Modification rant

[geograzza Member Find all posts View Profile Close geograzza]

The other thing I found was that the majority of drivers on the road could barely drive a nail. They all think they are good drivers but the reality is they aren't.

I hope I can drive a car better than I can drive a nail, cos I barely rate as a carpenter. In defence of my driving ability, I was not the at-fault driver in any of the TA's I've been in (in all but one, my vehicle was rear-ended while stopped legally). So while I can't say for a certainty that my driving skills are better than average, I can say that my skills are better than the people who drove into my stopped vehicle.

The thing is, all the regulations in the world relating to vehicle design, will make only marginal reductions to the road toll. Seat belts, crumple zones, air-bags, ABS brakes etc have all helped to bring down the road toll from a high in the 60's to a relatively low figure today, but they are reaching the limits of what can be done. The only way to make significant further reductions is to lower the number of TA's, and that will only happen by improving driver skill. Statistics on the number of non-fatal crashes seem very hard to come by, but going by the number of road closures compared to 20 years ago, I think it would be a fair guess that although deaths are declining, the number of accidents is increasing. So although we have had major improvements in vehicle safety over the last couple of decades, it would appear driver skill is actually on the decline.

Most accident investigators take the task seriously as do most traffic cops (sure there are asses on power trips but the majority have their hearts in the right place). So when you investigate the collision and speak with the families the focus is why did this happen and what you could do to prevent it happening again. The idea that its okay for a certain percentage of people to die, even though some will, is obtuse.

Which comes back to the standard of driving. You mentioned speed as a key contributor, and I'll agree, however it is not necessarily driving in excess of the posted limit that is the problem. Through several decades of road safety ads that stress watching your speed, with slogans like "every k over is a killer", backed with methods of enforcement such as speed cameras set to trigger with hair-line tolerances, we have bred a generation of drivers who are more focussed on the needle on their dash pointing to the right number, than driving to suit the prevailing conditions. This is not conducive to good road safety.

As an example of this, I fairly regularly drive Toowoomba-Brisbane. It is 2 lanes both directions, and for the most part it is quite a good highway. I normally set the cruise control to 100 by the GPS, which is about 105 on the Commodore's speedo. When I do that, I find I am travelling about 5km/hr faster than most of the cars. Since many cars tend to overstate their speed, it is probably safe to assume that most of them think they are doing 100. There are a few who go faster, and a few who go slower, but the majority of cars sit on what they would think is smack on 100. Then came the rain in the couple of months leading up to the Jan'11 floods. Several times when I drove that highway during that period, visibility was reduced to bugger-all. The road was developing pot-holes and things were generally pretty flamin' crook. I found in most cases I was driving at 80-90, sometimes as low as 60, so that I'd be at a speed where I felt I could react based on the visibility. And you know what? The vast majority of the other cars were still driving smack on 100. And hardly surprising, the number of accidents went up. People were complaining about damage done to their cars from hitting potholes at 100. Although I saw many potholes, I didn't hit any. I think it perfectly illustrates a side-effect of the current methods of road safety in QLD, probably the rest of the country. We are training them to watch their speedo, not their speed. There is a big difference. There are times when 10-20km/hr over the posted limit is perfectly safe, but there are also lots of times when the posted limit is dangerously high. Our current methods of training, policing and advertising have taken out of people the ability to recognise what is appropriate speed.

(late edit - forgot the mack truck analogy. I get your point however mack trucks account for like .001% of vehicles on the road. SUV's are hitting the 35% mark so analogy noted but not really apples with apples)

I'm sure HV's are more than 0.001%. Take a look down James St, Toowoomba (a national highway that is also a residential street and business strip), and you'll see HV's number about 1 in 3. And although nationwide the number of vehicles may be low, the vehicle.km figure is quite high.

