Govt considering new Bull Bar rules

[302 XC]

Without getting flamed again for my inability to see a cow around a left hand bend on a outback highway
I say seriously to some enjoy riding your pushbike on that footpath
Stay safe,enjoy your life in your cotton wool cocoon
Becarefull out there at night theres some scary,wolly,large hard to recognise animals out there
Best to stay inside,its safer

[Ben73]

Kangaroos are the stupidest animals in the world.

While driving a train you will see a kangaroo ahead standing on the track, you blow the horn at it and it looks at you and just stands there. Doesn't even try to move just looks at this loud massive thing that's coming towards them. Even at 40 you still hit them because they are too moronic to move.

Or sometimes you will blow your horn, they will get scared and jump off the track into the bush, suddenly for no reason they turn around then jump back across your path and get hit.
We don't even brake if their is an animal in the way. They move they move, they don't well bad luck to them for being to moronic. All we here is a slight bump and don't feel a thing.

Cows are just as dumb. Had one standing next to the track looking at us. We literally missed it by about 1 inch.. It didn't move at all just stood there watching the train pass.

With how dumb these animals are I would not drive a car in the bush at night without a bull bar.

[my_gxl]

Originally Posted by 302 XC

Without getting flamed again for my inability to see a cow around a left hand bend on a outback highway
I say seriously to some enjoy riding your pushbike on that footpath
Stay safe,enjoy your life in your cotton wool cocoon
Becarefull out there at night theres some scary,wolly,large hard to recognise animals out there
Best to stay inside,its safer

Better be careful mate-you might get blamed when people get fined for riding pushbikes on the footpath

[my_gxl]

Originally Posted by cheap

I have a 4WD with a bull-bar, I promise I will never ever drive my 4WD anywhere in Europe. Problem solved!

I wish these Europeans would stick to what they do best, social re-engineering, gay love rights, massive budget deficits and generally going down the drain. Secretly they're all waiting for the next fascist to try and gain control, start some crisis which the rest of the world then has to sort out.

Australia simply needs to look at Europe as an example of how bureaucracy has gone mad, self-serving, non-working implosion of society . Sadly the European buffoons make so much noise that our Canberra fools seem left wanting and implement this imported stupidity.

Now aren't we lucky that they sent their naughty convicts to the best country in the world?

[my_gxl]

Originally Posted by GTP owner

Just a couple of point i would add to this discussions. Firstly is that we need to accept that bull-bars are dangerous to passengers and other smaller vehicles in a side collision. Given that there are increasing numbers of pedestrians being run over and killed (because cars are too quiet and pedestrians can be stupid) .

As a motorcycle rider as well, this is where the old saying 'loud pipes saves lives' comes into effect. Never had a pedestrian step in front of me. It also serves warning to drugged out or just plain blind drivers who love to not look and cut bikes off.

Don't blame it on the bullbar.

[irlewy86]

Not all animals can be missed I've seen snakes cross almost the entire width of a highway and most of the shoulder. I've seen kamikase Kangaroo's which jump in and out of the paths of cars. Livestock almost always congregate around roads (usually the water run off into the ditchs either side brings them around).

And the worst one I've seen is a dingo attack my ute while doing 110.

Yeah a lot of people don't need bullbars but I simply don't understand this love affair with Euro safety standards.

[Brazen]

No one is questioning the effectiveness of a bull bar, all this talk about how useful a bull bar is, is almost beside the point.

The point is, what are the issues the bull bar creates and how do we deal with it? Does there needs to be bull-bar standards to ensure a minimum level of safety?

Do cars 'living' in city streets need to have bull-bars for that one-off trip a year to the outback in which there is likely not to be a animal hit.

With growing phone reception, is there a need for bull bars in many cases to prevent being stranded? In fact, how often does a lack of bull bar cause a car to break down after a hit.

With front of cars becoming more complicated (plus all the airbags, etc) is the bull-bar an effective protection device, does it cause more problems than it solves?

How many cars are fully insured? Is the fitment neccessary?


I know the bars offer protection, I have one on the front of my car. So I dont need to be told how they are useful. I also find it more relaxing having a bar there knowing I have that extra protection there if I need it (although havn't hit a really big roo in the last 9 years).

Just that these bull-bars are game changers in pedestrian and car accidents. Maybe we all need to step back and look at the big picture for bull-bar equipped cars which spend the majority of their lives in the suburbs.

