Study: SUV Drivers Cause 55% Worse Injuries To Bicyclists They Hit

[baabaa]

https://www.vias.be/fr/newsroom/des-voi ... vitesses-/

Des voitures plus lourdes, plus hautes et plus puissantes pour une sécurité routière à deux vitesses ?
(Heavier, taller and more powerful cars for two-speed road safety?)

Likewise, the risk of fatal injuries for a pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car whose hood is 10 cm higher than average increases by 30%. These are the conclusions of a new study by the Vias institute which examined all the accidents that occurred between 2017 and 2021.

[warthog1]

Had a bit of an interesting 'SUV' situation on Monday.

Was on the gravel bike, it was raining pretty heavily and I was to the far left of Moss Street in Slacks Creek which is an industrial type area with massive wide roads which was completely empty because it was New Year's Day.

Genius in a lifted GU Patrol comes flying around the corner coming the other way. I assume he'd done that thing where they disconnect the swaybars for optimum off road perormance because the thing pretty much picked up the inside tyre with body roll, then speared off to the right and did a pretty solid job of trying to hit me despite the fact I was on the far opposite side of the road going the other direction.

Would like to see some actual roadworthy infringements on these morons. The thing had at least three defects on it I could see within seconds including the tyres being a mile outside the guards. And the fact he almost crashed on wide and completely empty road was a clue that all was not ok with it.

Quite possiblly the sway bars are disconnected.
You can get sway bar disconnects which allow you to disconnect them for better axle articulation off road.
Unfortunately GUs are now older and have appeal to the bogan crowd for their comparative affordability and strength.
I am on the patrol forum and it is an older cohort. Disconnecting sway bars for road use would not be encouraged.
Never considered it on mine. No way do I want more body roll on road making it unsafe and less controlable.
Crash into somebody with it and if there is a serious injury or fatality you can guarantee that would be detected. You increase the chance of it happening doing something so stupid and illlegal.
With the tight standard rear LSD and the difflock I have in the front it is completely unnecessary for the offroading I do.

[Mr Purple]

Agreed. Nothing wrong with a GU Patrol except the ZD30 overboosting issue, it's just the demographics of some of their owners now - given they're cheap and reasonably capable.

I do find discussion with some 4WD enthusiasts interesting. They seem to have this mindset that any travel on dirt roads for some reason requires a heavily modified 60 or 70 series diesel Landcruiser even though most of them are pushing 500,000km+ and are 30+ years old and generally completely unreliable now.

When I pointed out to one I'd done the Strezlecki trail in an unmodified 460,000km Valiant in poor condition without a problem he completely lost it and suggested that wouldn't at all be possible on the Gibb River Road. Which the same rally did the very next year with very few problems.

Pretty sure many of them are completely overbuilding their cars for the minimum offroad work they do. Mind you we did pretty much the same thing in making our terrible economy biased road cars into faux track cars so I sort of understand it!

[warthog1]

Agreed. Nothing wrong with a GU Patrol except the ZD30 overboosting issue, it's just the demographics of some of their owners now - given they're cheap and reasonably capable.

I do find discussion with some 4WD enthusiasts interesting. They seem to have this mindset that any travel on dirt roads for some reason requires a heavily modified 60 or 70 series diesel Landcruiser even though most of them are pushing 500,000km+ and are 30+ years old and generally completely unreliable now.

When I pointed out to one I'd done the Strezlecki trail in an unmodified 460,000km Valiant in poor condition without a problem he completely lost it and suggested that wouldn't at all be possible on the Gibb River Road. Which the same rally did the very next year with very few problems.

Pretty sure many of them are completely overbuilding their cars for the minimum offroad work they do. Mind you we did pretty much the same thing in making our terrible economy biased road cars into faux track cars so I sort of understand it!

Yeah the ZD30 has had multiple issues, better in the later CRD version but not without them. The '00 to '03 are colloquially known as the grenade
Mine is the reliable but simple and primitive td42.
Plenty of them on the trol forum get out and about a lot but yes there is a cohort of owners that think a 4wd is necessary for any dirt.
I have had a valiant they can do a bit of dirt but the front end will eventually fall out.
My old trol has done plenty the old val wouldn't though. Fraser island and the Simpson are a couple. Loaded to the hilt with a family of 4 and not a prob.
It isn't much chop as a day to day family car. Slow, heavy and thirsty.

[g-boaf]

I do find discussion with some 4WD enthusiasts interesting. They seem to have this mindset that any travel on dirt roads for some reason requires a heavily modified 60 or 70 series diesel Landcruiser even though most of them are pushing 500,000km+ and are 30+ years old and generally completely unreliable now.

I wonder if it's an image thing or that it's their final stand against the types that are trying to steal the great Australian weekend (or so they've been told by certain loud-mouth politicians).

