neighbours stock ram im pretty sure its up to my shoulders standing up, prob a good 20cm higher then my lifted landcruiser which is already too dam big
I own a Hilux and both the RAM and the Chev Sivlerado's bonnets sit level with my head when parked next to me, they are massive cars with the only use case is being a tow vehicle and even then they should require a different license not because once you load them up and slap a van behind them they become basically a light truck.
The most important thing here is that everybody can buy whatever car they want and then use it however they like. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!!!! It’s a personal freedom of mine to not be able to park anywhere and then complain on Facebook about revenue raising whenever I get a ticket.
Tax reform.. get rid of LCT and replace with a new system. Introduce a state road tax that reflects the true cost of wear and tear on our infrastructure. Reform FBT to disincentivize novating these cars. Simple
Yeah why the fuck do we have a LCT when we no longer have a domestic car manufacturer?
Government on both sides can't give up the revenue. If they do, they need to introduce a new tax somewhere to make up the shortfall, and introducing a new tax is always a tough sell.
It was sold by Howard as a protection for local manufacturing when the GST was brought in, but it was really because they were worried about the optics of increasing grocery prices (due to GST) but at the same time reducing the price of luxury cars (due to removal of wholesale tax). one article
Hence don’t think of it as a protection measure, it’s just a tax. Like any tax, you can argue it’s fair or not fair or creates the behaviour you want or dont want
Remember every tax dollar no longer received due to abolishing the LCT is either a dollar not spent on a government service or is a dollar that is collected in some other way
Alternatively, the government could be a bit more discerning in the types of deals made, and the contracts signed. Maybe if compensation due to non fulfilment of contract not be a thing, and the Australian taxpayer can benefit from tens of, or hundred of billions of, dollars which could be spent on .. I don’t know … everyday Australians rather than shareholders.
Also start to classify the larger vehicles (SUV and UTEs) as they're own class and apply proper regulations on them instead of light commercial vehicles allowing them to avoid a vast number of safety regulations.
E.g. the angled bonnet. The new utes and SUVs have a flat fking wall on the front leaving pedestrians with little to no chance of survival when impacted.
And also make the compulsory third party insurance for these vehicles reflect the enormous toll that they're causing to the community. Given the escalating road toll, it should be multiplied by several times to provide full compensation to the victims of these cars, and to deter the idiots from buying them.
Unfortunately wear and tear has issues as I understand it. If that were the sole factor, nobody except full trucks/semis etc would pay anything, as any car - even a Ram - doesn’t even come close to the damage trucks do. Weight also cause issues with transition to EVs, as they are heavier than their corresponding combustion models.
There is a lot to do in this space with various factors, but honestly the easiest for my mind would be taxing on the basis of pure size in the passenger car market, and getting exponential as you go. Obviously would need to excuse actual delivery vehicles, or vehicles that need to be a certain size for actual work. And ignore any tradesperson who says they need an American truck size for work, we all know that is crap - any van is much more practical and carries much more.
30 or 40 tonnes of truck or 20 tonnes of bus is what roads are designed for.
I laugh every time I hear people regurgitate the "heavy EV" bullshit.
A model Y weighs 1780 a ranger single cab chassis (without anything) is 1789 and a top spec corolla is 1560kg a RAV4 is 1680kg.
The real ridiculous is actually in the hybrid space. A Byd Shark is 2.7 tonnes, vs a Raptor (like go power for power here) which is 2.4 tonnes. Having >both< is silly. But you don't see the auto industry saying anything about hybrids, and they know hybrids still lock people into the service model for 10 more years, and keep the oil industry going.
Plumbers and sparky maybe a van. Chippys not so much. Their trailers often weigh in at the 3.5t limit and often more. Now the cruiser has an overrated engine these will be the only realistic option
I miss when we had Australian cars. Things that looked like they were meant to be here. Fitted in everywhere. Had little features or functions that aligned with Australian life….
My dad still drives a made in Australia Ford Falcon. It’s his pride and joy, but it looks so different to everything else on the road now compared to 20 years ago.
I daily my AU Ute. I have a second one stored so I can keep driving a Ute when the first one finally dies.
Like - I am bogan as. I have something thrown in the back every other week. I love it. Perfectly fits my life and lifestyle. I mostly drive around towns and cities, but get out and do long highway miles every so often. A lot of the time I want to carry something.
There is nothing on the market that matches like a Ute. New sepowanktanks requires you to lift stuff up to chest height to get it in the back. The tray isn’t that big considering the size. They are well over powered for 99.999% of stuff - I need a try for a couch, a stack of timber, tools, a bed. 99.99% size is the limiting factor. It’s not often that weight is.
I tow everything I could imagine. If I needed to tow a 5 ton caravan for the holidays or a boat, I could rent a truck for 2 weeks of the year and that would be cheaper than just the tyre cost differences.
Yeah my dad has a Falcon ute as well for his daily, and he’s still got his XR6 that he’s now just maintaining as a passion project. Both have a lot of grunt. I think he also inherited my pop’s Falcon when he passed earlier this year and is maintaining that too.
Because he’s had Falcons all my life, I actually find the sound of them very comforting, funnily enough. They sound like my childhood.
I grew up in the back of a HQ station wagon. Spent a lot of time in the passenger seat of a HQ one tonner work Ute. Learnt to drive in a HJ sedan 3 on the tree.
I’ve never driven any of my Dad’s Falcons, he reckons they’d be a bit heavy and unwieldy for me to drive. My stepmother won’t drive any of his cars for that reason.
I’m also only on my red Ps, and tested in an auto so I wouldn’t legally be able to drive his cars anyway since they’re all manuals. Maybe one day!
They were a lot of Australiana first car. And if you like it - consider resitting the test for a manual. A fail doesnt do anything and a pass means you can drive more.
The big yank tanks probably do. But smaller vehicles typically don't any more (or have a dedicated space for one) and have a space saver instead. Which might be fine if you're in the city and can drive home/to a tyre shop at 60km/h and under 15km, but just not good enough for many regional areas.
So where there used to be a lot of Ford/Holden/Toyota sedans, station wagons, and even hatchbacks as second cars in regional areas, that's another thing that will stop someone from buying a smaller vehicle instead of a large 4wd/suv.
I live in central Victoria. I can assure you, more and more people are getting smaller cars. We just got a ford focus. It’s top of the range, but 10years old. Gets 5l per 100km. For us, it’s a game changer. To visit a friend, my daughter will clock up 80km easy. That’s 4l, at two dollars a litre. My Pajero is almost double that. 16 dollars in fuel (and wear and tear) just to visit a friend is a lot. Ten times a fortnight and it adds up. Then there’s the trips to work… school. It’s a 60km run to get groceries. In Melbourne, you’ve got public transport. In the bush: we’re increasingly trading in our four wheel drives for something a lot more economical.
You mean sorta like the 3 Wildtracks I’ve seen blow a gearbox while doing fuck all? One of them was towing a single axle tool trailer that a flogged out Hilux that can’t do 100km anymore has no issue towing.
