Treading lightly and driving a 4×4

There’s a reason why I’m not a green campaigner, an eco-warrior, an environmental activist, a conservationist or anything else of that ilk.

It’s not because I have a problem treading lightlly, respecting the environment, conserving resources, minimising waste or leaving things in a better state for future generations.

The problem I have is with the way the green movement is increasingly hijacked by the envious, the hateful, the spiteful, the controlling, the fascist, the ignorant, the misguided and the mis-informed.

Of course, it’s always been the case that any movement – religious, cultural or political – is inevitably hijacked by vested interests with a particular axe to grind that may have little to do with the original aims of that movement.

But it still irritates me that something as important as preserving the Earth in a reasonable state for ourselves and the future is being hijacked by the hate-filled few.

What’s aroused my ire and pushed me still further away from the green campaigners this time are the numerous campaigns targeting 4×4s – Alliance against Urban 4×4s, 4×4 Network,

They may have been started with good intentions, but have swiftly turned into campaigns based on envy, hatred, prejudice and snobbery.

The campaigns are also a neat and effective diversion from the real problem – unnecessary journeys by all cars and light vehicles.

Our sole car is a Land Rover Defender 4×4 and I’ve written before about being abused for being a w***** who drives a “lethal killer machine“, being described as selfish and greedy, and being a destroyer of the planet.

More recently I’ve had an apple hurled at me by a woman who was quite clearly mouthing words to the effect of “f****** 4×4 drivers”.

Then Ecostreet published a post about Swedish activists deflating the tyres on more than 1,000 SUVs (and why do we have to adopt American terminology for everything?), and the next thing I knew the ban 4×4 campaign was popping up here, there and everywhere I looked.

I did have a couple of moments of amusement though, when I found I was being given as an example of someone who genuinely needs a 4×4 (thanks Mel!).

One of the first things I notice about the campaigns is the language used and the sort of people who deploy it.

Curiously, many of the UK campaigners appear to be very middle class people who like to refer to people who drive 4×4s as “vulgar”, “ostentatious”, “greedy”, “selfish”, “out to impress”, “flashy”, “criminally insane”, wanting a “status symbol”, “an expression of richness” and the like.

Now, if you were genuinely targeting 4×4s because of their emissions, fuel consumption, use of resources in manufacturing or their perceived dangers, then what need is there to use language like this?

It wouldn’t be the British class system at work would it?

I started to think back to the sort of people who drive the larger and more “flash” 4×4s, and realised that many – not all but a noticeably large number – are what could be described as aspirational working class.

They’re the skilled manual workers, their wives and their grown-up children in “chav” jobs. They have money, they like big, they like to make a statement and they like bling.

It leaves me with the strong suspicion that a rather large part of the campaigns against 4×4s are really against their owners – who “should be put in their place”.

But even if we leave class out of the picture, are 4×4s really the font of all motoring evils?

Take the “lethal killer machine” claims.

Yes, a big 4×4 hitting a child outside a school will be more likely to seriously injure or kill that child than a small hatchback travelling at the same speed.

But is that comparing like with like?

What if the child was hit by one of the equally large MPVs that some mums drive? Or what about a Transit or Sprinter driven by white van man?

They’re also pedestrian unfriendly – and we haven’t even considered the 10-tonne truck carrying materials to a nearby building site.

The reverse also applies. Would an equivalently sized 4×4 have done more damage to our cottage than the VW Golf GTi that crashed into it at around 50mph?

Given the way a Golf is built, I seriously doubt that an equivalent sized 4×4 would have done more damage – in fact, I suspect some would actually have done less damage.

Then there is question of how you legally define a 4×4 if you’re planning to ban them.

The example most commonly used by the anti-4×4 campaigners is “large 4×4s”.

But how large is large? And what exactly is a 4×4?

A Skoda Octavia 1.9TDi 4×4 estate is 4.57 metres long and 1.76 metres wide. A Land Rover Freelander II is 4.5 metres long and 1.91 metres wide.

One looks like a typical suburban estate, the other looks like an off-roader but both have four-wheel-drive systems and they’re very close in size. Can you ban one and not the other?

Or scale up a little.

A Renault Grand Espace is 4.86 metres long and 1.8 metres wide. A Range Rover is 4.9 metres long and 1.95 metres wide.

One’s an MPV, the other appears to be an off-roader. The first is two-wheel drive and therefore okay; the second is four-wheel-drive and therefore unacceptable.

But they’re both equally large vehicles, taking up an equally large space, using up a lot of resources (the 4×4 will use more due to its more complicated drive system) and both use a lot more fuel than a small hatchback.

The Range Rover 3.6TDV8 emits 299 g/km of CO2, while the Grand Espace 2.5V6 emits 289 g/km and the 3.0DCi 248 g/km. None are particularly good.
So why should one car having four-wheel-drive make such a difference to its acceptability – or lack thereof?

If size, resource consumption and emissions are truly important, then it would be better to target all large vehicles and all vehicles with poor emissions – not just ones with four-wheel-drive.

The final argument used by the anti-4×4 campaign is “and no one really needs them anyway – especially not in a city”.

For a start, 4×4 systems are not just for off-road use and many cars that use them are not intended to be used off road – they have 4×4 as it delivers better traction and controllability in certain road conditions that would trouble a two-wheel-drive car.

But more importantly, towns and cities are not just areas of houses, business and recreational facilities all linked by first-class roads.

There are areas of rough ground in towns and cities, there are farms and riding schools, there are large building sites, and there are green spaces that workers in their own vehicles need to traverse.

How do you distinguish between the urban farmer’s Defender or Hilux and the chav lawyer with the Ranger Rover Sport? Especially when the latter can register it at his second house in the country and “prove” he is not an urban user of a 4×4.

How do you distinguish between the builder in his Hilux Experience – used to drop off the kids on his way to work – and the footballer’s wife in her Porsche Cayenne?

Or to take our own example. We occasionally drive our Defender into Aberdeen when we have to pick up a large load (we use the train for other trips) like a washing machine, heavy tools or timber.

If 4×4s are banned from urban areas are we to be expected to stop on the outskirts of town and lug our load out to it?

Or buy a second, non-4×4 car that we don’t need? Or put pressure on the council to allow more out-of-town shopping complexes so we can make our occasional large purchases without going into the 4×4-free city?

And I know some people will be reading this and thinking, but you don’t even need a 4×4 in the country!

Wrong.

We need a 4×4 as there isn’t anything else that can safely haul a heavy livestock trailer loaded with sheep or pigs up and over steep hills on snow-covered roads.

We need a vehicle that can tow a heavy pig ark across a field, that can carry 500-1,000kg loads of animal feed, stone or timber across most terrains in all weathers, that can carry a family of four plus visitor plus luggage, and that can double as a tractor at a pinch.

So to the greens, the eco-activists, the conservationists and their ilk, I have a simple message.

Stop demonising the 4×4, stop demonising their drivers and stop hate campaigns that lead to criminal damage, violence and vitriolic abuse.

Instead, logically and calmly campaign against all wasteful car use, against all unnecessary consumption of diminishing resources and remember that just because you don’t need something or don’t like something, there’s no reason to deny it to people who may genuinely need it.

And when you’ve calmed down, remove the language of envy and hate, and started putting your case logically, then I might just consider joining ranks with you.

Until then, I prefer to tread lightly and use a 4×4 when I genuinely need to.