Daily Record anti 4x4 article....

[laser_jock99]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/opinion/columnists/lifestyle/joanburnie/

e-mail your complaints here please:

http://www.pcc.org.uk/feedback/index.html

I'm fumming that this daft bint should be allowed to write this utter crap. The tone of her article is full of nonsense, prejudice and bigotry and seems intent on stirring social hatred.

Please consider sending in a complaint to the Press Complaints Authority.

[Rangie3.0LtrDan]

Sent her an email and going to copy it to the Editor :D

Ms Burnie,

What on earth are you spouting?  I read your article in disbelief.  In fact most of what you wrote is utter tosh!

Firstly, you say you want owners of gas guzzlers to pay more excise duty and more RFL because of the vehicle type!  Well then let me give you some statistics.  An average Range Rover Classic with a 3.5 litre V8 does approximately 18MPG.  Now also bear in mind that most of these vehicles which are still on the road run on LPG.  Secondly my Land Rover Discovery which is nearly 15 years old gets better fuel consumption than my 55 reg Vauxhall Astra estate.

Another point you might want to consider is the environment impact of producing a new vehicle.  It is a proven fact that there is more environmental damage done during the manufacture process than there is through running the vehicle.  Land Rovers and similar vehicles were built to last a very very long time (there are still originals from around 1958 running on the road today).  How many other vehicles can say that?  Surely thats better for the environment as they mean people havent had to buy a new vehicle?  Yes your Toyota Prius type vehicle might be good on MPG and emissions, but how long is it going to last?  Vehicles today arent built to last, they are built to be thrown away after a small period of time.

Onto your claims about safety.  We constantly come under attack about how unsafe our vehicles are for pedestrians.  Please tell me how many accidents are happening because our vehicles are driving along pavements?  Hardly any as far as i know.  Now my problem is why not educate pedestrians to look before crossing a road?  The vehicle is big enough to see coming and its not like they go as fast as a normal car either!  The other point about people in Range Rovers parking where they want to regardless of legality.  This is also utter coswallop!  I collect my 10 year old step daughter from her school 2 nights a week after her post school activies.  Now i am a disabled person yet i sometimes have to park around 200 metres away from the school in order to park legally and safely, yet the people in their normal cars see fit to park on the zig zag lines immediately out the front of the school.  So maybe you would like to check and confirm your information before printing it.

Your other point about charging tolls for them when they travel on motorways is really stupid and pointless.  If you looked at the main causes for problems on motorways its people who dont pay attention on the road (regardless of what vehicle they drive) and the travelling salesmen in their company Mercedes and BMW who decide they can drive at whatever speed they want regardless of what the law says.  In fact the larger vehicles like 4x4's are safer as they have a more commanding view of the road and can see further than your average car.

Might i also suggest you visit a website.  http://www.4x4prejudice.org which may be able to clarify alot of the true facts about these vehicles.  Pay special attention to the points about percentages of vehicles which are diesel powered as opposed to petrol powered.  The problem with people like yourself is that you are misinformed.  You believe the hype about these issues.  Most of the statistics are brought over from America (hence the term SUV) and are based on much bigger engined vehicles and a majority of them being run on petrol.  As i said earlier in the email alot of the petrol powered V8 Land Rovers are run on LPG as promoted by the government in reducing emissions!

I will be sending a copy of this letter to your editor with a covering letter stating why you should not be allowed near a type writer, let alone a computer, ever again!

Yours informingly

Dan Hardy

[laser_jock99]

Hang fire on the Press Complaints bit.....

The Daily Record appears to be a Scottish version of The Sunday Sport!

Re-reading the article I'm not 100% sure if it's meant to be somewhat tonge-in-cheek?

Either way I've e-mailed her my opinion.

How dare SHE call US ugly....

[woody]

WOW what a great read
come on so many words and she done it without using any facts (thats clever)

why doesnt she put her efforts into Edinburgh's drug problem (i believe there is a major problem in Edinburgh), now that would benefit society

she forgets that its only footballers that can afford a car for the school run, a car for work (is kicking a ball work) a car for shopping and something for the weeekend

as for the willy debate we could have a poll :lol:  :lol:
the wife doesnt drive does that mean in the poll i would vote massive (liar)

i was still ugly when i drove a metro, i am proud of my looks, driving the metro not so poud of :lol:

as for tolls on roads if they tax on size then what about HGV's this would increase the cost of goods and the cost of living

and if they banned the largest engines on the road then they still wouldnt be happy as there would still be a 4x4 presence

[WishIhadaLandy]

not a single one of the complaints she has made about 4x4 couldn't be applied to at least one other type of car:

fuel emissions: anything with a big engine,
crash damage: has she never seen an MPV, van, bus, HGV, big merc/bmw etc.
ugly:what has that got to do with anything, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

no 4x4s within 10 miles of an urban area
sorry to all those people who can only afford 1 car, if its a 4x4 you cant go shopping, socialising, to work and i guess your gonna have to send your kids to boarding school or they will have to walk coz you cant take them.