I can't help but strongly judge the owners of these vehicles, particularly yank tanks like Rams, and Silverados. They chose to buy a vehicle that doesn't really fit in parking spots, making it infuriating for those that might be beside them (unless they take two spots which they love doing). They don't fit on many of our roads, a few weeks ago I saw a RAM and large Toyota SUV unable to pass each other on Cleveland Street in inner Sydney (despite each having their own lane) as they were too scared they would scrape. They cause alternating traffic on inner city lanes and alleys because they take up 2/3rds of the road, and guess who's yielding? (Hint, not the tank) They use significantly more petrol than many vehicles, as they work to try and kill our planet. That's even before you learn how deadly they are. Absolute best vehicle if you're looking to commit manslaughter during the school run. It's also great at killing more people in normal traffic collisions! Buying these vehicles is an incredibly selfish act and if you have one, you're a prick.
One of my radical opinions is that cars above a certain size should be illegal to drive in residential streets or anywhere they might interact with pedestrians. (exceptions for service vehicles actually providing a service etc. etc., but absolutely no private vehicles)
I blame the super-bright "projector" style headlights as a major contributor. As the number of them increased, it subconsciously caused people to choose taller vehicles which are almost always larger.
I used to have a small two door car which was very low to the ground. By about 2018 it became impossible to drive safely at night because of those headlights continually blinding me.
I also think that there is an effective "cold war" on vehicle sizes, because you feel safer having a larger car than others and with the median vehicle size increasing, it subconsciously increased the desire for larger vehicles to stay safe.
With those two factors combined, I think it had a significant impact on vehicle choices in the last 20 years.
On a lot of them the problem is the low beams are still very bright and although they're cut off they still are in the eyes of anyone driving a small car. It wasn't until I drove an SUV that I realized that from up high you don't get the light in your eyes nearly as much.
The government should remove the outdated Luxury Car Tax - it’s an unnecessary tariff on German and Italian cars. We are a wealthy nation and we need more European cars on our roads to reflect that. I’ve heard that Labor is considering removing it as part of an EU trade agreement.
With no domestic car manufacturing, Australia imports vehicles shaped by global production trends, many of which trickle down from United States policies that reward larger vehicles.
Two subtle US policy features explain why.
First, the “SUV loophole”: under US law, most SUVs are classified as light trucks, meaning they’re subject to less stringent fuel-efficiency and crash-safety standards than passenger cars.
Second, under US fuel economy rules, fuel-efficiency targets are adjusted based on the size of the vehicle’s “footprint” — the area between its wheels. In practice, this means larger vehicles are allowed to consume more fuel while still meeting the target.
...
There’s a physical mismatch between large and small vehicles that usually transfers the danger from the occupants of the bigger car to everyone else.
...
Car-to-car collisions:
Collisions between large SUVs and smaller cars show occupants of a smaller vehicle face about 30% higher risk of dying or sustaining serious injury.
A 500kg increase in vehicle weight is linked to a 70% higher fatality risk for occupants of the lighter car.
For every fatal accident avoided inside a large vehicle, there are around 4.3 additional deaths among other road users.
Car-to-pedestrian and cyclist collisions:
Pedestrians struck by SUVs are about 25% more likely to sustain serious injuries and 40–45% more likely to die than those hit by smaller cars.
For children, the outcomes are far worse: they are up to eight times more likely to die when hit by an SUV than by a small car.
Each 10cm increase in front-end height raises the fatality risk for pedestrians by roughly 20%.
Tall and blunt fronts (vertical or nearly upright front design) are associated with more than a 40% increase in pedestrian death when compared with low and sloped front ends.
These differences help explain why US pedestrian deaths — once on a steady decline — have climbed back to their highest level since the early 1980s.
Policy can make a difference
Taxes and size-dependant registration fees could potentially offset some of the extra costs of heavier vehicles on roads surfaces, congestion and emissions, or regulate demand.
Two measures would make a tangible difference:
Licence testing by vehicle class
Many drivers obtain their licence in a small sedan but can legally drive a two-tonne ute the next day. Yet, larger vehicles demand different manoeuvring skills, longer braking distances and greater spatial awareness.
Requiring a practical test in a vehicle of comparable size to what the driver intends to drive (or a streamlined license upgrade for an experienced driver when upsizing) would acknowledge that added responsibility.
The reform would also carry a symbolic message: driving a heavier vehicle comes with greater responsibility.
Penalties scaled to impact potential
A ute or SUV travelling 10kmh over the limit carries greater kinetic energy and longer stopping distance than a small sedan.
A tiered approach – where fines or demerit points scale with vehicle mass – would better reflect the disproportionate risk that bigger cars pose.
If Australia is serious about reducing road trauma, these are the kinds of targeted, evidence-based adjustments that should be considered.
US CAFE regulations, and specifically their rules around trucks and SUVs, are one of the greatest environmental and road safety disasters of the last 30 years.
Yeah the SUV loophole is nonsense and means nothing here. We aren’t buying US style SUVs, the SUVs that we buy are rav 4 or cx30 type cars - these are way too small to fit that loophole.
What is crazy is that we extended the loophole to Australia. Under our emissions regulations any SUV or Ute over 3.5 tons is exempt from having to meet any emissions standards!
They forced that change on us as part of the "free trade" deal with the US. And now Trump's renegged on their side of the free trade deal, but we still have their crappy American laws they forced on us.
Pretty much just American imports, Chevy Silverado, Ford-F250, RAM2500 all go up to 4.49GVM (the legal limit for car drivers license).
Or you can get aftermarket upgrades for your Toyota Prado or Mitsubishi Pajero but I'm not sure how aftermarket upgrades interact with the manufacturers emission regulation requirements.
The Prado and Everest both outsold the CX5 in 1H 2025. In order, the top 10 selling vehicles were the Ranger, Hilux, RAV4, Prado, D-Max, Everest, CX-5, Outlander, Kona and Sportage.
That doesn’t mean anything though. If you want a big SUV you only have 2 or 3 to choose from so each individual model looks like a high seller, if you want a small Corolla cross size suv then you have dozens to choose from.
So a Tucson, sportage, rav 4, cx5, c trail, asx, crv, Tiguan, Forster, q3, cx 30, Corolla cross, Kona, seltos, outback etc etc have their sales spread across all those models. Everest doesn’t
Just remove the fuel and tax incentives from these vehicles. Many of them are registered as commercial trucks where they are largely used for groceries and school pickups.
If you genuinely need a big truck for work, then that’s fine, but a government focussed on the future will continue to incentivise EVs in metro areas over large diesel utes and SUVs.
I think the fact that I still daily see AU-BF Utes with custom made job specific backends doing work, and I’ve never seen a sepowanktank with anything on it other then a factory fitted hardtop thats never been removed is sorta telling.
There is no work application where a vehicle the size of a yank tank is necessary that isn't better served by using a proper work truck like Isuzu N-Series or Hino 300-Series. Because they are proper commercial vehicles, they have a greater carrying and towing capacity, and most important being cab over designs, forward visibility.
I delight in checking registrations of monster trucks at campgrounds, surprisingly a lot are registered as commercial vehicles, which is fine if you keep track of the time used as such for tax-time, but…. They do an awful lot of building in Japan with Suzuki Carrys! Big tray at the right level for loading. Not so good for towing your caravan or “off-roading” to a Big-4 though.
Just put thick height barriers across car parks in towns and cities. If they can't park them anywhere then they will soon get fed up and downsize. Also increase parking fees for monster trucks, and at the same time have dedicated tradie parking.
Most of the blokes I see driving them are well into their 60s or older and don't look they have done a days labour in their lives.
