Can you see much when you’re driving? If the answer is yes, it probably means you recently bought a new car.
Almost everyone who bought a car back in the sedan era is these days trapped at bumper-bar level. Holden’s factory is gone, the Commodore is gone, as is the Holden brand — and Australians don’t care. We are now delighted by enormous American-style SUVs and trucks.
The Toyota Hilux has gone from being a work beast to the new Corolla. It was Australia’s top selling car in November. Again. In second place was the 1.85-metre, 2.2-tonne Ford Ranger, which is another 4×4 ute. Sorry, a “pick-up truck”, according to Ford marketing material.
Third place is the Toyota RAV 4. On release in 1994 it was cute, weighing only 1.2 tonnes. To maintain popularity is underwent relentless expansion, growing taller, longer and wider. It now weighs 1.6 tonnes (despite many design improvements that have made cars lighter).
In fourth place for sales in November is the Toyota LandCruiser, an enormous SUV.
Oh say can you see? If you bought a car before 2010 the answer is probably no. And the solution you will probably take is to join the arms race and buy a bigger car yourself.
At least the RAV4 is available in hybrid, so it’s quite low in pollutants relative to the glorified farm equipment occupying the top two spots.
The Ranger and Hilux are all too often diesel powered. Europe’s trying to get diesels out of their metropolises because their exhausts are so toxic, and here we are encouraging suburbanites to put on tradie drag by retaining commercial vehicle tax treatment for what clearly are luxury cars for people incapable of independent thought. Their owners might think twice about idling them outside their kid’s karate class if they understood the effects of diesel exhaust fumes!
Their owners might think?
Yes, the RAV4 is a pip-squeak compared to the other Ranger and Hilux, and most other urban assault vehicles. Not even in the same ball park. Mid size SUVs are equivalent to old mid Size sedans, and the small SUVs are as big as Corollas. Not really relatable.
lSuburbanUrban Assault vehicles…It’s a war out there..they come with optional baby on board signs, & pedestrian killer bump bars..
Anyone in a Death-Star sized SUV with a BoB sticker is guaranteed to be tail-gating you through school zones, speeding in supermarket car parks and ignoring all other road safety warnings … because you know it’s all about my kids and no one else’s.
and running cyclists off the road as they rush to get their private school darlings to school on time.
Someone throws a lard-arsed Suburban assaUlt Vehicle at me pretty much every day. No one who drives one knows how big it is and invariably
2020 has been a bit different though. If you’re a cyclist, your one hour of exercise during lockdown in Melbourne was pretty sweet.
If SUV drivers were a nation, they’d be #7 in the world on CO2e emissions!
The Productivity Commission released a paper about 15 years ago (well, before the tax concession on the damned things was lifted anyway). Besides fuel consumption, there are so many ways SUVs are bad.
The PC is, you may recall, an organisation not given to left-wing or environmentally sensitvive pronouncements about… well, anything, really.
The size of many of them exceed a standard parking space creating problems for councils, strata and shopping centres. Time to charge them them extra for parking or exclude them from shopping centres and strata?
High time Australia transformed it absurd luxury car tax, focussing instead on size and fuel efficiency and penalising the morons who’re piling into these obscenely oversized vehicles. Not only are these gas-guzzlers insane environmentally but they’re also a safety hazard vis a vis other road users. Tradies used to be adequately serviced with their classic utes, or the traditionally-sized Toyota Hilux. These US derived monstrosities should be penalised into extinction.