Perhaps we need to decide whether the bull bar which might save a Landcruiser's left headlight in an accident is worth the sacrifice of that same bar potentially killing a kid on a bike, or penetrating the cabin of another car in a side-impact.

[bigsta]

Originally Posted by ThaFlash

maybe they should replace bull bars with automatic machine gun turrets to identify and shoot vermon (in plague proportions) before they jump out in front of you.

yes YES YES

I want those

[flappist]

Originally Posted by Brazen

No one is questioning the effectiveness of a bull bar, all this talk about how useful a bull bar is, is almost beside the point.

The point is, what are the issues the bull bar creates and how do we deal with it? Does there needs to be bull-bar standards to ensure a minimum level of safety?

Do cars 'living' in city streets need to have bull-bars for that one-off trip a year to the outback in which there is likely not to be a animal hit.

With growing phone reception, is there a need for bull bars in many cases to prevent being stranded? In fact, how often does a lack of bull bar cause a car to break down after a hit.

With front of cars becoming more complicated (plus all the airbags, etc) is the bull-bar an effective protection device, does it cause more problems than it solves?

How many cars are fully insured? Is the fitment neccessary?


I know the bars offer protection, I have one on the front of my car. So I dont need to be told how they are useful. I also find it more relaxing having a bar there knowing I have that extra protection there if I need it (although havn't hit a really big roo in the last 9 years).

Just that these bull-bars are game changers in pedestrian and car accidents. Maybe we all need to step back and look at the big picture for bull-bar equipped cars which spend the majority of their lives in the suburbs.

Perhaps we need to decide whether the bull bar which might save a Landcruiser's left headlight in an accident is worth the sacrifice of that same bar potentially killing a kid on a bike, or penetrating the cabin of another car in a side-impact.

Do people who live in the capital cities with public transport need cars at all let alone giant 4WDs that do the school run/shopping run/golf club run day after day and once a year get dirty whether they need to or not......

[mcnews]

Originally Posted by Brazen

No one is questioning the effectiveness of a bull bar, all this talk about how useful a bull bar is, is almost beside the point.

The point is, what are the issues the bull bar creates and how do we deal with it? Does there needs to be bull-bar standards to ensure a minimum level of safety?

Do cars 'living' in city streets need to have bull-bars for that one-off trip a year to the outback in which there is likely not to be a animal hit.

With growing phone reception, is there a need for bull bars in many cases to prevent being stranded? In fact, how often does a lack of bull bar cause a car to break down after a hit.

With front of cars becoming more complicated (plus all the airbags, etc) is the bull-bar an effective protection device, does it cause more problems than it solves?

How many cars are fully insured? Is the fitment neccessary?


I know the bars offer protection, I have one on the front of my car. So I dont need to be told how they are useful. I also find it more relaxing having a bar there knowing I have that extra protection there if I need it (although havn't hit a really big roo in the last 9 years).

Just that these bull-bars are game changers in pedestrian and car accidents. Maybe we all need to step back and look at the big picture for bull-bar equipped cars which spend the majority of their lives in the suburbs.

Perhaps we need to decide whether the bull bar which might save a Landcruiser's left headlight in an accident is worth the sacrifice of that same bar potentially killing a kid on a bike, or penetrating the cabin of another car in a side-impact.

All excellent well thought out points and generally this is a great discussion about the merits for and against through well made points.

While I am normally totally against any legislation further reducing our rights to do anything we damn want to, I do have an issue that the false sense of security that some people get from said bar that has them thinking oh well damn the rest of the world, I will be right when I kill anything that gets in the way of my bull bar. There is little doubt that 'some' of the four wheel drive warriors have this pathetic attitude.

Plenty of people have been killed by said roo jumping high enough to go straight through the windscreen and kill people when deflected over the bar so it is hardly an excuse for driving ignorant of your surroundings.

Oh and by the way, I live in the country, and a mate of mine was even glanced by a roo on my driveway last year just after he pulled to a stop to avoid it so I am well aware how many are out there. There is a mob of about 30 that live on my place that I see every day.