Change rego from being based on engine size to vehicle weight. Change licensing to have an upper weight limit on standard car license and class others as light trucks etc. Lastly, don't allow towing trailers/caravans without a special license.
Then price point them to reduce people buying them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; reduce the threshold of what constitutes a heavy vehicle from 4.5t to 3t.
You could also charge by weight for registration, and encourage councils to install more “small car only” spaces and fine motorists for taking up multiple spaces.
I live in an apartment building and we frequently get trucks taking up two car spaces. If they got ticketed more often it might make a difference I guess, would be an easy thing to increase penalties for.
Road rules would need to be updated on a state level before councils could do anything like that.
There are explicit exceptions in the rules allowing large vehicles to use spaces that are too small for them. Need to get rid of those first before small car restrictions could be enforced.
Grimly and following the example of the Bondi massacre, I think the only way it gets done is if someone goes on a rampage and kills a whole lot of people with a yank tank.
Politics has become a game of upset minimisation, unless they are given cover and impetus from some sort of horrific incident.
The cost of a car's rego should be determined by weight and length. Larger American style pickups and oversized SUVs should be classified in a different category which requires more stringent license conditions.
Bigger cars are less safe for pedestrians, exacerbate congestion, create greater wear and tear on the road, and go against pretty much every modern idea of urbanism. The fact that we have let it get to this level is a sad indictment on our governments at all levels. Now we are in this kind of size arms race and we have normalised cars basically being these antisocial objects where the individual's desires supersede everyone else's rights to live safely and healthily.
Just to drop the kids off at school and grocery runs, complete waste of money and it’s more about flashing how much cash these people have. Oh not to mention how they don’t know how to park them either.
I drive a small car and almost every time I drive I have a close call with a SVU. They either don't see you or they just don't care and just throw their huge SVU at you knowing you'll be the one to move
For years ive wanted a 4x4 but it bugged me that they are huge & i didnt want to be that guy that pisses ppl off. I compromised & bout a jimny instead. Very happy with the choice. Small, compact, rugged & does everything if not more than those huge yank tanks.
It can be but i put a full rhino rack on, towbar. I have a mini box trailer. With the rear seats down, it's ample room. I was more concerned with the power, as its a small engine. Not the best for long road trips. Great for metropolitan drives, excellent in city traffic, parking is so easy & very economical. It's a little beast out bush though.
Article makes some very good, valid points and that’s without going into the added dangers and inconvenience caused by them dangerously narrowing roads when parked on the street, and providing lack of visibility for other drivers when parked and when driving. They also cause more potential hazards in car parks due to reduced visibility trying to get around them and the fact they often don’t fit in car park spaces.
For most drivers, they are really unnecessary and they also increase the risk for greater environmental damage due to more people owning them and potentially going off-road with them more because they can.
Other end of the wedge is all the small cars that can't be sold here anymore due to the latest safety rating requirements. On the other hand you could argue that all the extra collision avoidance tech and emergency braking would counter and reduce such incident.
Personally would prefer a lighter more simple ute for a work vehicle but they just don't exist anymore in Australia and with the newer gen PHEV and EVs coming to market pushing closer to 3t I don't see it changing anytime soon.
There still exists as well many road users that actually use the large SUVs for their intended purpose. Plenty of other oblivious drivers out there driving way over the GVM however
Im in a catch 22 at the moment, currently drive a falcon Ute with steel tray back for work (builder) I carry materials from timber,bricks,blue metal aggregate and the like so a van will not work for me but I desperately need a new car as the upkeep on this one is going to kill my bottom line eventually. Already redone the suspension once and numerous other engine issues over its few hundred thousand km life.
Now looking at new utes the Hilux doesn’t have a big enough tray and we no longer make a trady style small Ute locally.
I may soon be one of these wankers and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.
Car manufacturers have been making bigger and bigger cars with less and less substance for generations now. I saw someone driving a tiny little falcon muscle car the other day. These were just about the biggest cars on the road back then. Quantity does not equal quality. But, if you need to compensate for something…
Why don’t we: tax larger vehicles more and pass on the revenue as incentives for smaller vehicle and green purchases. Give primary producers an exemption for the full tax, but not to tradies. Young tradies buy these cars, write off the costs, and are incentivised to take them out in the countryside and screw up our fragile ecosystems.
God I despise these fucking cancers. They're ugly as sin, empower drivers to be absolute bastards, take up so much space in parking and on the road, and they waste fuel to boot! IMO if you can't show that you have an actual use for a vehicle of this size that you can't do with a smaller one, you shouldn't be allowed to own it.
I miss the days of the good old utes, the beauties from the 70s and 80s. Those had style. At this point I don't trust a tradie if he has a vehicle under a decade old.
I have no idea why we seem to be going the way of America preferring oversized vehicles. Even when I was in the trades a normal sized van with a sliding door was far more convenient to use. At least they cater to them with bigger roads and parking lots in the US. They should put them all in the luxury category to be taxed because lets face it they are a luxury most people that own them do not need.
One of the things that annoys me in this article and so many other articles is, they focus on actual crashes. Yes, heavier vehicle is more likely to kill someone in a lighter vehicle and it is important to mention that. However, what they don't talk about is the risk of unsafe behaviours, both due to frustration and neccesity) for lower vehicles.
An example of one due to frustration is wanting to turn left onto a road when their is a tall vehicle wanting to turn right. I cannot see past that vehicle, so either you creep forward potentiallyputting your nose in the through traffic lane, or just sit and wait until the big vehicle leaves. 95% of the time I just wait but occasionally the frustration after waiting for a couple of minutes gets to you. Yes, I know I need to be better in that instance.
An example where you are forced to do something unsafe is in car parks. If you end up in a park with a tall vehicle next to you, you cannot see pedestrians or moving vehicles when exiting the car park. I always reverse park in 90 degree bays to minimise this risk. However, I still need to creep into the traffic lane just to see past the tailgate of the ute next to me. Reversing out, you would just have to yolo it.
If there’s one thing the govt is real good at it’s sin taxes. Make rego and other costs eye watering. I can’t see a black market of trucks like the ciggie shops
I hate large cars. They are more expensive, more dangerous for everyone and worse for the environment. The only thing they are good for is making more money for the corporation.
I'm happy in my i30 and I hope my next car is even smaller.
What they should do is close the emissions loophole. Under Australian NVES utes up to 3.5 GVM have to keep their emissions down to around 210g/km but SUV’s over 3.5 GVM (like dodge rams) have no emissions target and can emit an unlimited amount.
Put a tax on the blunt fronts. With an increase for every 10 cm over the initial 80 cm.
Get rid of free parking. Make all the parking close to the entrance of anything be for small cars, and the larger parks can be as far from the entrance as possible. And charge for the amount of space a vehicle takes up.
YES on all fronts. Especially about the blunt fronts. It's so totally unnecessary and directly leads to excess pedestrian deaths.
The front on my pajero is small and sloping compared to these yank tanks. But it fits everthing it needs to just fine. Plus I can actually see what's in front of me.
Only thing I would change, is an outright ban on fronts over a certain height.
So many of these cars have an artificially tall front bumper.
The nose of a Nissan Navarra is mostly air for a solid foot, there’s no engineering reason it can’t slope in earlier to refuse its frontal impact height.
There's a marketing reason though. That raised hood looks "tough" and from the conversations I've had thats more than half the reason a lot of people want them.
