Found this story today regarding a 12 year old girl who was hit by a Shogun.
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Fortunately the girl survived and is recovering well, but I wonder if the anti 4x4 lobby will pick up on this, especially being outside a school in the middle of London. Not helped by the fact that 2 of the occupants decided to run off!
Glad to see the BBC haven't played on the anti 4x4 rubbish, looks as if they have listened to John Pearson's (editor of LRO) recent comments about the bias they show towards anti-4x4-ness...
Could it be that the girl's injuries weren't worse because she was hit by a big, blunt 4x4 and not a sharp-fronted family hatchback? It punted her through the air, it seems - which, although it can't be much fun, is a whole lot better than being sliced off at the knee or run over.
Probably not, given that cars tend to hit the legs, where the vital organs aren't located, whereas with a 4x4 the impact area is much more likely to hit the abdomen where all the messy squidgy stuff is.
Being hit by a 4x4 is almost always going to be worse than being hit by a car at the same speed just because of that, I know that people batter on about "common sense" in this group a lot and I tend to sneer at the idea, but sometimes a dose of it can be useful.
But having your legs taken out from underneath you is going to cause the head to hit the car instead, and while that bit isn't squidgy (beforehand), banging it with a large blunt instrument is generally regarded as a Bad Thing.
I expect you'll be able to tell us all how a heavy 4x4 can stop much faster than a more conventional car too.
I appreciate that 4x4s are more dangerous to pedestrians than most normal cars, I just don't care. Why bother trying to fool yourself with pseudo-science arbitrarily labelled as "common sense"?
Some years ago I was trying to pull out of an entrance to a Garden Centre when a young lady ran past me and we watched in horror as she continued straight across the main road, she was hit by a normal car and flew through the air just as this girl did. (she was from Greece and looked the wrong way!) I've also had someone run across the road from behind a stationary vehicle into the side of my car and they too somersaulted back across the road I was told. What does it matter it was a 4x4, the body will fly and somersault no matter what hits it.
Indeed, I was tempted to rattle off a letter to the beeb about it, given that they know full well that there's an anti-4x4 lobby out there and that any shot of a 4x4 causing damage that cars also cause is just throwing fuel on the fire.
It's highly probable that some can, since off-road oriented tyres are usually a softer compound than car tyres, and therefore have a higher friction coeficient - and, of course, the braking system is designed (on proper 4x4's) with towing in mind. The braking ability is designed in, not an accidental outcome.
A partly loaded 44 ton truck (i.e. loaded enough to stop the trailer wheels locking up) will out-stop most cars. Easily.
I'm fooling no one, it's the driver and the pedestrian that makes a vehicle dangerous or not, whether it be a Micra or a 44 tonner. The drive train configuration has nothing to do with it (well, actually if probably does, but in the 4x4's favour).
Or a bus, lorry or Transit-type van, of which I would hazard a guess there are as many if not considerably more than 4x4's. Strange how none of the bus/lorry/transit van types attract as much - if any - attention compared to that focused on 4x4's. One would almost think that there's an agenda out there somewhere....
They don't have stipes, they have solid blocks instead, which grip the road less as the blocks have much less give in them. This of course refers to mud tyres, not road tyres like ATs. Most ATs will put less rubber down than a proper road tyre of course, which will lessen grip.
The same is true of cars, which on average are lighter, more dynamically stable and have a lower centre of gravity so I doubt that the average car would be out-stopped by the average 4x4.
Naah. HGV braking systems are s**te compared to cars, the government even paid shedloads of loot some time ago to investigate why this is, URL below (it's a summary);
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Accidents involving lorries smacking into the back of queues are pretty common too because of the long stopping distances of lorries, coupled with lorry drivers not paying attention.
Given however that you've stated that lorries can stop faster than cars, can you provide any figures? I tried to find some but can't find anything which was surprising as I thought driver training information would have something, although it's going to change so much from one vehicle to the next.
