The most important modification you can make to your 4WD is a bullbar. Not only does it allow you to run a winch, lights and gives you a mounting place for your UHF aerial, most importantly it protects your vehicle and the people inside it against animal strikes.
Hidden under the disguise of pedestrian safety, a minority group wants bullbars banned, and what’s worse is that the government agrees with them.
They want European regulations brought into Australia, and if these regulations (GTR9) are brought in, the aftermarket industry will not be able to make bullbars or even nudge bars comply. Bullbars will be banned. Commonsense (lacking in many government decisions lately) tells us that European regulations don’t have any place in Australia and won’t work. Our road conditions are very different. Animal strikes are a very common occurrence in Australia.
Their spin is that this will only affect new vehicles. However, we know this will eventually mean the ban of all bullbars.
4WD touring in Australia will end.
You are probably thinking adopting these regulations is so crazy and absurd that banning bullbars could never happen. Believe me, this is very real and is happening now. This will affect every 4WD owner.
Here’s how you can stop this:
Please visit takeaction.4wdaction.com.au now to submit your protest. It will take under a minute and could potentially save 4WD touring in this country.
The government only listens to one thing – how many votes they stand to lose. With the 4WD community standing together on this, they stand to lose many votes. We need to make a difference, take action and let commonsense prevail.
We NEED your response and we need you to take action today.
Together we can stop this unAustralian nonsense.
Shaun Whale
Hi shaun
The standards are not about banning bullbars as much as you may wish to spin it. They are about increasing the survivability of frontal impact. I would have thought that a pretty "australian" thing to want to do, wouldn't you? Looking after our mates, caring for each other. Even if we dont know who it is we are caring about - the queensland floods kind of showed that.
Lets try and be a little balanced here shall we?
The end of 4wd touring? What rubbish. I have travelled all over oz, in daylight and at night, in vehicles with a bullbar and those without. Was I shaking with fear when it didn't have a bullbar - of course not. Did I modify my driving without the bar - no. I still drove to the conditions, slowed at dawn and dusk and was more careful at night.
"The most important modification you can make to your 4WD is a bullbar. Not only does it allow you to run a winch, lights and gives you a mounting place for your UHF aerial, most importantly it protects your vehicle and the people inside it against animal strikes."Really? Lets look at these individually;
1. Allows you to run a winch. You dont need a bullbar to run a winch. You need a cradle to mount it to the chassis. The cradle does not need to protrude outside of the vehicle and can be covered with a protective deformable case to meet the impact standard.
2. Mount lights. You dont need a bullbar to mount lights. I ran 4 super oscars on my rally car and didnt need a bullbar to do it. What could we do instead? We could upgrade to HID headlights, have the driving lights mounted within the bumper inside the crush zone. We could even lobby to allow the lights above the roofline. All achievable.
3. A mounting place for your uhf aerial. Where could we mount that? On the roof maybe. Off the spare wheel carrier.
4. Protects the vehicle and occupants from animal strike. They certainly do this. But this can be done within the standard. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that to meet the standard the bar would need to be encased in a 'shell' that will meet the standard. A smart manufacturer would throw in a spare shell with the purchase and a smart insurance company would throw in a free shell replacement with the insurance policy.
"Commonsense (lacking in many government decisions lately) tells us that European regulations don’t have any place in Australia and won’t work."Why? They have roads, they have children, old people, drunk people, they have motorways with high speeds, they have remote areas - just like us!. Or do we think of Paris when we think of europe.
We have kangaroos of course so that must make a bullbar particularly "Australian". What large animals do the Europeans have?
They have wild boar, 10 species of deer from small ones to reindeers, Elk (Moose) and bears. Bears caught my eye - at least our roos dont want to eat us after we hit them.
"We need to make a difference, take action and let commonsense prevail."What would commonsense dictate?
Would it be to make outlandish and silly statements that create an uprising of concern and fear amongst one particular group that is not based on reality. Would it be to blame another group ( I will take a stab in the dark and guess you mean the pedestrian council) for the problem.
Or would it be to embrace the concept of minimising harm to ALL Australians, whether they are driving a 4wd or not, and work with the Govt to achieve a good outcome for all. We can have a system that protects the vehicle from animal strikes AND those unfortunate to be struck by a vehicle (whether the fault of the driver or the pedestrian). Sure its not going to be as 'tough' looking as the bars we have today but surely thats not the driving factor is it?
I visited the link to your letter to the minister. I think I will pass thanks. More than happy to have another look once you have taken the garbage out of it.
Regards
Darren