Yank tanks for anything other than actual trades are worse in every category.
* Safety: statistically more likely to kill anyone involved in a collision, pedestrian or otherwise.
* Fuel: makes us more vulnerable to oil prices cause they consume way more.
* Emissions: bad not only for the climate but for air quality and general health, especially in children.
* Road Wear: every time you 2x the weight of a car you increase damage to the road by 16x so their share of rego is artificially low
In the EU they regulate this kind of stuff with better standards that actually protect consumers so we don’t have to think about this stuff
I find myself driving less these days as I don’t feel as safe as I used to with large SUVs / utes being so popular and so many distracted drivers on the road. Guess I could just buy a giant vehicle too but I’d rather not be part of the problem and find smaller cars more fun to drive.
Maybe i'm misjudging it, but did it seem like these just totally flooded the market very fast a few years back? Because if that was the case, i wonder if it was done on purpose to avoid any political action being taken against them, because once enough people drive them, no politician would want to risk upsetting their constituency by talking about a ban, or higher rego cost, or a different license category with more testing, etc
It a reason why pedestrian deaths have increased. Drivers can’t see people as well and if they hit somebody the pedestrian doesn’t go up over the bonnet and reduce the impact. The cars are like hitting a wall.
When I was out doing political letterboxing for The Greens in the far-western suburbs of my electorate, I noticed that all the households had "his and hers" cars. A giant ute for "him", and depending on the income level of the household, a Corola or a RAV4 for "her".
A van is actually a much more practical car for most people who need to move around tools etc for work, and the trays of most of those Utes had definitey never seen a load of gravel.
Maybe make rego/TAC fees increase based on vehicle weight. Seeing as heavier cars do more damage to not only roads but also other cars in the event of an accident. One of my cars weighs 900kg and it costs about the same in rego as my mates 2500kg 4x4...
I fuckin hate these cars so much and I wish we would regulate them. Make it harder for new ones to come in and maybe 4x the rego costs for the ones already here please
Bought to you courtesy of Australia not having a vehicle emissions standard prior to this year and because Australia no longer manufactures vehicles, the article stated that these cars imported are American standard.
Rego of $365/year for something Corolla sized. That’s big enough for pretty much all usual driving needs. Even a family of 4.
Anything bigger than that “standardised” footprint gets an extra yearly charge:
$1 per mm wider
$1 per engine CC extra
$1 per kg heavier
$1 per mm longer
This would mean your average small SUV might be $1000/year (possibly a bit cheaper than currently), but a 6m long, 6.0L v8, 3000kg wank tank might be $10,000/ year.
Double demerits for monster truck drivers. They should have to be extra careful because they can't see other cars or pedestrians, and getting the careless ones off the roads quicker would improve safety for everyone else.
How about making these large cars electric fueled only from now on. Otherwise, I don't care if they are big or not. Their size is no skin of my nose. 🤷♀️
Some of these statistics are very misleading though. While car sizes have increased, using SUV percentage as evidence is not relevant, as many tiny hatches are called SUVs now, some are less than 900kg and well under 4 metres in length.
That's more that the proportion changed, there used to be a few niche small 4WDs from Suzuki and Daihatsu etc. The November numbers are; 15,621 small SUVs, 29,213 medium SUVs, and 12,578 large SUVs, along with 16,258 utes (they may be lumped in with vans).
Except for height, and usually mass, they aren't really bigger than the corresponding segment of passenger cars.
You mean regulation? Nah that’s crazy talk
lol, in South Australia we are making regulations to make these more accessible so people can fit them in there garage. It’s shit.
i rode past a lifted one on Brighton Rd the other day
the bonnet was higher than the top of my helmet 💀
neighbours stock ram im pretty sure its up to my shoulders standing up, prob a good 20cm higher then my lifted landcruiser which is already too dam big
RAMs are such obscene cars. Just so unnecessary.
I own a Hilux and both the RAM and the Chev Sivlerado's bonnets sit level with my head when parked next to me, they are massive cars with the only use case is being a tow vehicle and even then they should require a different license not because once you load them up and slap a van behind them they become basically a light truck.
That didn't get passed iirc. Even a lot of Labor politicians think it's dumb.
Nanny state behaviour.
The most important thing here is that everybody can buy whatever car they want and then use it however they like. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!!!! It’s a personal freedom of mine to not be able to park anywhere and then complain on Facebook about revenue raising whenever I get a ticket.
Tax reform.. get rid of LCT and replace with a new system. Introduce a state road tax that reflects the true cost of wear and tear on our infrastructure. Reform FBT to disincentivize novating these cars. Simple
Yeah why the fuck do we have a LCT when we no longer have a domestic car manufacturer?
Government on both sides can't give up the revenue. If they do, they need to introduce a new tax somewhere to make up the shortfall, and introducing a new tax is always a tough sell.
My neighbour wants to show how macho he is to his wife so she feels like sleeping with him every night. Bigger car makes women like their men more.
It was sold by Howard as a protection for local manufacturing when the GST was brought in, but it was really because they were worried about the optics of increasing grocery prices (due to GST) but at the same time reducing the price of luxury cars (due to removal of wholesale tax). one article
Hence don’t think of it as a protection measure, it’s just a tax. Like any tax, you can argue it’s fair or not fair or creates the behaviour you want or dont want
Remember every tax dollar no longer received due to abolishing the LCT is either a dollar not spent on a government service or is a dollar that is collected in some other way
Alternatively, the government could be a bit more discerning in the types of deals made, and the contracts signed. Maybe if compensation due to non fulfilment of contract not be a thing, and the Australian taxpayer can benefit from tens of, or hundred of billions of, dollars which could be spent on .. I don’t know … everyday Australians rather than shareholders.
Which contracts are you talking about?
Will be a lot spent on the big 4 for consulting
Also start to classify the larger vehicles (SUV and UTEs) as they're own class and apply proper regulations on them instead of light commercial vehicles allowing them to avoid a vast number of safety regulations.
E.g. the angled bonnet. The new utes and SUVs have a flat fking wall on the front leaving pedestrians with little to no chance of survival when impacted.
And also make the compulsory third party insurance for these vehicles reflect the enormous toll that they're causing to the community. Given the escalating road toll, it should be multiplied by several times to provide full compensation to the victims of these cars, and to deter the idiots from buying them.
Unfortunately wear and tear has issues as I understand it. If that were the sole factor, nobody except full trucks/semis etc would pay anything, as any car - even a Ram - doesn’t even come close to the damage trucks do. Weight also cause issues with transition to EVs, as they are heavier than their corresponding combustion models.
There is a lot to do in this space with various factors, but honestly the easiest for my mind would be taxing on the basis of pure size in the passenger car market, and getting exponential as you go. Obviously would need to excuse actual delivery vehicles, or vehicles that need to be a certain size for actual work. And ignore any tradesperson who says they need an American truck size for work, we all know that is crap - any van is much more practical and carries much more.
30 or 40 tonnes of truck or 20 tonnes of bus is what roads are designed for.
I laugh every time I hear people regurgitate the "heavy EV" bullshit.
A model Y weighs 1780 a ranger single cab chassis (without anything) is 1789 and a top spec corolla is 1560kg a RAV4 is 1680kg.
