EU Bullbar legislation

If it was not bad enough that "Red Ken" was not banning all pre Td5 diesel Defenders from London.(2010)

New (May 2007) EU laws state that ALL bullbar manufacturers can only sell their existing stock and that any new stock must be tested for "pedestrian friendliness"

But it is not just bullbars.... It covers A frames.....Lamp guards.... Winch Bumpers...Spotlamps. In fact anything that changes the front of the vehicle from standard.

I cannot see many of decent manufacturers of winch bumpers having the cash to have them tested to the standard required.

If they are already fitted then it is not a problem, and if you can find one to buy then you can fit it, providing your vehicle is pre 2006 (I think).

I wondered why I was getting so much work referred from the local main agents for fitting spot lights etc :-)

Reply to
Marc Draper
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And about time too!, it's been ludicrous that people could bolt any old lump of rusty steel onto the front of a car just because it was a

4x4, when at the same time the MOT inspectors are looking for any sharp bits on the bodywork of ordinary cars. The distinction makes no sense at all now that fashion 4x4s are so common place.

Well obviously, otherwise smart alecs would make 'lamp guards' that happened to look remarkably similar to bull bars 8-).

Why not?, there's plenty of money in it and almost every other product these days has to go through some form of mandatory testing especially if it's for a vehicle.

All it will mean is that they have to modify their products to protect pedestrians, probably by adding padding, but of course if we are talking the pointless agressive bull bars so many fit they will just end up as bits of forgiving plastic.

Look on the bright side, you'll soon be able to up your prices because the parts have to be approved, just like tow bar fitters did when that regulation came in 8-).

There is a real plus to this if people care to look beyond their own noses, it will take away one of the obvious arguments used by the anti

4x4 brigade!.

Greg

Reply to
Greg

I'm being told by a local maker that winch bumpers aren't covered by the new law..

Lets face it, how could you attach a large winch to abit of foam.

Weather its because its a supporting item or something I'm not sure.

Tim

Reply to
Tim Guy

Big deal, If millions of pounds weren't thrown away in EU membershit, our own government tossers could afford to run the country to benefit us and not the scum of the world!

Reply to
Peter

Personally I wouldn't trust them with the task ;-)

IMHO when it comes to stuff like pro or anti EU, both sides are as daft as each other, we've benefitted from the EU as well as it being a PITA so taking sides seems rather pointless. The more you learn about such things, the less clear-cut it all becomes.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Would you care to expand on that please.

You know.

Who exactly are 'the scum of the world' and all that.

Reply to
William Black

Well, we already get 3 billion back from them every year, for no actual reason other than to keep us sweet. Germany pays twice as much as we do, when you take into account what is paid and what is claimed back.

Personally I don't support the EU, but I'm not anti it either, it's not because I'm lazy, it's because it does so much that you can't claim that it's good or bad without grossly over-simplifying. Sitting there talking about it being a great thing or a crap thing isn't worth the breath. The whole pro/anti argument s**te is just another example of people simplifying life so they think they can grasp it, but in doing so, just end up wrestling with fantasies. You can see it in just about any argument involving something vaguely complicated. Life's not black and white, and neither is the EU, the Labour party, Tony Blair, David Cameron etc etc etc

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Well yes, and its GDP is a lot higher isn't it ? And its population too.

Steve

Reply to
Steve Taylor

But you could easily surround most of the winch and bumper with a good layer of plastic, just as the plastic bumper on a car surrounds much less forgiving bits underneath. Greg

Reply to
Greg

I imagine they'll find a way.

Large four wheel drive vehicles with a winch are a standard emergency vehicle in much of Europe,

Italian Civil Defence agencies, and there are thousands of them, every small community has its own, run thousands of Land Rovers fitted with winches...

Reply to
William Black

I'm sure it'll be readily sorted by the makers, after all the makers of lots of products have had to begrudgingly apply euro safety legislation over the last few years and it hasn't stopped much.

But I can see a few arguments with MOT inspectors and the police in the near future as people continue to drag bits of steel away from shows in the belief that they can still make their fashion accessory look like a prop from a Mad Max film 8-). Greg

Reply to
Greg

My personal opinion is that anyone who adds a bullbar to the length of U section steel girder that is the front bumper on a Land Rover has issues unconnected with their vehicle's appearance except as a projection of their own inadequacy...

I know sheep farmers who drive high on the unfenced moors and ford deep streams as a matter of routine who wouldn't dream of doing anything except possibly fitting a tow bar and rear lamp guards to their Defender, and consider my towing eyes at the front to be an unwarranted extravagance.

I'm considering a raised air intake and breathers because of the recent floods in the area, but I'll be consulting my aforementioned sheep farming friends first for their opinion.