Remember when Michael Stahl took that 996 911 Carrera 4 through the Simpson Desert. The car had only the minimum modifications proposed by Herr Kussmaul back in Stuttgart, just raised ride height and some shielding under the car, but otherwise standard (even on standard 17" wheels and tyres). It did the whole journey without issue and had the traditional off-roader folk completely shocked that it did that. The car was a press-fleet demonstrator and someone thought it might be fun to try that out with it.

[g-boaf]

I suspect this might be the latest necessary transport for navigating our rugged urban environments:



Just 50 of them, bit expensive but nothing some tax loopholes couldn't sort out right? It's road registered (at least in Michigan)...

[redsonic]

Should Government Step in to Help Australians Kick Their Big Car Habit?

All of Australia's top selling cars in 2023 were SUVs or light commercial vehicles
Bigger cars have consequences for road damage, safety and emissions
Advocates say government has a role to play in encouraging Australians into smaller cars

ABC News

[Thoglette]

And they damage the roads..,
More tut-tutting from Aunty
Should government step in to help Australians quit their big car habit?

The article does outline a number of tax rules that have the perverse effect of encouraging the purchase of oversized vehicles.

Institute director Richard Denniss said Australians didn't just wake up and decide they wanted bigger cars, rather "our tax system makes it attractive to do so".

[Mr Purple]

I made the mistake of reading some Facebook comments on a similar article yesterday.

I would summarise them as 'wah, wah, I can do what I want and you can't stop me!'

Some of the logic was astounding. One lady in particular said she needed an SUV because her child was at risk of the other SUVs because their head was as bumper height. Um. Not sure how that helps. It's like gun ownership - owning one is far more likely to kill someone in your own household, but you need one to be 'safe' anyway.

Get rid of the tax breaks and make all registration based on vehicle weight rather than other factors. It's a simple solution but one that no government would be brave enough to actually implement.

[am50em]

Vehicle weight AND kilometres driven.

[Mr Purple]

Vehicle weight AND kilometres driven.

Fuel excise is sort of a de facto contributor to that, but yes.

It does really annoy me that my 650kg odd Leyland Mini Panelvan that does 1000km a year pays more annual registration than 2.5T 4 cylinder SUVs that do 15,000km a year. In Queensland vehicle registration is based on cylinder count only, and there's a small surcharge because it's technically a commercial vehicle.

[warthog1]

I have one because I use it for the ability it possesses.
Remote travel, towing a trailer and collecting firewood. I drove it through wet roads to get to work in Rochester.
I also have a Suzuki Swift as it is just so much better on road and cheaper to run.
I bought the 4wd when I lived in Alice and have never lived in the city with it.
It would be unfair to pay more than I do already because of muppets using them in the city because they feel safer.
EV ownership should make them.a whole lot less attractive I expect.
Looking at the sheer number that are purchased inappropriately, unless that changes, I probably will pay even more to get the hell away from people at some point.

[am50em]

If you don't drive the heavier vehicle as much it could be same cost or less. It would depend on the pricing regime adopted.

[g-boaf]

Get rid of the tax breaks and make all registration based on vehicle weight rather than other factors. It's a simple solution but one that no government would be brave enough to actually implement.

Any government trying that wouldn't be a government because the opposition would campaign to do the opposite, ie, they'd support heavier SUVs and tax-breaks for those vehicles and denounce anything else with the dreaded "w" word and screech about destroying the weekends of hard working, honest Australians (because everyone who doesn't have an SUV must not be honest or hard working, right?)

[Mr Purple]

Any government trying that wouldn't be a government because the opposition would campaign to do the opposite, ie, they'd support heavier SUVs and tax-breaks for those vehicles and denounce anything else with the dreaded "w" word and screech about destroying the weekends of hard working, honest Australians (because everyone who doesn't have an SUV must not be honest or hard working, right?)

Sadly this is the case.

Because the only victims in all of this are our roads, the environment, cyclists, pedestrians, other motorists and small children. And these are vastly outweighed in the voting pool by the 60-70% of motorists that feel they need to buy an SUV as their only means of transport regardless of where they live. Small children don't even vote!

Potentially the increasing cost of fuel may limit it, but I suspect it may just drive people towards EV SUVs which are faster and heavier. Our only hope is that someone will actually do some research and work out just how much more heavier vehicles damage our infrastructure and tax them accordingly.

But I suspect not. Until then they'll just keep on suggesting my 61kg self and 7.5kg bicycle pay registration for the horrendous amount of damage I do to our road surfaces.

[g-boaf]

Audi Q7 accident involving a toddler in Toongabbie (off Station Rd):

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/war ... 5ewz1.html

The Q7 was reversing. This accident could happen however to any car in reality because they are all large compared to toddllers.

All you can do is have other people watching while you are reversing. It's not perfect - but anything is better than what happened here. the driver must be devastated.