The real ridiculous is actually in the hybrid space. A Byd Shark is 2.7 tonnes, vs a Raptor (like go power for power here) which is 2.4 tonnes. Having >both< is silly. But you don't see the auto industry saying anything about hybrids, and they know hybrids still lock people into the service model for 10 more years, and keep the oil industry going.
Single trailer semi about 40 tonne. B-double around 60 tonne, road train 80-120 tonne.
The weight of a Tesla Model Y for the 2025 model year varies by drivetrain and battery configuration. In 2025, curb weights typically range from
4,154 lbs (1,884 kg) to 4,416 lbs (2,003 kg)
By the same token, the 2025/6 Ranger single cab chassis weighs ~2500kg.
Granted, it's now 4WD - but it still weighs 25% more than the AWD version of the MY.
Plumbers and sparky maybe a van. Chippys not so much. Their trailers often weigh in at the 3.5t limit and often more. Now the cruiser has an overrated engine these will be the only realistic option
Police constantly checking compliance of modified trucks would be good too. Two strikes and impound and crush the vehicle.
I miss when we had Australian cars. Things that looked like they were meant to be here. Fitted in everywhere. Had little features or functions that aligned with Australian life….
My dad still drives a made in Australia Ford Falcon. It’s his pride and joy, but it looks so different to everything else on the road now compared to 20 years ago.
I daily my AU Ute. I have a second one stored so I can keep driving a Ute when the first one finally dies.
Like - I am bogan as. I have something thrown in the back every other week. I love it. Perfectly fits my life and lifestyle. I mostly drive around towns and cities, but get out and do long highway miles every so often. A lot of the time I want to carry something.
There is nothing on the market that matches like a Ute. New sepowanktanks requires you to lift stuff up to chest height to get it in the back. The tray isn’t that big considering the size. They are well over powered for 99.999% of stuff - I need a try for a couch, a stack of timber, tools, a bed. 99.99% size is the limiting factor. It’s not often that weight is.
I tow everything I could imagine. If I needed to tow a 5 ton caravan for the holidays or a boat, I could rent a truck for 2 weeks of the year and that would be cheaper than just the tyre cost differences.
Yeah my dad has a Falcon ute as well for his daily, and he’s still got his XR6 that he’s now just maintaining as a passion project. Both have a lot of grunt. I think he also inherited my pop’s Falcon when he passed earlier this year and is maintaining that too.
Because he’s had Falcons all my life, I actually find the sound of them very comforting, funnily enough. They sound like my childhood.
I grew up in the back of a HQ station wagon. Spent a lot of time in the passenger seat of a HQ one tonner work Ute. Learnt to drive in a HJ sedan 3 on the tree.
Same deal.
I’ve never driven any of my Dad’s Falcons, he reckons they’d be a bit heavy and unwieldy for me to drive. My stepmother won’t drive any of his cars for that reason.
I’m also only on my red Ps, and tested in an auto so I wouldn’t legally be able to drive his cars anyway since they’re all manuals. Maybe one day!
They were a lot of Australiana first car. And if you like it - consider resitting the test for a manual. A fail doesnt do anything and a pass means you can drive more.
I had a au Ute. Loved it. But the car was a fuel guzzler.
We have 2x fg, 1 eb, el falcons and a ve commodore all as daily drivers at work
There was a vz at one stage, but it decided it no longer needed its bottom end lol
Think Dad’s retired Falcon is an EF XR6. Quite a beast.
Commodores and Falcons were pretty much the ideal aussie car. They could:
Seat 4 comfortably.
Drive long distances comfortably.
Had enough boot space for your luggage.
Could cart the caravan/boat along as well.
Could navigate a westfield carpark.
Came in ute versions for the tradies.
Why do people want Rams/Raptors etc over what we had 20 years ago?
Like spare tyres (and a space for them), and a tow bar. Without it having to be a giant piece of crap.
Wait - do the new trucks not have a tyre under the bed? I just assumed thats half the reason they are so tall?
The big yank tanks probably do. But smaller vehicles typically don't any more (or have a dedicated space for one) and have a space saver instead. Which might be fine if you're in the city and can drive home/to a tyre shop at 60km/h and under 15km, but just not good enough for many regional areas.
So where there used to be a lot of Ford/Holden/Toyota sedans, station wagons, and even hatchbacks as second cars in regional areas, that's another thing that will stop someone from buying a smaller vehicle instead of a large 4wd/suv.
Oh. Yeah - some of them just come with a patch kit and not even a space saver.
That said - tyre punctures are wildly less common then they use to be.
Space saver, a lot of dedicated road cars have a can of goo based on hopes and dreams.
I live in central Victoria. I can assure you, more and more people are getting smaller cars. We just got a ford focus. It’s top of the range, but 10years old. Gets 5l per 100km. For us, it’s a game changer. To visit a friend, my daughter will clock up 80km easy. That’s 4l, at two dollars a litre. My Pajero is almost double that. 16 dollars in fuel (and wear and tear) just to visit a friend is a lot. Ten times a fortnight and it adds up. Then there’s the trips to work… school. It’s a 60km run to get groceries. In Melbourne, you’ve got public transport. In the bush: we’re increasingly trading in our four wheel drives for something a lot more economical.
Like the lack of working handbrake on the BA falcon and VZ commodores blowing motors, better times!
You mean sorta like the 3 Wildtracks I’ve seen blow a gearbox while doing fuck all? One of them was towing a single axle tool trailer that a flogged out Hilux that can’t do 100km anymore has no issue towing.
I find the Japanese language systems in some New Zealand cars very charming.
I can't help but strongly judge the owners of these vehicles, particularly yank tanks like Rams, and Silverados. They chose to buy a vehicle that doesn't really fit in parking spots, making it infuriating for those that might be beside them (unless they take two spots which they love doing). They don't fit on many of our roads, a few weeks ago I saw a RAM and large Toyota SUV unable to pass each other on Cleveland Street in inner Sydney (despite each having their own lane) as they were too scared they would scrape. They cause alternating traffic on inner city lanes and alleys because they take up 2/3rds of the road, and guess who's yielding? (Hint, not the tank) They use significantly more petrol than many vehicles, as they work to try and kill our planet. That's even before you learn how deadly they are. Absolute best vehicle if you're looking to commit manslaughter during the school run. It's also great at killing more people in normal traffic collisions! Buying these vehicles is an incredibly selfish act and if you have one, you're a prick.
No large vehicle should have a good safety rating
One of my radical opinions is that cars above a certain size should be illegal to drive in residential streets or anywhere they might interact with pedestrians. (exceptions for service vehicles actually providing a service etc. etc., but absolutely no private vehicles)
Safety ratings shouldn't just be counted for the occupants, and should take into account other vehicles
I blame the super-bright "projector" style headlights as a major contributor. As the number of them increased, it subconsciously caused people to choose taller vehicles which are almost always larger.
I used to have a small two door car which was very low to the ground. By about 2018 it became impossible to drive safely at night because of those headlights continually blinding me.
I also think that there is an effective "cold war" on vehicle sizes, because you feel safer having a larger car than others and with the median vehicle size increasing, it subconsciously increased the desire for larger vehicles to stay safe.
With those two factors combined, I think it had a significant impact on vehicle choices in the last 20 years.
On a lot of them the problem is the low beams are still very bright and although they're cut off they still are in the eyes of anyone driving a small car. It wasn't until I drove an SUV that I realized that from up high you don't get the light in your eyes nearly as much.
