No love for 4WDs
March 6, 2008 by Alborz Fallah
A recent survey of 2380 drivers across Australia by Sweeney Research (for AAMI) has found two rather obvious facts. One, the majority of drivers believe 4WDs are dangerous and should not be allowed in the city and two, all 4WDs need a rear camera as standard.
The problem is our ADR (Australian Design Rules) for vehicles. A brief look through would show a growing list of out-dated or inefficient regulations that hardly have any relevance in today’s automotive world.
Two important rules that many motoring organisation have been asking for – mandatory Electronic Stability Program (ESP) for all new cars and a rear camera for all SUV and 4WD vehicles – are still not finalised. .
The research found that 75 per cent of Australians agree that it should be compulsory for four-wheel drive vehicles to be fitted with a rear camera.
But even without the research, the growing number of small children that have either been killed or seriously injured by their own parents reversing over them should be enough to force the Federal Government’s hand.
Then there is the ESP debate, although everyone now agrees that ESP saves lives, the Federal Government is still some years away from making the technology compulsory on all cars (note that ESP has been around since the mid 90s).
At the moment many 4WDs are available with rear cameras, either as standard (Toyota Kluger) or as an option. Of course the bigger question still lingers, if you live in the city, why exactly do you need a 4WD?
The majority of respondents resent the presence of four-wheel drives on the roads, with 60 per cent agreeing that they don’t belong in the city.
Other interesting findings from the research:
- 66 per cent of drivers think four-wheel drives are dangerous for other road users;
- 56 per cent of drivers support four-wheel drives being subjected to higher registration fees;
- 33 per cent of drivers think four-wheel drives are socially unacceptable because of their contribution to the greenhouse effect.
What do you think? Is it time for mandatory rear cameras and ESP?
Print it: 
Hoi…..nice try “NO CIGAR”. There is clearly massive amounts on here on this topic and there are flaws more in your side then mine. You must agree that scientists make mistakes and cant get it clearly correct and even change their minds or reverse a previous finding. My point is some cold has been detected in a changing weather pattern and not climate. Refer to El Nino and La Nina. My travels have revealed flaws and these are soooooooo many!
typo……….travels on research on this topic has revealed flaws…
NM,
these are all seperate theories and there are lots of them for one way or the other.
who are you to say your version is right?
my version simply says that there has not been any warming over the 150yr old records i presented. that can not be manipulated or misinterpereted.
how many scientists have personally stuck a thermometer up the suns bum?
as i said with all these theories that have been presented only 17% believe it is ocurring
exactlly!!!!!!!
El Nino and La Nina are responsible for a hell of a lot of what is happening with todays weather patterns.
the weather we are having today in terms of droughts and floods was acurately predicted over 100 years ago and it was mapped out with reference and study relating to the moons and earths cycles etc.
these patterns were acurately predicted with out any consideration of global warming.
does global warming now cause king tides too and not the moon?
“does global warming now cause king tides too and not the moon?”
LOL
You still cannot answer me with a shred of extreme superiority on why Icecore records show that whenever CO2 has increased in the earth’s past, so has temperature. The recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is 200 times as great as *************ANY*************** previous change seen in the ice cores. So what Iam saying to you clearly is this has been recorded by the safest data (in black and white scientifically proven and “not” theorised by freelance scientists willy nilly). The current level is 380 parts per million, the highest in more than 650,000 years. It shows no signs of decreasing.
I have put up a lot of comments and views…..good to see Jbot with last whatever T** F*** IT means chim in. I felt like he bowled a wrongun when his was actually a mediocre slow full toss. Gee that was returned into the grandstands like Kevin Pietersen displays against the Aussies (NO NAME WOULD AGREE)!
Hey dont hassle me as Iam guilty as sin….I got 3 air conditioners and as good as can get with 8.1Kw cool and 9.0Kw heat is “inverter technology”
And may I add Mark “Tubby” Taylor endorsed as Fujitsu….so Iam doing my bit to test the theories! LOL
“You still cannot answer me with a shred of extreme superiority on why Icecore records show that whenever CO2 has increased in the earth’s past, so has temperature.”
Minding explaining to me how the ice cores tell you what temperature it was??? I would love to know.
LOL….Mr $100,000 first year out of uni BOT?
Do you have any depth other then
NM said
JBOT response
Iam not privvy to ice cores just know who assessed and where I read this. Get some depth and substance!
I said my above comment because I know ice cores don’t give temperature information…
And I’m not sure why you keep bringing up the $100,000 thing. Are you really that jealous?
