Women, 4WDs and carparks....... a recipe for disaster!

[R33S2]

I dont hate 4WDS just the ppl who drive them Ithink an arrogance test would be appropriate if you fail you get a commodore

[The_Paladin]

It's a populat theroy that men have better sparital awerness skills then women. part of the reason they're more interested in sport/cars/tech etc. but where women lack skill, they make up for it in maturity...........guys are more likely to be involved in a car accident so it's a tough call to say that women are just shite in cars.......

i thought this topic moved past women and more onto 4WD needs and ownership. i do think that women are more likely to buy a 4WD for image etc then a guy. and in general are more likely to be ignorant of the saftey facts surrounding them. prehaps 4WD's should come with a general health warning like cigs?

[Silver'sR33]

This is from an article in The New Yorker

( http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html ) and says it better than I ever could:

Fred J. Schaafsma, a top engineer for General Motors, says, "Sport-utility owners tend to be more like 'I wonder how people view me,' and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that." According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills. Ford's S.U.V. designers took their cues from seeing "fashionably dressed women wearing hiking boots or even work boots while walking through expensive malls." Toyota's top marketing executive in the United States, Bradsher writes, loves to tell the story of how at a focus group in Los Angeles "an elegant woman in the group said that she needed her full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and onto lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills." One of Ford's senior marketing executives was even blunter: "The only time those S.U.V.s are going to be off-road is when they miss the driveway at 3 a.m."

The truth, underneath all the rationalizations, seemed to be that S.U.V. buyers thought of big, heavy vehicles as safe: they found comfort in being surrounded by so much rubber and steel. To the engineers, of course, that didn't make any sense, either: if consumers really wanted something that was big and heavy and comforting, they ought to buy minivans, since minivans, with their unit-body construction, do much better in accidents than S.U.V.s. (In a thirty-five-m.p.h. crash test, for instance, the driver of a Cadillac Escalade--the G.M. counterpart to the Lincoln Navigator--has a sixteen-per-cent chance of a life-threatening head injury, a twenty-per-cent chance of a life-threatening chest injury, and a thirty-five-per-cent chance of a leg injury. The same numbers in a Ford Windstar minivan--a vehicle engineered from the ground up, as opposed to simply being bolted onto a pickup-truck frame--are, respectively, two per cent, four per cent, and one per cent.) But this desire for safety wasn't a rational calculation. It was a feeling. Over the past decade, a number of major automakers in America have relied on the services of a French-born cultural anthropologist, G. Clotaire Rapaille, whose speciality is getting beyond the rational--what he calls "cortex"--impressions of consumers and tapping into their deeper, "reptilian" responses. And what Rapaille concluded from countless, intensive sessions with car buyers was that when S.U.V. buyers thought about safety they were thinking about something that reached into their deepest unconscious. "The No. 1 feeling is that everything surrounding you should be round and soft, and should give," Rapaille told me. "There should be air bags everywhere. Then there's this notion that you need to be up high. That's a contradiction, because the people who buy these S.U.V.s know at the cortex level that if you are high there is more chance of a rollover. But at the reptilian level they think that if I am bigger and taller I'm safer. You feel secure because you are higher and dominate and look down. That you can look down is psychologically a very powerful notion. And what was the key element of safety when you were a child? It was that your mother fed you, and there was warm liquid. That's why cupholders are absolutely crucial for safety. If there is a car that has no cupholder, it is not safe. If I can put my coffee there, if I can have my food, if everything is round, if it's soft, and if I'm high, then I feel safe. It's amazing that intelligent, educated women will look at a car and the first thing they will look at is how many cupholders it has." During the design of Chrysler's PT Cruiser, one of the things Rapaille learned was that car buyers felt unsafe when they thought that an outsider could easily see inside their vehicles. So Chrysler made the back window of the PT Cruiser smaller. Of course, making windows smaller--and thereby reducing visibility--makes driving more dangerous, not less so. But that's the puzzle of what has happened to the automobile world: feeling safe has become more important than actually being safe.

Very interesting article. I saw some of the same research and sources in a Sydney Morning Herald article last year.

[Del Sol]

To the engineers, of course, that didn't make any sense, either: if consumers really wanted something that was big and heavy and comforting, they ought to buy minivans, since minivans, with their unit-body construction, do much better in accidents than S.U.V.s. (In a thirty-five-m.p.h. crash test, for instance, the driver of a Cadillac Escalade--the G.M. counterpart to the Lincoln Navigator--has a sixteen-per-cent chance of a life-threatening head injury, a twenty-per-cent chance of a life-threatening chest injury, and a thirty-five-per-cent chance of a leg injury. The same numbers in a Ford Windstar minivan--a vehicle engineered from the ground up, as opposed to simply being bolted onto a pickup-truck frame--are, respectively, two per cent, four per cent, and one per cent.)

That part says it all

[Silver'sR33]

Yeah and 35mph isn't fast either, that's what about 60ks? So that's basically a speed-limit crash...16% chance of life-threatening head injury, one in five chance of life-threatening chest injury...I'd be too damn scared to drive if I drove an SUV.

[krawler]

I like that article, I may just have to bookmark it for future anti-4x4 arguments

I wonder if there are any newspaper articles praising SUVs for being "safe", "good looking" and "practical"?

[Silver'sR33]

Hey check out this *ahem* tasteful 4wd including 24" chromes and scissor-doors.

http://www.cardomain.com/id/bella1

Excuse me a sec I think I'm gonna throw up now....