Not difficult to work out where she was talking from when she said all that!!

[Lucy1978]

Emailed a reply to her

SO the Gas Guzzlers have been hit in the latest Budget, have they? You could have fuelled me.
I would call this measly 35 quid increase in their Excise Duty more of a mild scratch.

Actually, just to rub it in, the road tax increase for your average landy driver is about a fiver, quite a lot less than your average four door family car, yes I am laughing at you.

What it is, however, is a real shunt in the kisser to all those who of us who were conned into believing Gordy was finally going to do something to drive these motorised monstrosities off our crowded roads, particularly the city streets.
No one, I repeat NO ONE, who lives within a built-up area needs one. Not for shopping. Not for bussing the kids around. Not for posing. Not for anything.
All right, I'll make an exception, they're probably just about acceptable up on 4x4 bricks with the tyres removed.

But then who in a built up area needs a car?  just for your information, believe it or not a land rover discovery is shorter than a for focus, They aren't motorised monstrosities.  now the Nissan micra that IS a monstrosity.

But where they should never be seen is within 10 miles of any town centre or school.

Why? they have as much right to be there as you do, and the big thirsty ones more so as they pay more in fuel tax as they use more, so contribute a greater amount to the upkeep of the road network.
Don't let them be driven near either.

I accept in country places your trusty, rusty ( they're made from Aluminium Dear, which doesn't rust) old Land Rover is fine and handy for farmers taking sheep to market, but no yummy mummy who lives in an urban area needs a BMWX5 to drop her overweight pampered darlings off at the school gates.

True why don't they walk? though a little Fiat parked outside the school gates is just as bad as an X5.

Apart from anything else, it's dangerous because when these blasted, bloated, civilian tanks park outside - usually illegally because we've got a Range Rover and we don't give a damn about anyone - they block the view of other kids and drivers.

inconsiderate parking has nothing to do with the type of car being driven, there are just as many badly parked 'city' cars on the streets probably more as there are more of them.

But then they are dangerous full stop and period.  

How so? You get a far better view of the road, you can see over the badly parked saloons and see that little Johnny is about to run out from between them to his mum waiting in her mini parked illegally on the double yellows opposite the school gates and act accordingly.  True they maybe less forgiving if you do get hit by one but the chances of being it are much reduced due to the better visibility. Anyone who's dangerous driving a 4x4 would be just as bad in a metro.

Not, natch, for those who are perched up there above the hoi polloi thinking they are Kings and Queens of the highway.
They could well be safer but should they smash into anyone, the statistics show that the chances of serious injury to the other party is considerably higher than if they had been in an accident with a normal car.  

See above

I'd ban them altogether and if we can't do that they should have been taxed out of existence by doubling, trebling or yes, quadrupling the VAT on them - AND charging double for their petrol.

Sounds like jealousy "if I can't have one no one else should be able to."  Also Just as you are freely expressing your opinions here and everyone must respect your right to do so, however misinformed and misguided they are, Drivers have the right to express themselves in the free choice of the car they drive.  I don't like nissan micras but I don't go around writing misinformed newspaper articles about them.

There should also be special tolls when they use our jammedup pretendy motorways - which, in Scotland, are no more than clapped out dual carriageways.

You should welcome gas guzzling vehicles then the more fuel they burn the more revenue the government gets to maintain the network.

And don't even start me on the carbon emissions debate.

Lots of large engined 4x4s run on LPG which puts out far less particulates, CO, oxides of nitrogen than your average family car.

But it's not only a green issue.
They also look incredibly ugly and on the whole are driven by incredibly ugly people.

beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, there are some ugly cars out there but the majority are only 2 wheel drive.

I once suggested that in general the gents who bought them were making up for their deficiencies elsewhere - as in big car, small [wee john thomas].

Did you have a bad experience with a man who drove a 4x4? Is this why you're so against them, try talking to someone about it I feel you have a lot of pent up emotion.

