•  Many vehicles do not do well on the “swerve” test (including the infamous Mercedes A160 which actually rolled when tested in Germany) and yet there are no anti-<vehicle name> campaigns.

Size and Blocking of Vision

• Even the largest 4WDs are smaller than the replacement people movers.

• Even the largest 4WD is smaller than the average family sedan such as a Commodore or Falcon station wagon.

Crash Statistics

• Monash University research has shown that the heavier the vehicle the more damage it inflicts to smaller vehicles. A 2 tonne 4WD will inflict the same damage as a 2 tonne sedan or a 2 tonne delivery van or minibus or a 2 tonne people mover. 4WDs should not be singled out for attention.

Pedestrian Safety

• ATSB statistics indicate that 4WDs contribute less to pedestrian fatalities than either sedan cars or heavy vehicles.

• Child deaths are also under represented in 4WDs

• It is a fact that the heavier the vehicle the more dangerous it is to pedestrians: trucks are almost always fatal to pedestrians!

Load Carrying

• Heavy 4WDs are designed to carry and tow heavy loads. In this respect they are safer than lighter vehicles even lighter 4WDs!

• They are required by caravans, horse floats, boats and tradespeople.

Fuel Economy and Pollution

• Light petrol 4WDs use the same amount of fuel as light petrol sedans.

• Heavy petrol 4WDs use the same amount of fuel as heavy petrol sedans (e.g. Statesman, Fairlane etc and People Movers).

• Modern Euro 4 and Euro 5 diesels are more efficient and less polluting than either petroleum or LPG vehicles

• Because a single 4WD can last 5-7 times as long as small vehicle they are actually less resource hungry than the equivalent number of smaller vehicles.