[Charly]

Yeah sean, I'm pretty sure I read something pretty similar in an Australian paper a few months back. Very interesting.

[R33S2]

feeling safe has become more important than actually being safe.

According to this bloke we're dealing with reptillian thinking cant be all that wrong

[Del Sol]

Hey check out this *ahem* tasteful 4wd including 24" chromes and scissor-doors.

http://www.cardomain.com/id/bella1

Excuse me a sec I think I'm gonna throw up now....

Yeah me too, thats gross :spew:

[racsov500]

'the only pathfinder in the mid west on 24's'

gee wonder why what an acheivement.

today i saw a black landcruiser on 20's. not a scratch, apart from those hectic carparks, ohh need a bullbar there or well never get out alive

isnt that why the old black hard plastic and metal bumpers are no longer on cars? dont fiberglass bumpers designed to absorb an impact? then you put a bullbar on..

[The_Paladin]

i think a lot of it is intimidation................they know people will get out of the way of a huge 4X4 with a bullbar than a smaller car.......

they are designing bull bars to be less dangerous.......but it still misses the point entirely of people not needing them................even the 'safer' ones in design are more dangerous than no bull bar at all....

[Silver'sR33]

'the only pathfinder in the mid west on 24's'  

gee wonder why what an acheivement

What worries me is that implies it's not the only SUV with scissor doors in the midwest, oh, I think I'm gonna throw up again....

With the bullbars and stuff...I swear it's 99% psychology...intimidation, feeling protected...all that stuff they said people drive 4WDs for.

I dunno, it just sickens me though that people would put all of that before other road-user's lives. It's as if people in the 'other car' in an accident are the enemy or something???

[racsov500]

make themselves feel big by driving something big. i saw a f-250 parked on a traffic island, purely cause it wouldnt even fit in the park. seriously.

the really big ones are rather pointless but its not so bad if you live out rural or semi rural..those f series have about 600nm. bloody hell.

[Silver'sR33]

Lol yeah but did you see the fatality figures in that table for F-series??? For the DRIVERS of the F-Series I mean...that's goddamn scary. From memory you're twice as likely to die in an accident if you drive an F-Series than a camry. And we all know what camry drivers are like.

[R33_Convert]

Hmmmmmmm, while i didnt bother to read this complete thread, mainly because of the offence i felt, you ppl seem to have missed the point of 4wd's. I own a Landcruiser, and like it or not, it gets driven daily and yes, i use it in traffic, car parks and even in resenditial roads etc etc etc.

However, it also gets used for work, to cart the dog around, tow the race car every month, tow the camper trailer when my partner and I go camping and lets me see more of this great country. So, while you narrow minded fools rave on about how bad 4wd owners are, just remember a majority of us use them as intended, a true work horse. That said, MOST (read this carefully kiddies), I said MOST, not all, woman can't drive...full stop. Even fewer understand the mechanics involved in driving a 4wd and understanding the extra responisiblity of sight, braking, cornering and making allowances for a 2.5 tonne piece of metal.

So remember when you seek open mindedness for your import choice, it works both ways. Give respect for ppl's choices and you will recieve it back for your own. And while I think about it, leave the city limits, do a road trip to Longreach, 1770, Agnes Waters, anywhere north, west, east or south and start to understand why ppl own 4wds. Our government cant be bothered building decent rural roads, roads that most sedans fall apart on, and ones I am reluctant to drive my R33 on as well. Then you'll understand why.

[pentae]

r33_convert:

A few points I would like to make.

1. I find it very hard to believe that the "majority" of you use them as an intended true work horse. You just have to do a basic google search for the statistics so you can see for yourself.

2. We all understand the mechanics involved in driving a 2.5 tonne peice of metal, thats the entire point of why so many people are pissed off with 4wd owners. The majority dont know how to drive them. Once again do a search and look at the statistics.

3. Please dont preach about the "great outdoors" when your 4wd spends most of its life in peak hour traffic. I have a 4 door 4 cylinder for driving around the city, and the petrol guzzling gtr for the weekends and the track. Why do you feel that your 4wd should be used any differently?

It's cool that you acknowledge the responsibility that goes along with owning a 2.5tonne 4wd, but what about the fact that 99% of the 4wds in the city are being driven by clueless bimbo mothers with no idea? You sit up pretty high all day, you get a good view of whats going on.. cant you see these other 4wd owners giving responsible 4x4 owners a bad name??

[Del Sol]

I said MOST, not all,  woman can't drive...full stop

I don't think making sexist remarks like that is going to get you anywhere in this argument. Just makes you look like another 4WD driver with an attitude problem...

[R33_Convert]

Del Sol: I hardly call that sexiest, compared to the bashing and stereo-typing of 4wd owners as the root of all evil. I took great offence to the way this thread has changed from women drivers in car parks to now encompass all 4wd owners. C'mon, we wear this everyday owning imports, surely you understand what it is like to be singled out and attacked twice over?

Pentae: Your points are interesting, statistics can be manipulated to suit any arguement. Apparently 99.28% of all stats are made up on the spot......

Secondly, I can't recall the last time I used petrol or diesel in my 'cruiser, given the LP gas conversion, theres just no need.

As for the minority giving the rest of 4wd owners a bad name....doesn' t this sound familiar? The few that get hold of mum's Excel or think street racing is go that give the rest of us youngish/import/modified drivers a poor name????

To my way of thinking this whole thread is like the kettle calling the pot black.

[pentae]

R33_Convert: I guess you live a sheltered life at the shunshine coast away from the Brisbane soccer mums.. good for you