But even if their actual numbers were 0.001% as you say, how many 4WD's have extreme lifts? Around these parts I see the occasional Patrol or Cruiser with fairly high lifts, but their numbers are bugger-all compared to the number of HV's. And I'll stand by my comment that even with a stupid lift, a 4WD will be more manoeuvrable, and will out-brake a B-Double. Yes I agree your example of the family hit by the lifted 4WD with a bullbar would be pretty much screwed, and that is bad. But there are far more HV's than lifted 4WD's on the road, and every one of them would have a harder time of avoiding the accident and would do more damage. So on what basis do you determine that one vehicle is allowed on the road and the other isn't? Is one legal because that's the way it rolled off a production line, but the other isn't because it rolled out of a garage?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that it should be open slather for modifications. But neither should many modifications have blanket bans or be so regulated that they become practically illegal. If someone wants to lift their 4WD by 100mm, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to, so long as it is done right (eg, not just by shimming the springs).

[Disco4 Member Find all posts View Profile Close Disco4]

Tassie tiger

Good response.

Yes it would be great if the mainstream manufacturers came up with removable bull bars or a system that allows winch fitment.

I used to have a Discovery 3 & believe it or not it ony had a 4 star safety rating despite all the airbags traction control etc.

Apparently this was because of the damage it would do to pedestrians.

You can get discreet winch mounts for Discoveries however they are not common in Australia.

You retain the standard bar & the winch sits behind the front bumper in between the chassis rails with a cut out for the fairlead.

Having said the above I did fit a Sahara bar to my Prado so I could carry a winch.

I also believe properly designed lift kits actually improve handling as do good quality aftermarket tyres.

My Prado handles far better than standard with reduced body roll, pitch & increase grip from tyres.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Hi Tassie, seems like we have debated some of this before And you were doing well untill you started making stuff up like this.

Next time you see a prado without a bar go and stand alongside it. The front bumper is designed to crumple when it hits a person but not as much as the grill and bonnet - so the body folds over the front of the vehicle and rides up on it, into the windscreen and then off to the side. Now I wouldn't want it to happen to me and your chances are still pretty poor but survivability is still 50/50. With a bullbar - zip.

Survivability is 50/50 without a bullbar and Zip with a bullbar............ forgive me but where on earth did you pluck those figures from, If I hit you with a prado without a bullbar at 100km/hr I bet your survival chances are less than 50/50 and likewise if I hit you with a bullbar at 10kms/hr your chances are pretty good. Its a fair point to suggest that a bullbar will make a difference for the worse if all other things are equal but making up statistics based on nothing proves nothing.

I dont think that bullbars should banned however some thought should go into their use. One that is removable for the 99% of the time that the only thing it is going to hit is human makes sense.

Once again your making stuff up, not everyone that has a bullbar lives in the city and rarely drives where animal strikes are unlikely, the picture below was taken from inside my lounge room last week.



So everytime I go out my driveway animal strikes are on the cards! once again I dont think it does you any good just making up statistics based on nothing at all.

Oh and the Mack truck thing 0.001%.............. you must live on another planet if you think that the trucks on our roads only count for 0.001%

Its great to have a discussion on these things but it would be good if people could stick with facts rather than inventing statistics to prove a point.

Just getting back to the original post which seemed to be more about suspension and tyres than anything else. In my experience a quality aftermarket suspension package giving a lift up to 50mm will improve the handling of your Prado rather than making it more dangerous. I changed the original suspension on my forst prado at 70.000k and the improvement was dramatic to say the least. I changed the suspension on my current Prado at 300kms and the improvement in on road handling was surprising to say the least, it was a much larger improvement than I would have expected.

Cheers Andrew

[tassie tiger Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close tassie tiger]

Hi Tassie, seems like we have debated some of this before And you were doing well untill you started making stuff up like this.



Survivability is 50/50 without a bullbar and Zip with a bullbar............ forgive me but where on earth did you pluck those figures from, If I hit you with a prado without a bullbar at 100km/hr I bet your survival chances are less than 50/50 and likewise if I hit you with a bullbar at 10kms/hr your chances are pretty good. Its a fair point to suggest that a bullbar will make a difference for the worse if all other things are equal but making up statistics based on nothing proves nothing.




Once again your making stuff up, not everyone that has a bullbar lives in the city and rarely drives where animal strikes are unlikely, the picture below was taken from inside my lounge room last week.



So everytime I go out my driveway animal strikes are on the cards! once again I dont think it does you any good just making up statistics based on nothing at all.