[JaguarDave]

Originally Posted by mcnews

Plenty of people have been killed by said roo jumping high enough to go straight through the windscreen and kill people when deflected over the bar

and that's where the pedestrian safety standards conflict with the old style 4/5 post bullbar design. Our modern cars (and also the latest style "soft" bullbars) are designed to lift the pedestrian onto the bonnet to "more softly" impact them whereas our old style 4/5 post bullbars are designed to keep an animal down and push it to the side to stop them coming over the bonnet. I know which version I'd rather hit something with but from the other perspective I know what I'd rather be hit by. Which side of the equation has the greater rights to protection cos the cake can't be had and eaten too?

On another tack, the bullbar has a nice "deterent effect" according to my wife who very occasionally drives my ute. She reckons ignorant people in larger cars are far less inclined to force their way out in front of her when she's in the bull-barred ute compared to her little Mazda. Perhaps it's like riding a bike down the street carrying a shotgun, people show more courtesy........

[fairBA]

I'm confused - is this a 4wd bashing thread or a bullbar bashing thread?

If we ban 4wd's then anything bigger than a large sedan won't be allowed - Vans, trucks included as they'll be too big
If we ban bullbars then that would apply to all cars/trucks that have bullbars. plenty of falcons and commodores have bullbars as do most trucks. Are they going to get banned?

Why don't we just fit roll cages to all new cars and move on.


.

[Fled74]

Originally Posted by JaguarDave

On another tack, the bullbar has a nice "deterrent effect" according to my wife who very occasionally drives my ute. She reckons ignorant people in larger cars are far less inclined to force their way out in front of her when she's in the bull-barred ute compared to her little Mazda. Perhaps it's like riding a bike down the street carrying a shotgun, people show more courtesy........

I think that's exactly why the school-run mums have them on their 4WDs. Makes them feel safer, or even "empowered."

When I lived overseas I put a little sticker of the Glock logo on my rear window and people stopped driving like idiots around me.

[mcnews]

Originally Posted by Fled74

When I lived overseas I put a little sticker of the Glock logo on my rear window and people stopped driving like idiots around me.

Right, that's it, I'm getting a gun rack for the rear window of the ute and mounting the 300 WSM on it for when I have to drive in the city :-)

[JaguarDave]

Unfortunately that's no longer legal. Having your rifle in view of the public in a public area now constitutes an offence (at least in NSW). Better just hang your gun bag there.........

[302 XC]

Mate yesterday got side swipped by a Land Cruiser with a bullbar in his VZ commondore

Mate lives way outta town,the 4x4 driver never seen him
The 4x4 suffered minimal bar damage and scraps on the front scrub bars
Mates car is on the edge of a write of
The 4x4 driver pulled out in front of said mate
Now at what point do we blame what
Its pure and simple driver error from the 4x4 driver
So would we then use this example as another
Lets blame the bullbar scenario

At what point also does the wombat who doesnt look before crossing the road take some responsibility for his/her actions

[Nikked]

Living out in a rural/outback/sticks/black-stump/etc...area I've seen a wide variety of cars and bars. Some are downright stupid, put on by owners that think there Land Cruiser is a Mack truck...


...but we also see lots of cars come into work that have hit kangaroos, cows or even emus. So they have there place. Some people can only afford two cars, and some people have the love of the outdoors, so they need the bull-bars for there spotlights, winch's etc.

All comes down to pedestrian stupidity. Bull bars are there because you can teach kangaroos road safety, it appears the message can't get through to pedestrians.

[Kingsley]

I've got no objection to bullbars in rural communities, but it's not like they hit an object every week. Where I live there a number of roos around and I think in the eleven years I've been here I could probably count the number of carcass's on the side of the road in the low twenty's Conversley, if you silly enough to wander out in front of a car with a bullbar it's going to hurt whether the bars there or not.
But every car is designed with a crash zone so how much does the bar compromise the cars ability to absorb impact when plouging into a small sedan?
The only people who I detest having bullbars are the clowns tailgating everyone, or the drivers who NEVER take their car on a dirt road let alone 'the bush'.

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by BluFGXR6

But every car is designed with a crash zone so how much does the bar compromise the cars ability to absorb impact when plouging into a small sedan?
.

Bull bars are designed to work in harmony with SRS systems and crumple zones...

[Jim Goose]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Bull bars are designed to work in harmony with SRS systems and crumple zones...

So your saying companies like TJM crash test all their bull bars on every single model they cater for?

[castellan]

Some of them so called bull bars are rubbish.