The government should remove the outdated Luxury Car Tax - it’s an unnecessary tariff on German and Italian cars. We are a wealthy nation and we need more European cars on our roads to reflect that. I’ve heard that Labor is considering removing it as part of an EU trade agreement.
Monkey paw closes, sales of American pickups increase.
With no domestic car manufacturing, Australia imports vehicles shaped by global production trends, many of which trickle down from United States policies that reward larger vehicles.
Two subtle US policy features explain why.
First, the “SUV loophole”: under US law, most SUVs are classified as light trucks, meaning they’re subject to less stringent fuel-efficiency and crash-safety standards than passenger cars.
Second, under US fuel economy rules, fuel-efficiency targets are adjusted based on the size of the vehicle’s “footprint” — the area between its wheels. In practice, this means larger vehicles are allowed to consume more fuel while still meeting the target.
...
There’s a physical mismatch between large and small vehicles that usually transfers the danger from the occupants of the bigger car to everyone else.
...
Car-to-car collisions:
Collisions between large SUVs and smaller cars show occupants of a smaller vehicle face about 30% higher risk of dying or sustaining serious injury.
A 500kg increase in vehicle weight is linked to a 70% higher fatality risk for occupants of the lighter car.
For every fatal accident avoided inside a large vehicle, there are around 4.3 additional deaths among other road users.
Car-to-pedestrian and cyclist collisions:
Pedestrians struck by SUVs are about 25% more likely to sustain serious injuries and 40–45% more likely to die than those hit by smaller cars.
For children, the outcomes are far worse: they are up to eight times more likely to die when hit by an SUV than by a small car.
Each 10cm increase in front-end height raises the fatality risk for pedestrians by roughly 20%.
Tall and blunt fronts (vertical or nearly upright front design) are associated with more than a 40% increase in pedestrian death when compared with low and sloped front ends.
These differences help explain why US pedestrian deaths — once on a steady decline — have climbed back to their highest level since the early 1980s.
Policy can make a difference
Taxes and size-dependant registration fees could potentially offset some of the extra costs of heavier vehicles on roads surfaces, congestion and emissions, or regulate demand.
Two measures would make a tangible difference:
Licence testing by vehicle class
Many drivers obtain their licence in a small sedan but can legally drive a two-tonne ute the next day. Yet, larger vehicles demand different manoeuvring skills, longer braking distances and greater spatial awareness.
Requiring a practical test in a vehicle of comparable size to what the driver intends to drive (or a streamlined license upgrade for an experienced driver when upsizing) would acknowledge that added responsibility.
The reform would also carry a symbolic message: driving a heavier vehicle comes with greater responsibility.
Penalties scaled to impact potential
A ute or SUV travelling 10kmh over the limit carries greater kinetic energy and longer stopping distance than a small sedan.
A tiered approach – where fines or demerit points scale with vehicle mass – would better reflect the disproportionate risk that bigger cars pose.
If Australia is serious about reducing road trauma, these are the kinds of targeted, evidence-based adjustments that should be considered.
US CAFE regulations, and specifically their rules around trucks and SUVs, are one of the greatest environmental and road safety disasters of the last 30 years.
Yeah the SUV loophole is nonsense and means nothing here. We aren’t buying US style SUVs, the SUVs that we buy are rav 4 or cx30 type cars - these are way too small to fit that loophole.
What is crazy is that we extended the loophole to Australia. Under our emissions regulations any SUV or Ute over 3.5 tons is exempt from having to meet any emissions standards!
They forced that change on us as part of the "free trade" deal with the US. And now Trump's renegged on their side of the free trade deal, but we still have their crappy American laws they forced on us.
It sucks to be the US's bitch.
Do we have any SUVs bigger than that? Even the Hyundai palisade is only 2,000kg and that’s massive
Pretty much just American imports, Chevy Silverado, Ford-F250, RAM2500 all go up to 4.49GVM (the legal limit for car drivers license).
Or you can get aftermarket upgrades for your Toyota Prado or Mitsubishi Pajero but I'm not sure how aftermarket upgrades interact with the manufacturers emission regulation requirements.
Why the heck is anyone driving around 3.5 tons? Are school drop-off/pick-up zones that dangerous (to the driver) now? /s
Soccer dad needs the carry capacity of a Dodge Ram to get the kids and their gear to matches I guess.
The Prado and Everest both outsold the CX5 in 1H 2025. In order, the top 10 selling vehicles were the Ranger, Hilux, RAV4, Prado, D-Max, Everest, CX-5, Outlander, Kona and Sportage.
That doesn’t mean anything though. If you want a big SUV you only have 2 or 3 to choose from so each individual model looks like a high seller, if you want a small Corolla cross size suv then you have dozens to choose from.
So a Tucson, sportage, rav 4, cx5, c trail, asx, crv, Tiguan, Forster, q3, cx 30, Corolla cross, Kona, seltos, outback etc etc have their sales spread across all those models. Everest doesn’t
I see about 10 BMW X3's every day (large regional town / small city)
thanks chatGPT
Just remove the fuel and tax incentives from these vehicles. Many of them are registered as commercial trucks where they are largely used for groceries and school pickups.
If you genuinely need a big truck for work, then that’s fine, but a government focussed on the future will continue to incentivise EVs in metro areas over large diesel utes and SUVs.
There is no business case in which a yank tanks are the best vehicle. Purpose built commercial vehicles have them beat for almost every scenario.
I think the fact that I still daily see AU-BF Utes with custom made job specific backends doing work, and I’ve never seen a sepowanktank with anything on it other then a factory fitted hardtop thats never been removed is sorta telling.
What about using as a emotional support micropenile mobile? how else are you meant to flaunt that micropenis? all 5 mm of it?
There is no work application where a vehicle the size of a yank tank is necessary that isn't better served by using a proper work truck like Isuzu N-Series or Hino 300-Series. Because they are proper commercial vehicles, they have a greater carrying and towing capacity, and most important being cab over designs, forward visibility.
Can’t drive the Isuzu or Hino on the weekend. And way less comfort features.
Do they not work on the weekend
I delight in checking registrations of monster trucks at campgrounds, surprisingly a lot are registered as commercial vehicles, which is fine if you keep track of the time used as such for tax-time, but…. They do an awful lot of building in Japan with Suzuki Carrys! Big tray at the right level for loading. Not so good for towing your caravan or “off-roading” to a Big-4 though.
Just put thick height barriers across car parks in towns and cities. If they can't park them anywhere then they will soon get fed up and downsize. Also increase parking fees for monster trucks, and at the same time have dedicated tradie parking.
Most of the blokes I see driving them are well into their 60s or older and don't look they have done a days labour in their lives.
They already have those in every shopping centre with undercover parking…
I know, but maybe they need to be a bit lower!
Just ban the fucking things and be done with it.
Make registration insanely expensive and get insurance companies on board to do the same.
Rego (at least in WA) is based on vehicle weight, hence it’s already more expensive.
There’s almost $1000 per year differences between a Land Cruiser and a Yaris.
It already is... Car registration here is so expensive compared to other countries.
Change rego from being based on engine size to vehicle weight. Change licensing to have an upper weight limit on standard car license and class others as light trucks etc. Lastly, don't allow towing trailers/caravans without a special license. Then price point them to reduce people buying them.
I think everyone knows these talking points.
A better question might be: "How can we force something to be done"?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; reduce the threshold of what constitutes a heavy vehicle from 4.5t to 3t.