Oh and the Mack truck thing 0.001%.............. you must live on another planet if you think that the trucks on our roads only count for 0.001%

Its great to have a discussion on these things but it would be good if people could stick with facts rather than inventing statistics to prove a point.

Just getting back to the original post which seemed to be more about suspension and tyres than anything else. In my experience a quality aftermarket suspension package giving a lift up to 50mm will improve the handling of your Prado rather than making it more dangerous. I changed the original suspension on my forst prado at 70.000k and the improvement was dramatic to say the least. I changed the suspension on my current Prado at 300kms and the improvement in on road handling was surprising to say the least, it was a much larger improvement than I would have expected.

Cheers Andrew

Use common sense AJ for christs sake.

Of course you will die if your hit at 100km/h. Normal urban city speeds, where the bullbar is an issue, it is survivable. How do I know - as stated I have seen it for ten years.

You do get that my .001% was tongue in cheque dont you? Surely?

And you do get that I wasn't suggesting banning bullbars dont you? Surely - because I bloody well said it?
You do get the difference dont you? I was suggesting its worth looking at something safer for the urban environment that still achieves its aims in the bush?

Its not hard to discuss AJ - you just need an open mind.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

OK Tassie, here is my take on what you have posted. You started out with this!

I was an accident investigator actually working on causational factors of vehicle collisions

Given that you have been around the forum a while and have posted a lot of good stuff I am willing to take it on face value that you have a fair bit off knowledge about this sort of thing, so I think to my self this bloke is worth listening too.


And I am not the only one that thinks your opinion is worth listening too.

Tassie Tiger, it would be very interesting and informative to hear your opinions. Opinions from those who have done quality research is valued greatly.

So you go on to post about speed and grog and inattention and a few other things and I am thinking Yep, this bloke knows what he’s on about he’s worth listening too.

But then you start throwing in statistics, 50/50 versus zip without giving any context for those numbers, and bullbars are not needed 99% of the time, again not giving any context, 99% might be an accurate figure in your world but not in mine……. So now I am thinking to myself “this guy is just making shit up” does he really know what he is on about? Should I listen to him?

And the 0.001% percent being tongue in cheek, you quote that figure for trucks and then 35% for suv’s and say that you are not comparing apples with apples, sorry but that comes across as you saying trucks are a minute part of the traffic on our roads compared to suv’s which again in my world just doesn’t come anywhere near the truth, I would think pretty close to apples with apples only I would suspect that trucks might be more of an issue (speaking as a truck driver) So from where I am looking I couldn’t see any tongue in cheek in that comment at all, and I wouldn’t have thought that a thread about vehicle safety wasn’t really the best place for “tongue in cheek” comments.

So as I said, you were doing great and making a huge amount of sense until you started making vague generalizations with made up statistics, which in my eyes at least makes it difficult for me to take on board much of what you say.

Online as well as in the real world we all need to make a judgement about people and whether or not to listen to their opinions. Personally I find that if someone consistently says things that I know to be true and correct then I feel comfortable listening to their opinions on topics that I have less knowledge in. On the flip side if people say things that I know to be untrue, or incorrect, or vague at best then I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say.

Just telling it as I see it Tassie, no hard feelings.


Cheers Andrew

[slackdog Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close slackdog]

Does a Cheap arse suspension off ebay carry any engineering approval in our country.???????( i bet it doesn,t)

ARB , TJM and other bull bar manufactures sit on a bullbar standards committee and important things like H.I.C (Head impact criteria)are considered. I think from memory that a couple of these companies actually comply

[gregbme Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close gregbme]

Nearly two years ago I was riding my pushbike and was hit by a new Hilux with steel bar from behind.
The cause was attributed to blinding morning sun, but the driver must have almost been off the road if I was riding tightly to the left as usual. Damage to the Hilux was a missing wing mirror, and punctured lh front tyre. My bike frame was snapped. I was snapped too, in a few places but that's another story.
In the orthopaedic ward I learnt vehicle versus pedestrian collisions begin becoming fatal above 40kmh. That's food for thought. That speed in a vehicle seems like you're amost stopped, but oh boy it is a hard hit for a pedestrian.
I also have a TJM T3 (like sahara) bar on the front of my Prado, mainly in the hope animal strike is less likely to disable the vehicle out in remote areas. So I guess I kinda have a foot in both camps on this issue. I also don't drive those areas at night as I think that's asking for trouble.