1. Oh so you know more then scientists! Are you calling the info what I came across a lie or impossible! As looks like you are mate! LOL
2. As for your salary….I dont care! My only point is its just a joke 1st year out of uni as “not believable”
PATHETIC ATTACK AGAINST ME………….so much for info and quote names and year! Are you sure this is as good as it gets from you? LOL SO DAM MUCH!
Ciao
(AP) A 2mile long (3.2 kilometer long) ice core laboriously drilled out of an Antarctic ice sheet shows that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are higher now than at any time in the past 420,000 years.
As the longest ice core record of Earth’s weather history obtained to date, the core also shows that those gases; chiefly carbon dioxide and methane play a big role in warming the planet when ice ages end.
But how this icy record will influence current theories about global warming blamed on human activity isn’t clear, the researchers said.
“The ice core gives us the past, not the future. But it adds to our thinking about the future, about the future of our climate,” said Jean-Robert Petit, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France. “It’s clear that greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented compared with the previous 400,000 years.”
Coldest spot on Earth: The core was extracted from 1992-98 by a U.S.A. Russian and French team at Russia’s Vostok research station, the coldest spot on Earth. Petit and team members endured readings as cold as minus 70 Fahrenheit (minus 57 Celsius), though the station holds the world record low of minus 129 (minus 89 Celsius). They stopped drilling about 120 yards (109 meters) short of a subterranean lake the size of Lake Ontario that’s been trapped for perhaps millions of years beneath the ice sheet. Scientists want to send sterilized robots to explore the pristine lake and are protecting it from contamination until then.
Each cylinder like chunk of ice drilled out of the ice sheet contains a record of snowfall, atmospheric chemicals, temperature conditions, dust and bubbles of air. Those clues, trapped in icy layers like tree rings, enable scientists to reconstruct past climates.
The lengthy Vostok ice core is particularly significant because previous cores taken from Antarctica and Greenland dated back only about 150,000 years and showed just two ice age cycles. The new core reveals four ice ages at roughly 100,000year intervals, shedding new light on how the icy interludes end.
‘Some really large changes’
All four appear to have given way to balmier times after levels of the heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane rose by amounts smaller than the increase blamed on human industry in the past century.
The multinational team reported its findings in the June 3 1999 issue of the journal Nature.
Petit and colleagues found carbon dioxide levels rose from about 180 parts per million during each ice age’s height to 280-300 ppm in the subsequent warm periods ~ far below the current CO2 levels of 360 ppm.
Methane levels, meanwhile, rose from 320-350 parts per billion during the icy interludes to 650-770 ppb during the warm spells. Current methane levels are 1,700 ppb.
The levels of both greenhouse gases are expected to continue their rise in the next century due to continued burning of fossil fuels such as coal and other human activities.
“This study is probably the most convincing evidence to date that humans are making some really large changes to Earth’s climate system,” said Jonathan Overpeck, head of the paleoclimatology program at the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Beyond natural variation: “What this says is we’re going well beyond the bounds of natural variation.” Petit estimates that the rising greenhouse gas concentrations contributed to about 50 percent of the post-ice age warming; he attributes the remaining heat to periodic shifts in Earth’s orbit that increase the amount of sunlight warming the planet. The natural rise in the gases was attributed to a variety of factors, including changes in oceanic processing of C02, increased plankton activity and the return of methane-producing swamps.
But the core also appears to call into question previous research suggesting a 500- to 1,000-year lag time between the post-ice age temperature increase and the CO2 increase.
Instead, the core suggests temperatures rose in step with rising C02 levels, a finding of interest to scientists studying global warming.
“This core is telling us to get busy and understand the climate system because it really could change,” said Richard Alley, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University
ANDREW M……read last Question and Answer as well! Further research revealed as follows:
QUESTION: Does temperature rise cause CO2 rise or the other way around?
ANSWER: A common misconception is that you can only have one or the other. In actuality, the answer is both.
QUESTION?Milankovitch cycles – how increased temperature causes CO2 rise?
ANSWER: Looking over past climate change, scientists have observed a cycle of ice ages separated by brief warm periods called interglacials. This pattern is due to Milankovitch cycles – gradual, regular changes in the earth’s orbit and axis. While there are several different cycles, the dominant climate signal is the 100,000 year eccentricity cycle as the Earth’s orbit changes from a more circular to a more elliptical orbit (Petit 1999, Shackleton 2000). The eccentricity cycle causes changes in insolation (incoming sunlight). When springtime insolation increases in the southern hemisphere, this coincides with rising temperatures in the south, retreating Antarctic sea ice and melting glaciers in the southern hemisphere (Shemesh 2002). As temperature rises, CO2 also rises but lags the warming by 800 to 1000 years (Monnin 2001, Caillon 2003, Stott 2007).