But how, someone asked, did it explain all those women, usually blonde, invariably looking like refugees from Footballers' Wives, who also swan around it them?
Same thing, really.
They're making up for their partner's deficiencies in the bedroom department, aren't they?
I suppose I feel particularly aerated because I live in Edinburgh, how unfortunate for you which has more 4x4s than anywhere else.

Again making up 'facts' got anything to back that statement up?

We also have more bikes. Is it any wonder, friends, that I occasionally feel it is time to remember I am by birth, a Weegie, and come home again?


I hope this has cleared up some of your misconceptions

Kind regards

Chris

Oh and by the way my daily drive has only 2 driven wheels.

[Lee_D]

She may have a point. She clearly doesn't have a 4x4 and is clearly a big p*i*k.

How can she possibly say any 101 is ugly is she completely mad  :lol:

As the biggest growth sales market area for cars I'd say she would be about as popular as a dose of the runs in a space station.

She clearly needs to get out more... any volunteers to drop her off at the end of a green lane    Which reminds me must fit the shovel on the 101 again. :lol:

[Lee_D]

Dear J Burnie

Are they really paying you to produce this drivel? Indeed the fact that the Daily Record has even allowed you to grace it's web site with you ill informed and poorly supported opinion is in it's self beyond belief, consider the environmental impact of energy expended in publishing this rubbish.

You lash out with your tar brush against all those 4x4's outside the school gates. So no one else parks illegally or drives a "gas guzzler" eh.

I have a number of 4x4's... yes a NUMBER, I bet that's got you twitching hasn't it. Yet I'm a school governor responsible most recently for the refreshment of yellow lines outside our school and yet the main problem as I see it is not 4x4's but the ignorant, I include you in the "ignorant" as you clearly demonstrate you slot in to this category.

Mostly my fleet of 4x4's (oh the pain!) consume lots of gas... not Petrol, not Diesel but GAS (LPG) the product of which is far less destructive to the environment than the energy expended in publishing your drivel.

Oh and my wife uses a 4x4 to go to school, in fact she parks it there all day long... causing a major obstruction to er... the teachers car park. Why does she need one? Well her 4x4 is used to tow our Caravan on holidays across Europe because we don't like to think we are using Aircraft to put pollutants right on the O zone and which pay very little tax in consideration to our ground based environmental disasters you speak of. We could go and buy a Ka, but then we would have yet another car... how long would that Ka last? How much carbon emissions would be produced in the creation of that Ka? Far more than the emissions during it's life, yet the 4x4 will outlast such vehicles two fold.

Given the growth in 4x4 sales I'd imagine your comments will be as popular as a dose of the runs with the inhabitants of the European space station.

With regards to 4x4 owners being ugly, having done a quick trawl of the Daily Records web site and seen your picture I'd have to ask how your Humvee is running.

Go and expend your carbon emissions on something useful to society rather than being a drain in it before you start stereotyping others through what reads as jealousy.

Lee Davies.[/quote]

[mark.yellow.series.3]

this article so compleatly one sided and has no correct facts in it at all i dont think anyone will take it seriously.
the real problem is to get our side of the storey in the papers.

[Lucy1978]

With regards to 4x4 owners being ugly, having done a quick trawl of the Daily Records web site and seen your picture I'd have to ask how your Humvee is running.

 :lol:  ROFLMAO

[Ja1983]

"They also look incredibly ugly and on the whole are driven by incredibly ugly people.


I once suggested that in general the gents who bought them were making up for their deficiencies elsewhere - as in big car, small [wee john thomas]. "

i shall send her pic to disprove all of the above  8)  :lol:

...what a moron!

may right a reply to her:

"wh a wonderful article, i thouroughly enjoyed the 4 mins it took me, and havent laughed as much in quite some time!

following your article i have been inspired to think about how we can all make the world a better place, and i proposed that we should ban anything that promotes "fun" or practicality. this would completely eliminate the sense of desire/jealousy/greed amoungst the uman race as we know it!

afteral, there were no planetary crisis/drug problems/gun crime in the times of neanderthal man were there?!

i trust i have your full support on this and will be writing to mr blair in due course!

oh by the way, i have the herbal tea bag you dropped at yesturdays lesbian pottery class! i`ll return itto you when i`m passing your mud hut on my bicycle!"

...what a moron! :roll:

[note, these are my views, not mud-clubs! any complaint/support should be sent via a PM to myself!] 8)