You could also charge by weight for registration, and encourage councils to install more “small car only” spaces and fine motorists for taking up multiple spaces.
I live in an apartment building and we frequently get trucks taking up two car spaces. If they got ticketed more often it might make a difference I guess, would be an easy thing to increase penalties for.
Road rules would need to be updated on a state level before councils could do anything like that.
There are explicit exceptions in the rules allowing large vehicles to use spaces that are too small for them. Need to get rid of those first before small car restrictions could be enforced.
I don't think the implementation is what OP was asking. More how can change in these regulations actually be championed and enacted
Blood alcohol level of 0.00 for vehicles over 3ton GVM
I'd love to see this enacted. Just to see how it plays out
BAC for forklifts and heavy vehicles is already 0.00, so this is a great idea.
Grimly and following the example of the Bondi massacre, I think the only way it gets done is if someone goes on a rampage and kills a whole lot of people with a yank tank.
Politics has become a game of upset minimisation, unless they are given cover and impetus from some sort of horrific incident.
As a regional resident I would have forgotten what a clean shiny car looked like if it wasn't for those huge show ponies.
Haha, so true
Yeees... Whaaaat? 🤔
... I mean... I'm up for another Ford Ranger pile-on in the comments if everyone else is? 🤷
I would like the additional licence testing to also include spelling and parts of grammar.
Can we have Japanese style kei car incentives?
Limiting the size of vehicles is clear discrimination against men with small dicks who need to overcompensate... /s
The cost of a car's rego should be determined by weight and length. Larger American style pickups and oversized SUVs should be classified in a different category which requires more stringent license conditions.
Bigger cars are less safe for pedestrians, exacerbate congestion, create greater wear and tear on the road, and go against pretty much every modern idea of urbanism. The fact that we have let it get to this level is a sad indictment on our governments at all levels. Now we are in this kind of size arms race and we have normalised cars basically being these antisocial objects where the individual's desires supersede everyone else's rights to live safely and healthily.
Can we get the smaller 1970s style pickup trucks please? Something like the 70s F100, but either phev or fully ev.
F150 is only 5 cm wider than F100. Need something smaller still.
One in the lane next to me yesterday and kept straying into my lane! FFS if you can’t even stay in the lane don’t drive a monster car.
Just to drop the kids off at school and grocery runs, complete waste of money and it’s more about flashing how much cash these people have. Oh not to mention how they don’t know how to park them either.
more like how much debt they are prepared to go into to look like they have cash.
Nearly got mowed over by one at a pedestrian crossing near a school a while back. Kids on the other side to me waiting to cross too.
She thought a wave would be sufficient.
Make it so that you have to pass some course in regards to parking them/driving them then.
It must be a 100% pass rate.
If you can’t park it straight or whatever, you fail.
That would eliminate a lot of these drivers driving them.
How do you not feel like a fuck wit driving these things.
And the only towing they do is with Jet Skis as they head off to annoy people trying to relax at beaches etc
The biggest problem is cunts want to drive them
and not Mr Roger types who are safe and responsible.
If you own one of these monster trucks and take them into mall car parks just know everyone fuckin hates you.
I drive a small car and almost every time I drive I have a close call with a SVU. They either don't see you or they just don't care and just throw their huge SVU at you knowing you'll be the one to move
Tax them! They damage the road more so make the owners pay more every year
We did it! Congratulations to capitalism, which has brought back the fatalities from when we all had lead in our blood.
well that, and KB Lager
For years ive wanted a 4x4 but it bugged me that they are huge & i didnt want to be that guy that pisses ppl off. I compromised & bout a jimny instead. Very happy with the choice. Small, compact, rugged & does everything if not more than those huge yank tanks.
I think one of the only disadvantages of the Jimny is storage space. Otherwise off road that thing is going anywhere my 4WD is.
It can be but i put a full rhino rack on, towbar. I have a mini box trailer. With the rear seats down, it's ample room. I was more concerned with the power, as its a small engine. Not the best for long road trips. Great for metropolitan drives, excellent in city traffic, parking is so easy & very economical. It's a little beast out bush though.
Make car rego based on weight
It is in some states. In WA I’m paying almost a $1000/year more on my LandCruiser than I would on a small vehicle such as a Yaris.
Article makes some very good, valid points and that’s without going into the added dangers and inconvenience caused by them dangerously narrowing roads when parked on the street, and providing lack of visibility for other drivers when parked and when driving. They also cause more potential hazards in car parks due to reduced visibility trying to get around them and the fact they often don’t fit in car park spaces.
For most drivers, they are really unnecessary and they also increase the risk for greater environmental damage due to more people owning them and potentially going off-road with them more because they can.
The wankers that drive these things should be made fun of more often.
Not just large but too loud :(
They all want their Utes and 4wds to sound like freight trucks
Other end of the wedge is all the small cars that can't be sold here anymore due to the latest safety rating requirements. On the other hand you could argue that all the extra collision avoidance tech and emergency braking would counter and reduce such incident.
Personally would prefer a lighter more simple ute for a work vehicle but they just don't exist anymore in Australia and with the newer gen PHEV and EVs coming to market pushing closer to 3t I don't see it changing anytime soon.
There still exists as well many road users that actually use the large SUVs for their intended purpose. Plenty of other oblivious drivers out there driving way over the GVM however
Im in a catch 22 at the moment, currently drive a falcon Ute with steel tray back for work (builder) I carry materials from timber,bricks,blue metal aggregate and the like so a van will not work for me but I desperately need a new car as the upkeep on this one is going to kill my bottom line eventually. Already redone the suspension once and numerous other engine issues over its few hundred thousand km life.
Now looking at new utes the Hilux doesn’t have a big enough tray and we no longer make a trady style small Ute locally.
I may soon be one of these wankers and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.
All those men compensating.
Car manufacturers have been making bigger and bigger cars with less and less substance for generations now. I saw someone driving a tiny little falcon muscle car the other day. These were just about the biggest cars on the road back then. Quantity does not equal quality. But, if you need to compensate for something…
Why don’t we: tax larger vehicles more and pass on the revenue as incentives for smaller vehicle and green purchases. Give primary producers an exemption for the full tax, but not to tradies. Young tradies buy these cars, write off the costs, and are incentivised to take them out in the countryside and screw up our fragile ecosystems.
God I despise these fucking cancers. They're ugly as sin, empower drivers to be absolute bastards, take up so much space in parking and on the road, and they waste fuel to boot! IMO if you can't show that you have an actual use for a vehicle of this size that you can't do with a smaller one, you shouldn't be allowed to own it.
I miss the days of the good old utes, the beauties from the 70s and 80s. Those had style. At this point I don't trust a tradie if he has a vehicle under a decade old.
I have no idea why we seem to be going the way of America preferring oversized vehicles. Even when I was in the trades a normal sized van with a sliding door was far more convenient to use. At least they cater to them with bigger roads and parking lots in the US. They should put them all in the luxury category to be taxed because lets face it they are a luxury most people that own them do not need.
One of the things that annoys me in this article and so many other articles is, they focus on actual crashes. Yes, heavier vehicle is more likely to kill someone in a lighter vehicle and it is important to mention that. However, what they don't talk about is the risk of unsafe behaviours, both due to frustration and neccesity) for lower vehicles.
