Disco 3 - Response from 5th gear.

Hi all Thought you might like to see the response I recieved from Fifth Gear after i sent them an e-mail about the review of the Disco 3 by that bearded nugget.

Date: 10th December 2004

"Dear Dave

Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding Fifth Gear.

We were sorry to read that the segment on the Discovery caused you concern.

We feel that Tom Ford was not driving in a way that caused danger to other users of the green lane where we filmed. The speed he was driving at may have seemed exaggerated by the angles and editing techniques. However, we are confident that in reality he was driving no more than 10-15 mph. We are sure that many people enjoy driving in a similar manner on green lanes and are currently within their rights to do so. Also, as far as Five is aware, he was not doing anything illegal by driving down a green lane in wet weather conditions.

We have logged your comments in the Viewer Enquiries Report, which is circulated throughout the company. Also, your complaint will be noted in the quarterly report to our regulator. Commercial television is regulated in the UK by Ofcom (the Office of Communications). "

Thank you for your interest in Five.

Yours sincerely

VIEWER ADVISOR

Now then! I know i'm not a video editor or producer by trade, but i'm pretty bloody sure that no amount of "angles or editing techniques" can get the front wheels of a discovery off the floor!

Anyone want to make any comments before I send a vociforous email back to them?

Dave

Reply to
Dave Reynolds
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well, hmm I didn't see it myself but I do know it's easier to get wheels off the ground the faster you are going. I also know that the only time I've had wheels off the floor at "10-15mph" was extreme axle articulation.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

in article snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Dave Reynolds at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 14/12/04 16:03:

Funny that is exactly the same as the responce I receved!!

Reply to
Rory Manton

I think that's the reply everybody got who voiced their displeasure with the feature. I know I did.

Bob.

Reply to
Bob

You were lucky, they never replied to the two e-mails I sent.

Steve. Suffolk. remove 'knujon' to e-mail

Reply to
AN6530

Can someone tell me about the feature? Was it a television segment? Magazine article? Something that can be found online? What occured to make people angry?

Reply to
jattea

Actually I just did some googling and found an angry letter that described the situation a little. Can someone explain what "green-laning" is to an American? What did they do on the television show that was so irresponsible? Is there a link to the episode somewhere?

Reply to
jattea

In message , Dave Reynolds writes

  1. 15 mph is far too fast for a green lane.
  2. recommend they arrange a personal showing to Janet Street Porter and some of her rambler friends with our complements (Am I thinking of the right woman - head of Ramblers Association.)
Reply to
hugh

Take a look at

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There's a link in the top left corner which lets you download the offending article as a Windows Media Player file - it's about 18Mb.

Regards

Steve G

£ Î Z @ R Ð wrote:
Reply to
SteveG

Pretty well all public roads in the UK have some sort of metalled surface, tarmacadam or concrete or whatever. At least, that's what people think. There are actually many miles of often ancient highways, also public roads, which are rough-surface tracks. These are known as green lanes.

Some of the people who don't believe they exist do _know_ that these routes are public footpaths, and get stroppy about anything which interferes with their God-given right to ramble. Hence green-lanes lead to politics.

So driving fast on a green lane, or in a way which damages the surface, is frowned upon. Never mind the damage the rambler packs can do, and have done.

In any case, it is a criminal offence to block, or damage, a public highway. And what te TV programme showed could be seen as an irresponsible encouragement to such behaviour.

Unfortunately, the situation is complicated by the private rights which exist. A public footpath running along a farm track is still open to the farmer's vehicles, and those ruts which enrage the ramblers might be from the farmer's Land Rover, not those horrible green laners.

Reply to
David G. Bell

A 'green lane' is an unsurfaced road that is, historically a public highway (meaning vehicular road). the law currently allows these to be driven unless specifically told otherwise by local councils.

'green laning' is the driving of such routes in single vehicles (as I do being disabled and needing to get to remote locations as part of my work) and often in groups, usually recreationally. these routes being unsurfaced in 99% of cases are rough tracks and off-road vehicles are built for it, so we enjoy driving on such terrain.

However there is a strong movement to have access to many of these routes prevented and the responsible, safe and non-damageing use of these routes is our main defence. this tv program we reviewing the discovery 3 (LR3 in america) and it's off-road abilities by driving along such a route in a manner that many feel was not responsible, safe and non-damaging (to the terrain) and thus a very public display (on national tv) of the very thing those who would have the vehicular use of such routes banned, are using as their argument in many cases.

I hope I've got that right, I didn't see the program myself and I'm not involved in any of the groups campaigning to allow the continued use of green lanes so I'm perhaps not as accurate on the facts as I could be.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

Tag line "I'd heartily recommend you to go and buy one point it at a green lane and find out what it can really do"

I totally understand where you guys are coming from.

Reply to
BigBird

Given that Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear took it up to the top of a mountain without all the splashing and mud that the antis hate so much, and still got a wedge of complaints from people about the environment being ruined, then I suspect they'll already be getting a whole ton of complaints from the bobble-hats.

While it wasn't a piece that could really be praised, I wonder how many antis would prefer the road to be layered in tarmac, far less environmentally friendly but much less mucky, which is what I think they're really objecting to. Given how little damage 4x4 use causes compared to other activities that are taken for granted I can't see that their ranting is really all about environmental damage.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

or made by his tractor of sundry trucks. Not to mention the problems that horses cause.

These eejit ramblers would have us back in the dark days of horse and cart, and the ruts and mud were there back then for sure before the invention of the internal combustion engine or even the steam engine.

Reply to
Larry

wow, I just watched the segment.. That's awful. So essentially they're tearing apart an ancient lane? Aren't there other places to go off-roading in great britain? Where I live (western New York State), ya just drive to the edge of town and pick any large expanse of land, without worry of ruining some ancient fixture.

I love when he mentions the truck was "designed for HUGE americans." also, when he says it gets "cripplingly bad fuel consumption" and points to the dashboard computer showing 21.1 mpg.. Ha! i only wish my LR3 got that (currently it's reporting 9.5mpg, but I expect that to get better after a while....

Reply to
jattea

In message , Larry writes

Most of these eejits are townies and have no experience of the way in which farm tracks are almost perpetually knee deep in mud for most of the winter, churned up by farm animals and tractors.

Reply to
hugh

since it's in the UK, i assumed he was driving the turbo diesel and 21 mpg doesn't seem out of line for that.

Reply to
pete

Blimey, there's precious little that can do as much damage as a tractor, I don't think even a fat disco 3 driven by a not very good TV presenter could even hope to match those monsters! I've seen them cutting 2 feet into wet ground with a single pass, those tyres are designed to cut. They're the real monster on byways as far as I'm concerned. I've lost count of the lanes I've driven that have been heavily pitted and rutted but suddenly the ruts veer off into a field and the lane continues on in excellent condition.

So the very idea of him doing more damage than a tractor is absurd. I don't agree with the article, but that kind of talk isn't helping.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Interesting. In Germany those green lanes can not be found such often, but there are still some of them, you just have to find them. Funny, sometimes at the other end there is a sign, making use of the road illegal, but useless when you know the right end :-)

Also nice, usually no one asks, even in case you use such a road when there _is_ a sign. There are almost always exceptions allowed (for forrestry, agricultural use), and of course I just drive there when I have to do work in such places (antenna sites), but really no one ever asked me what the hell I am doing there :)

regards - Ralph

Reply to
Ralph A. Schmid, DK5RAS

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