[slackdog Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close slackdog]

Spent the weekend in the Clare Valley and saw a 3 year old child bolt across the main street.A 100 series cruiser nearly ran straight over the top of the kid..The unfortunate thing if the kid was run over and killed it would have been attributed as a bullbar death not an incompetent parent death...And all this 20 meters from a pedestrian crossing. Bull bars do not kill people vehicles do !!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately the antelopes of the jungle do get eatin by lions.

[robbo792 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close robbo792]

And all this 20 meters from a pedestrian crossing.

Doubt a 3 year old has grasped the crossing concept. Just saying

[wooley Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close wooley]

Spent the weekend in the Clare Valley and saw a 3 year old child bolt across the main street.A 100 series cruiser nearly ran straight over the top of the kid..The unfortunate thing if the kid was run over and killed it would have been attributed as a bullbar death not an incompetent parent death...And all this 20 meters from a pedestrian crossing. Bull bars do not kill people vehicles do !!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately the antelopes of the jungle do get eatin by lions.

mate, trying living in the bloody place, happens every day, theres a few parents around those parts that couldn't rub two brain cells together between the pair of them.

also... I don't think anyone has ever used that crossing... ever.

[KAKADAZ Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close KAKADAZ]

I do think a steel bar will cause more injuries and deaths than standard bumpered Prado's but afectivly so will,busses, trucks, motorbikes, vans, low vehicles (throw you over the roof etc) speading vehicles, inattentive drivers,drunk drivers, inexperienced drivers, cars with bald tyres, just general bad drivers, un serviced cars etc etc, really if your a pedestrian best avoid any collision with ANY vehicle where you can. My Prado is the first 4x4 I have put a bar on and really questioned myself on its nessesity but I like the look of it and it improves my angles off road. On top of that a few weeks ago hit a Roo at about 100kph and sustained no damage to car or bar.

[KAKADAZ Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close KAKADAZ]

I don't know if a Prado with a steel bar is any worse than,
Trucks
Busses
Motor bikes
Speeding cars
Unserviced cars
Cars with bald tyres
Very low cars

OR

Bad drivers
Inexperienced drivers
Drunk drivers
Distracted drivers
Asian drivers (jokes)

Really best just avoid contact with anything between 1-2 tonne traveling at above walking pace and you should be fine.
I questioned my need for a steel bar but bought one and after hitting a Roo a few weeks ago at about 100kph with no damage I felt a little easier with my purchase.

[glen_ep Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close glen_ep]

Pfff, take that back about Asians!!! (they tend to drive too slow to hurt anyone on impact )

Funnily enough, I didn't plan on buying a steel bar for my Prado either, but after 4 days of owning it and taking it for it's very first country drive, a hit a wallaby... decision made.

[Geoffury Find all posts View Profile Close Geoffury]

The bullbar issue - whether cars should be allowed to have them or not, will be around for a very long time.

Theres those that think that Bullbars shouldn't be allowed, as they contribute to deaths.
And theres those that have them for insurance, for their 70K+ investment, and also insurance for themselves and their family in the car.

Now I'm one for the second group, and even tho i only really do 1-2 country trips a year, so maybe 2 weeks out of 52, i almost always hit a roo. The rest of my time, spent in and around the city - Perth- I've not even come close to hitting another car or pedestrian.

I put that down to the fact that I'm an awesome driver :-)

Another point to look at is the changes that have been made in bull bars in more recent years.
My old Hilux has a great big solid bar, that sticks a long way out, and is sloped out forward at the top, away from the bonnet. Modern bull bars now slope back into the cars bonnet. This helps with the physical look, and aerodynamics, but also, if you do hit a pedestrian, they "should" fall onto the bonnet, due to the angle of the bull bar, as opposed to the old style bars, that would push a person under the car, causing more damage to the pedestrian.

So at least the bullbar manufacturers have made these changes - possibly forced to by government rules - but at least they are trying to make them safer for when they are involved with accidents.

BTW this is just my opinion, each to their own.

[KAKADAZ Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close KAKADAZ]

100% agree Roo.