QUESTION:How does warming cause a rise in atmospheric CO2?
ANSWER:As the oceans warm, the solubility of CO2 in water falls (Martin 2005). This causes the oceans to give up more CO2, emitting it into the atmosphere. The exact mechanism of how the deep ocean gives up its CO2 is not fully understood but believed to be related to vertical ocean mixing (Toggweiler 1999).
NM,
the scientific studies are still out on whether or not global warming affect will mean a warming planet or cooling planet.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, many fundamental questions about global warming remain unanswered. Two crucial questions are: 1) Is significant human-induced global warming actually occurring? 2) If it is occurring, will the net effects be beneficial or harmful? In neither case is the answer an unambiguous “yes.”
“First, significant global warming may not be occurring. Certainly, the historical relationship between CO and temperature changes is ambiguous. Although levels of atmospheric CO have risen nearly 40 percent since the turn of the century, data from within the United States indicates no statistically significant increase in mean annual temperatures. In fact, between 1920 and 1987, there was a slight cooling trend. And the region most likely to see temperature increases, the Arctic, has actually cooled since about l940.”
“A warmer climate may increase precipitation and produce more ice and snow in colder areas. This would increase the earth’s albedo and cool the planet.”
ANDREW M…..These people are “NOT” obsessed with weather; but more so climate change! You are pessimistic to follow the reality of the situation….but rather look at the minority who are always around! You see Andrew this is clearly a problem and scientists only now the past and there has never been a rapid increase as of now…….thus we are being warned to actually do something! Unlike some minors out there who conclude that its a weather change (which does occur Andrew).
This is info located as at today: A grouping of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters has backed UN-led efforts to forge a global pact to fight climate change, but disagreed on a sectoral approach to curb emissions from industry. G20 nations ranging from top carbon emitters the United States and China to big developing economies Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa held three days of talks near Tokyo to discuss ways to tackle rapidly rising emissions.
LOL….and they all fly into the Summit Meeting with the worst greenhouse gas emitters being an aeroplane, then go out and drive around in Veyrons or Hummers and say “We are working on it”. Then go eat out and contribute what all do anyhow!
The whole structure of society needs to change as Kyoto is a band aid of minor proportions! We as buyers force industry to lower prices….hence we buy Chinese or Taiwanese, and these have very poor conditions for greenhouse gases produced as no regulations of real substance. If they get clamped down on by authorities, businesses will just go elsewhere such as India or other areas where a distinct advantage can occur for the company who buys there products to on sell them to the public at lower prices! What was deemed to be fixed….will be relocated to other countries for opportunists to make big $ from! OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE LIVE IN! THE CIRCLE TURNS AND COMES BACK AGAIN!
Facts are where most supplies and goods are manufactured have the poorest record for greenhouse gas production!
Its simple, my 4wd uses far less petrol than my turbo rx7, also i pay for the fuel so who can say how much i use.. What next ban people that live more than 20kms from work because they have to drive further and need mroe fuel?
If you want to winge that more people die when involved in an accident with a 4wd, then try not being a tuna can and buy a car that has a 5 star safety rating..
If your worried about your children when i reverse my 4wd, then be a decent parent and take care of your children and keep them out of my driveway..
Politicains drive around in V8 cars, that use more petrol than i do..
But to keep everyone happy i will swap my 4wd for a station wagon, you just pay the rental fees for a 4wd when i want to go bush and camping..
Basically stop wingeing about everything.. If you dont like them, dont buy one, if you are worried about what it will do to you in an accident, dont pull out in front of one, if your worried about the petrol consumption then trade in your own car and get a bike…
Its a shame that you dont know what your missing..
for Arlester, whose brother has only one vehicle, a 4WD, who asks if he should be allowed “occasional runs into the city”…. I have two suggestions.
1. Such vehicles will have country rego, not city, so they could be fitted with different coloured rego plates and “allowed into the city occasionally”. Then city drivers (and police) can easily see he is from the country and GIVE HIM A WIDE BERTH. Which brings me to my second point….
2. Country drivers are generally very very poor city drivers. I can vouch for this from experience. They are not used to the city environment, there is too much happening too fast, they do not have the anticipation skills required. They hate being there, they are stressed and generally not competent. In a 4WD these people are a menace in the cities. If in fact the 4WD was banned from the cities, I am sure these people would find a (safer, less stressful) alternative.
cheers,
Arg