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The Forum > Article Comments > No 4 wheel drive in my Brunswick or Glebe back yard > Comments

No 4 wheel drive in my Brunswick or Glebe back yard : Comments

By Roger Kalla, published 10/12/2012

In the big cities downunder your young professional inner-city living person is increasingly turning away from the idea of owning their own personal four wheel freedom machine.

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This article raises 2 questions.

1. Why do inner-city dwellers have 4 wheel drive Vechicles in the first place ?

2. Motorists supposedly ( more than) pay for Road infrastructure through Rego and the Tax on fuel.

Who Pays for Bike Pathways Infrastructure..? Not just Cyclists but all Taxpayers ?

Why ?
Posted by Aspley, Monday, 10 December 2012 10:33:28 AM
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Bit of a shame this.

I just think the reason young people aren't interested in cars is because cars simply aren't interesting any more. they no longer have any styling individuality, or produce the same sorts of visceral sensations they did in the days of carburettors, manual transmissions and mechanical ignition.

Sure, cars are now much safer, more fuel efficient and less polluting. But in a sense they have lost the very qualities which made them popular in the first place - like the sense of excitement and romance associated with piloting a machine that felt like an extension of your body, rather than simply an appliance that feels like an extension of your mortgage, as they have now become. In the quest for convenience, all the appeal has been engineered out of them.

That's why my rule of thumb for cars is that I aim never to buy a car that's younger than I am (ie made before 1978). That seems like the time when the rot really set in.

Hmmm, perhaps it was my fault?!
Posted by Sam Jandwich, Monday, 10 December 2012 10:45:58 AM
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This article is relevant to a world that is facing global warming.

It is an article that will be hated by Governments, vehicle manufacturers and petrol companies.

That humans are capable of rejecting saturation advertising that promotes driving a $50,000 plus 4WD through the pristine bush is encouraging. Yeeehah!

The death of the urban cowboy is to be welcomed!
Posted by David G, Monday, 10 December 2012 11:06:14 AM
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I can understand why people pick on drivers of 4 x 4s - I saw one of them a few months ago, actually on a dirt road, just off the Princes Highway. Might have been lost.

Since they are designed for off-road work, perhaps it might help if they are banned from urban areas altogether ? Those young mothers double-parking outside of school-gates could simply walk to the school to pick up their little precious ones instead ?

Yes, you're right, there's a bit of envy there :)
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 10 December 2012 11:07:35 AM
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Isn't it interesting how some can see what they want to see in any situation. We usually call it spin. The fact that the exchange rate is now very different has nothing to do with previously over priced European hatches getting a foot hold in our market.

I can see it now. 10 years time we have all these yuppie mothers, with double bike trailers on the back, peddling off to child care with the youngest, before continuing on to school with the other. That she arrives at work full of exhaust smells, with that camouflage paint, [sorry makeup] dripping of her sweaty brow will be forgiven because it's all in the cause of green.

Being Melbourne, it will be raining at knock off time, when she picks up the little one, & heads off for the bigger one. This trip does require a side trip, [just 10Km] to socker practice. Does she wait, wet & cold, or take little one home, & come back for the budding socceroo. After all, it's only 10Km each way.

It's a pretty picture Roger, but it doesn't hold water. I suppose the top yuppies could cycle around, giving the 4WD to the nannie, to keep the little ones safe of course, but for the others it's just a stage, just like socker is for their kid. They will grow out of it, given time & maturity.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 10 December 2012 11:52:56 AM
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Loudmouth, don't be envious, many are not driving them for fun, or to impress the neighbours.

My eldest daughter is driving a largish 4WD diesel duel cab ute, with canopy, because they need it to tow with. She would much rather have her Astra back.

It is his fathers fault, & that of some idiot bureaucrat. They could use the son in law's Commodore to tow their little sky boat quite happily, & fit the camping gear for those weekends at the dams, just. But then his father bought a trailer sailor, which he loans them.

Some years back, some fool bureaucrat got limits on what you could to, with what passed into law. The Commodore can not legally tow said boat, but he needs it. I could no longer tow my Brabham trailer behind a little Hillman Minx, which I did for years & thousands of miles, some bureaucrat, who quite probably rides a bicycle, said I was not allowed.

So mate, don't necessarily knock those little ladies in those big 4WDs, many of them hate the great lumbering things. Put the blame in the right place, the bureaucrats.

Why is it that these fool bureaucrats can spend years not doing that which needs doing, but all too often, stick their noses in where not wanted, & introduce damn fool rules & regulations, in areas where they know absolutely nothing.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 10 December 2012 12:24:54 PM
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