A mate was at the bottle'o when a dud in a 4x4 rammed into the back of his HQ monaro the bull bar just folded back and recked the 4x4 bonnet and the old HQ just had 2 little bumps in the rear bumper bar

How about some of them that look like a gate with chicken wire must be for chooks

I don't know how good them new commodore & falcon ones are the proper name for them maybe shoo bars like for small rodents and to save the radiator so as to you can make it back home.

I have 4 teeth marks in my bonnet 2 from a wallaby and 2 smaller ones from its Joey.
If i did not have ABS brakes i would not of hit them, bloody gravel on the road coming around a sharp bend.

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

So your saying companies like TJM crash test all their bull bars on every single model they cater for?

Not every bar gets a full crash test on a car, but every bar goes through several deformative test to show that it wont interfear with the perfomance of the car.

The mounting systems are complex, and vary from deformaable brakets, to rubber absorbers. even the bars themselves have weakpoints built into them.

The major companies like TJM/ARB etc all adhear to strict ADR guidlines.

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Bull bars are designed to work in harmony with SRS systems and crumple zones...

except when its something like this...



i notice a lot here come back to the "if your silly enough to walk in front of a bullbar equipped 4wd then its gonna hurt anyway", but what about when its on the other side... said bull bar equipped 4wd fails to stop at pedestrian crossing, dosnt see a cyclist in the evening gloom, doesnt stop at a giveway and t-bones the granny driving her nissan tiida...

[FgNewbie]

bullbar related...
http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?p=3541370

[svo supporter]

All good and well talking about crumple zones and all the relevant crap associated with a modern car having a bullbar fitted, but what about the older cars having them fitted? Are they going to carry on about having them "safety" tested. The oldest car I own was made in 1971. The youngest was made in 1995. I have 7 in total, so it gives an idea to the age span of mine

[JaguarDave]

Originally Posted by svo supporter

All good and well talking about crumple zones and all the relevant crap associated with a modern car having a bullbar fitted, but what about the older cars having them fitted? Are they going to carry on about having them "safety" tested. The oldest car I own was made in 1971. The youngest was made in 1995. I have 7 in total, so it gives an idea to the age span of mine

well the article on the 4wd site does express the fact that these rules they are considering changing are actually ADR's and those apply to new vehicles from the time of manufacture/first registration and not retrospectively to cars previously sold and registered.

[Ben73]

What they need is fold away bullbars.
When in the city its all folded up nicely down low under the front of the car, Press a button on the dash and it unfolds and ready to take on any animals on country roads.

[Full Noise]

Let’s just take a step back and consider the big picture here.

This isn’t just about the government trying to impose some BS European safety standard on Australian motorists, it has a far more sinister undertone than that.

And for all you numb nuts who oppose bull bars on 4WDs, consider this -

If the scumbags in government win with this, what do you think will be next?

I don’t think that soccer mums with their Prado, Lexus, Pathfinders or any other vehicle that “some say” look good out the front of a private school at 3pm, should have them, however, the last time I checked, this country wasn’t a total dictatorship.

A few hundred years ago, there was a French philosopher by the name of Voltaire. He was the bloke behind the famous quote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Now let’s translate that to the modern day.

"I disapprove of what you have fitted to the front of your 4WD, but I will defend to the death your right to have it."

Some say that the French are a bunch of pussies, well, at least they know how to stand up for themselves and organise a decent protest. And what do the majority of Australians do, they just believe what some politician says and bend over. And the politicians just give it to us, usually without lube.

Again we’re in a situation where the government wants to impose some stupid rule in the mistaken belief of “safety” because of a minority of people. Geez, where have I heard that before… 911 anyone?

[Jim Goose]

Yes true, but after all the chest beating here where is the actual link back to the government saying they a "thinking" about it? The article at the start of the thread doesnt refer to anything or anyone..... it just says the government is thinking about... ok.. where did they hear this?

[Green X]

People who have no idia what goes on outside the city think dumb Shiv like this up




We've hit one before and if it wasn't for the Bull bar the 4by would have been a write off and we would have been stuck far from anywhere as it was we roped the bonnet down and drove 1400km back home.

A mate who used to do allot of night time riding in the outback said to me once ya know what the diffrence between hitting a roo on a motorbike at 90km/h and 130km/h is.... nothing ya dead at both speeds so i just sit on 130km/h.

Id like to see how many pedestrian are killed by bull bars each year and if they would have lived and not ended up a wheelchair or worse if a bullbar was not fitted, V.S people who would have been killed or seriously injured if they did not have a bullbar fitted!!