Banning 4WD's - article in todays's SMH

I agree. Lets just hope someone can see through all this rubbish and work out a logical and practicle solution for all. I personally would like to see a special class of licence for 4WD owners/drivers. One that would incorporate mandatory off-road training. This would mean anyone wishing to drive a 4WD, would have to demonstrate they have the ability to control these vehicles. Everyday I see 4WD's that I just know have never seen anything other than concrete or bitumen. And the number of people driving 4WD's that can't even do a simple reverse park. Its the minority of inexperienced 4WD owner/drivers that are causing most of the problems. Thats also not to say that there is also a minority of pedestrians who aren't abiding by their obligations to double and tripple check before they walk out onto a road. And in addition to this, large 4WD's are in effect light trucks and should be given the courtesy by other road users aswell. The cannot stop as quickly and require more room. Ban 4WD's and you may aswell ban trucks and semi trailers and B-Doubles. And the implications of such an act would be imense. Lets just hope that such a rediculous and impractical approach makes way for a more logical and beneficial solution for all parties concnerned.

There is a large thread on this very issue on the Overlander forum.

lets look at the big picture here - how many people die in cars? - Far too many. - so do we ban them No! - its not just 4wds - it has to come down to the nut behind the wheel. Far too many people dont take driving seriously enough, many are poorly trained and some are aggressive,egotistical (ie have a big vehicle so watch out! ) Sorry -its true - just plain bad drivers - trouble is that they get to be worse drivers in a big vehicle

kezza (ex truckie among other things)

Sounds like another journalist using an unfortunate accident to push one of their pet topics. They tend to rank pretty low on the scale of morality, might be trying to push for a job on 60 seconds or minutes or whatever it is. To use incidents like this to sensationalise for their own gain and their selective use of statistics and descriptive terms just helps to confirm the opinions of many - how do they sleep at night?