Reply to
William Black

I'm not keen on them myself (for a start they put greater levering force on chassis mounting points than a straight bumper) but on something like the Defender it's not done anything to pedestrian safety, the government looked into banning them but found that they made no clear difference overall, on some vehicles actually making it more pedestrian friendly!

For those who take their trucks to pay 'n' play sites regularly I can see why they might want to fit them, not much use for green laning though. What are sometimes called "roo bars" are quite funny, the original "roo bars" from oz being monstrous things that have triangulation struts that come back to the chassis, like a very strong roll-cage, intended to catch leaping kangaroos that cross the road while you're doing 80MPH. Thin spindly things labelled as "roo bars" on city 4x4s are quite the daftest thing ever.

As for "inadequacy", it's a cheap taunt, like saying people who drive porsches have small penises.

Farmers are normally too busy to abuse their trucks to the extent that many 4x4 users do, while a farmer will use their truck off-road much more frequently, they're not going to be doing the kind of daft thing we get up to on purpose-made tracks, so don't assume just because farmers don't need something that it's pointless. Many drive around in toyota hiluxes for example, they're not as good off-road as a decent defender.

How many of them do you think would drive a 4x4 through a four foot deep flood when they've got much more suitable gear to hand? How many farmers have you seen with snorkels on their defenders? They way I tell which defenders to wave to or not is to spot the snorkels, as I've only ever seen them on enthusiast's trucks.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

You mean they don't...

:-)

Very few around here.

The ruts are a bit deep.

One guy I knew bought one (I think it was a Toyota) and discovered that at least one of the brake hoses was routed under and not over the chassis and promptly ripped it off one winter's day...

The sheep farmers I know tend not to have a tractor, unless they also rebuild elderly tractors for fun...

The Land Rover is generally their main agricultural transport, with something like a Subaru Forrester (or a huge old Volvo) as a road car.

My car is exactly that, my car. I bought it because I sometimes spend time 'off road' in places where I need to lug reasonably large amounts of heavy stuff about and I got sick of getting bogged down and asking people for a push/tow on a dark wet evening.

And before you ask, it happened twice, and that was twice too often, now I'm the one who tows other people out...

Reply to
William Black

I have no idea about the size of porsche driver's penises, although I suspect their balls are hang out behind them in completely the wrong place!

The ones in Berkshire I used to see had fat tyres for the fields, not much more needed than that for most of the farmers around there it seems. After all a hilux is better at lugging loads than a defender, being designed more with that in mind.

Yeah but the point I was attempting to make (I think, hangover today), was that when it comes to off-roading, farmers aren't always the ones to ask because half the answers would be "I'd get me tractor" ;-) Landy nuts tend to do things with their trucks that anyone who needed the things just wouldn't do. Sometimes the bull-bars, roll-cages etc aren't there for show, they're there to allow us to do even sillier things for no particular reason other than to have fun, which IMHO is the best reason in the world for doing something.

For me and many others, the landy/pinz is just a toy, so we can afford to be a bit more silly with the thing because we don't need it to be working the next day. You'd be daft to drive your truck into a four-foot deep flood simply for fun, or to try and drive it up a steep, deeply-rutted tree-studded slope zig-zagging in and out of the trees, just to see if you can. If you did do such things, a bull bar etc might be useful, I've got a knackered wing from lightly knocking a tree that a full-frontal bull bar might have prevented if I had one. As it is, replacing the wing is probably easier and cheaper than fitting a bull-bar ;-)

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

A posh sheep farmer that can afford to rebuild elderly tractors for fun. How do these farmers move the bales of hay/haylidge out to his sheep each day in the winter without a tractor? They are far to big and heavy for the back of a Land Rover pickup...

Round here the elderly tractors are having their annual excercise mowing, turning and hauling the bales back to the farm. They run but thats about all. Actual baling is mostly done by contractors.

Naw the LR is thier road transport, agricultral the tractor or quad bike.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Nothing wrong with that, plenty of people build/adapt vehicles for daft sports and good luck to them, dozens of autograss racers congregated on us last weekend for an event at a local grass track. But do you know what, none of them drove their adapted vehicles to the event, they were all trailered as they aren't suitable for the road.

A Landy with home made body work and a meat grinder on the front is in the same category, by all means build one for off road events but don't expect to be able to drive them on the roads, that's all the new laws are saying.

Greg

Reply to
Greg

North Yorkshire doesn't have many posh sheep farmers.

There are some very big estates that have sheep, but, as a general rule, they make their money from shooting...

The sheep are a form of self-propelled guided lawn-mower...

Trailer.

Reply to
William Black

Around here the prefered farmer's 4x4 seems to be a Landy hard top 90 with a County pack

True, but there's always the people just down the road from me...

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Reply to
William Black

I like that 8-)

Greg

Reply to
Greg

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