An example of one due to frustration is wanting to turn left onto a road when their is a tall vehicle wanting to turn right. I cannot see past that vehicle, so either you creep forward potentiallyputting your nose in the through traffic lane, or just sit and wait until the big vehicle leaves. 95% of the time I just wait but occasionally the frustration after waiting for a couple of minutes gets to you. Yes, I know I need to be better in that instance.
An example where you are forced to do something unsafe is in car parks. If you end up in a park with a tall vehicle next to you, you cannot see pedestrians or moving vehicles when exiting the car park. I always reverse park in 90 degree bays to minimise this risk. However, I still need to creep into the traffic lane just to see past the tailgate of the ute next to me. Reversing out, you would just have to yolo it.
If there’s one thing the govt is real good at it’s sin taxes. Make rego and other costs eye watering. I can’t see a black market of trucks like the ciggie shops
I hate large cars. They are more expensive, more dangerous for everyone and worse for the environment. The only thing they are good for is making more money for the corporation.
I'm happy in my i30 and I hope my next car is even smaller.
What they should do is close the emissions loophole. Under Australian NVES utes up to 3.5 GVM have to keep their emissions down to around 210g/km but SUV’s over 3.5 GVM (like dodge rams) have no emissions target and can emit an unlimited amount.
Put a tax on the blunt fronts. With an increase for every 10 cm over the initial 80 cm.
Get rid of free parking. Make all the parking close to the entrance of anything be for small cars, and the larger parks can be as far from the entrance as possible. And charge for the amount of space a vehicle takes up.
Limit the speed based on size x weight.
YES on all fronts. Especially about the blunt fronts. It's so totally unnecessary and directly leads to excess pedestrian deaths.
The front on my pajero is small and sloping compared to these yank tanks. But it fits everthing it needs to just fine. Plus I can actually see what's in front of me.
Only thing I would change, is an outright ban on fronts over a certain height.
So many of these cars have an artificially tall front bumper.
The nose of a Nissan Navarra is mostly air for a solid foot, there’s no engineering reason it can’t slope in earlier to refuse its frontal impact height.
There's a marketing reason though. That raised hood looks "tough" and from the conversations I've had thats more than half the reason a lot of people want them.
Absolute insanity
The toughest looking thing out there is a petit woman on a bicycle in traffic.
Big personal vehicles look to exist only to transport a weak ego. They don't look tough, they look like overcompensation.
Yank tanks for anything other than actual trades are worse in every category. * Safety: statistically more likely to kill anyone involved in a collision, pedestrian or otherwise. * Fuel: makes us more vulnerable to oil prices cause they consume way more. * Emissions: bad not only for the climate but for air quality and general health, especially in children. * Road Wear: every time you 2x the weight of a car you increase damage to the road by 16x so their share of rego is artificially low
In the EU they regulate this kind of stuff with better standards that actually protect consumers so we don’t have to think about this stuff
Roads and parking spaces aren’t meant for these giant cars.
I find myself driving less these days as I don’t feel as safe as I used to with large SUVs / utes being so popular and so many distracted drivers on the road. Guess I could just buy a giant vehicle too but I’d rather not be part of the problem and find smaller cars more fun to drive.
You need therapy if you find yourself intentionally not going out in your car because of fear of others on the road.
‘For every fatal accident avoided inside a large vehicle, there are around 4.3 additional deaths among other road users.’
Holy shit.
Road used charge based on weight and HP
Maybe i'm misjudging it, but did it seem like these just totally flooded the market very fast a few years back? Because if that was the case, i wonder if it was done on purpose to avoid any political action being taken against them, because once enough people drive them, no politician would want to risk upsetting their constituency by talking about a ban, or higher rego cost, or a different license category with more testing, etc
It a reason why pedestrian deaths have increased. Drivers can’t see people as well and if they hit somebody the pedestrian doesn’t go up over the bonnet and reduce the impact. The cars are like hitting a wall.
When I was out doing political letterboxing for The Greens in the far-western suburbs of my electorate, I noticed that all the households had "his and hers" cars. A giant ute for "him", and depending on the income level of the household, a Corola or a RAV4 for "her".
A van is actually a much more practical car for most people who need to move around tools etc for work, and the trays of most of those Utes had definitey never seen a load of gravel.
tax em to oblivion, after all the if people wanna burn more gas, let them pay for it
Maybe make rego/TAC fees increase based on vehicle weight. Seeing as heavier cars do more damage to not only roads but also other cars in the event of an accident. One of my cars weighs 900kg and it costs about the same in rego as my mates 2500kg 4x4...
"500 kg increase in the weight of the other car increases the probability of a fatality by about 70% over the mean fatality rate" - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212012213000142
Why did the government stop regulating vehicles?
I fuckin hate these cars so much and I wish we would regulate them. Make it harder for new ones to come in and maybe 4x the rego costs for the ones already here please
Bought to you courtesy of Australia not having a vehicle emissions standard prior to this year and because Australia no longer manufactures vehicles, the article stated that these cars imported are American standard.
Introduce a small penis tax to fund new infrastructure projects for yank tanks
This is peak whinge 😂😂😂😂😂
Not just large but too loud :(
They all want their Utes and 4wds to sound like freight trucks
tax em to oblivion, after all the if people wanna burn more gas, let them pay for it
fuckin ban the imports and make the ones here pay a higher road usage tax than the rest of us
More healthy outlets for men to express their masculinity.
Any car that doesn't fit into a standard parking spot should only be allowed to park in oversized parking spots.
At least 95% of parking spots should be standard sized, and there is no legal obligation for anyone to provide them.
Fines for parking an oversized car in a standard parking spot should be ruinous.
Rego of $365/year for something Corolla sized. That’s big enough for pretty much all usual driving needs. Even a family of 4.
Anything bigger than that “standardised” footprint gets an extra yearly charge:
$1 per mm wider
$1 per engine CC extra
$1 per kg heavier
$1 per mm longer
This would mean your average small SUV might be $1000/year (possibly a bit cheaper than currently), but a 6m long, 6.0L v8, 3000kg wank tank might be $10,000/ year.
This sub came up on my feed, as a Canadian we have the same issue. Car bloat has made roads so much more dangerous for everyone
Widen the parking lot lines...
I assume this includes EVs. My EV weights 2tonnes, and it honestly took some getting used to its heft after owning a Jazz and Civic
Double demerits for monster truck drivers. They should have to be extra careful because they can't see other cars or pedestrians, and getting the careless ones off the roads quicker would improve safety for everyone else.
Make penis extensions tax deductible
Have they thought of banning firearms for this issue?
Manufactured outrage, this shit is so stupid
How about making these large cars electric fueled only from now on. Otherwise, I don't care if they are big or not. Their size is no skin of my nose. 🤷♀️
Some of these statistics are very misleading though. While car sizes have increased, using SUV percentage as evidence is not relevant, as many tiny hatches are called SUVs now, some are less than 900kg and well under 4 metres in length.
That's more that the proportion changed, there used to be a few niche small 4WDs from Suzuki and Daihatsu etc. The November numbers are; 15,621 small SUVs, 29,213 medium SUVs, and 12,578 large SUVs, along with 16,258 utes (they may be lumped in with vans).
Except for height, and usually mass, they aren't really bigger than the corresponding segment of passenger cars.
Do people expect builders and other trades to rock up to the job site in their Suzuki Swift's?