However a dynamically unstable vehicle like a lorry isn't going to like stopping, the rear tyres for a start are going to lose most of their grip due to the high centre of gravity shifting the weight so far forwards. Then there's the load moving, and the SHITE tyres lorries use!
That's not what I was talking about, it was the bit about being hit by a car being worse than being hit by a 4x4. On average that's not the case, although you could of course compare a volvo V90 or whatever versus an old Jag XJS. Like for like though it's better to be hit as low as possible.
Ah yes, having four-wheel drive gives the tyres more grip eh! Hmm....
I doubt this one would have made the press but for the CCTV image and the blood-thirsty press.
I'm pleased she came off with relatively minor injuries, and sickened yet again that the press feel the need to glorify the story with such imagery.
I constantly have dealing with the press and unless I'm working nights generally get four or five calls a day, the levels that some of them will stoop to to get what they deem to be a "scoop" is sad to say the least. There are some that will do a cracking job with an article and others who have mis-quoted me to the point that they are now on my list of peeps who get jack.
I'm all for news, just not political biased crap which pretty much rules out most Newspapers apart from the TV listings and Classified's which is probably the only reason I let our local rag cast a shadow on my door mat..... Oh then again I'd be stuffed for masking off too.
Steve, are you suggesting that the media in this country is packed with lying tosspots sensationalising everything as much as they can so that they can sell more copies which they need to do in order to try to sell more advertising because the cover price that the punter pays doesn't cover the cost of the paper and even then most papers make a loss which is why they're owned by media tycoons who use them to pedal opinion and infuence by distorting and selecting stories to further their own aims and not to inform the people who read the things but instead to try to push those people to whinge about this or that depending on what business interest or political interest is uppermost in the owner's and therefore editor's and therefore journalists mind and so they pack the paper with woe stories to keep people thinking that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and that the paper is on their side and will help them and tell them the only real truth while the rest of the world is being fooled like some kind of bonkers religion?
Interesting one on anti-4x4 that you may not have got over there. Here (Australia) there has been a lot of bad press about suburban 4x4s backing over small children in the driveway (usually the driver's kids). And "everyone knows that 4x4s have worse rear vision than ordinary cars". This has now pretty much gone quiet after a local motoring organisation carried out some scientific testing - and showed that (as you would expect) rear visibility has nothing to do with how many wheels are driving; in fact, while there is no real correlation, with good and bad in all types, nearly all four wheel drives are better than the top selling family cars, Commodore and Falcon (a tribute to current styling fashions!) and the top car with perfect rear visibility is a four wheel drive (Lexus I seem to remember) thanks to a reversing camera. Now there is a proposal in my state (NSW) to make these compulsory on all new vehicles. JD
There is a big tyre test in one of the old landy mags currently in my excremeditation chamber.
I'm pretty sure it shows that the best offroad tyres had the longest stopping distance. I think there was quite a bit in it and the knobbliest one was close to double the distance of the most 'road' one.
Heh. Trying to stop my Defender with a stuck piston on one front caliper, in the wet, with an unladen rear, on cheap mud pattern tyres, when a deer jumped out in the road... It's amazing what you can learn when you need to ;-)
I certainly learned though, the next animal that jumped out on me got flattened :-P
As for ABS versus non-ABS, I keep hearing conflicting reports of whether ABS stops you faster or not, but one concrete advantage certainly seems to be that you can generally keep control of the car much more easily, barring weight transfer unsettling the rear of course.
On or around Thu, 19 Oct 2006 23:15:24 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
depends on the conditions - on loose gravel and dry snow, a locked wheel gives maximum braking, for example.
Weight transfer seems to work better with ABS, presumably because the front wheels don't lock too early and then not provide any more retardation.
Having said that, when the sierra had working ABS, I think I only invoked it twice without trying - it did stop PDQ on those occasions, mind. It also failed to stop noticeably on more-or-less ice (shiny packed snow) when I went out testing it, but then it'd have done that without the ABS as well.
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