What's Ken's Real Problem with 4x4s?

London mayor Ken Livingstone recently revealed his sympathies with an on-going, badly misinformed campaign against so-called 'Chelsea tractors'.

Last month it was reported in
The Times that, in response to the demands of a collection of groups strangely obsessed with 'urban 4x4s', Livingstone now plans to hit these cars with an increased London congestion charge of £25 - a massive hike of more than 200% over the standard £8 charge.

If some of the hyperbole of these anti-4x4 groups is to be believed, Britain is apparently being "taken over" by "giant" four wheel drive cars. The leading anti group says that it aims to "make driving a big 4x4 in town as socially unacceptable as drink-driving" and, even more irrationally, wishes to "see an end to 4x4 adverts in the mainstream media".

Several criticisms are being regularly thrown at 4x4s and their owners as a result of this campaign. Yet even to a casual observer capable of simply opening one of the many car magazines found on newagents' shelves, none stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

So how on earth is London's mayor now taking them so seriously, to consider slapping such disproportionate charges on drivers of these cars?

Reality: size of 4x4s

The most commonly cited protest concerns the size of these cars - that 'selfish' 4x4 owners are 'taking up more space with their big cars than they need in an overcrowded city'.

For Livingstone at least, as a mayor who is driving double-deckers off the road to make way for 'bendy buses' occupying twice the road-space, the need to prevent larger vehicles clogging London's roads can hardly be top of his concerns.

Yet how much are these protests about size caused by an overly simplistic response to the style and appearance of 4x4s, rather than their actual dimensions?

It seems a great deal, because the reality is that 4x4s are actually often shorter than everyday 'urban' family saloon cars that nobody complains about. For example, a BMW X5 at 467cm is significantly shorter than the company's mid-range 5-series saloon at 484cm. Similary VW's 4x4 Touareg is shorter than the Passat.

Not only that, but 4x4s also tend to be only marginally wider than mid-range saloons. Using the BMW example above, the X5 is a mere 3cm wider than the 5-series. Even a Land Rover Discovery - arch-nemesis of the anti 4x4 brigade - is only 10cm wider than a Ford Mondeo.

Can a mere 10cm really be the reason for all the fuss and special attention 4x4s are subjected to? Would these groups fall silent if 4x4s were that small amount narrower? Seems unlikely.

There's no doubt that 4x4s are significantly taller than other cars, but so what? Is it terribly selfish and over-crowding to take up more height than a standard car?

Reality: fuel efficiency

So if there's no basis to complaints about the size of 4x4s, it must surely be their fuel economy that's causing the angst. 'Gas guzzling' is another shrill term now so thoughtlessly prefixed to the term '4x4s' whenever they're discussed.

But that can't be the problem either. A quick look at the economy data in the back of most car magazines shows that some 4x4s are actually more economical that many smaller cars. For example, all of the current Land Rover Freelander range in doing an average 37 miles per gallon do better than even some Mini models.

So it clearly also completely defies logic to label a car a 'gas guzzler' merely because of its size or appearance.

Reality: 4x4s and emissions

Ah, but is it their emissions? We all want to see reduced pollution and a better living environment. But what exactly is Livingstone aiming at in intending to impose restrictive costs on 4x4 owners?

If it's tackling global warming, then reducing the CO2 emissions spread by less efficient petrol cars - whatever their appearance - is at least an understandable goal. For someone who believes the theory that humans are affecting climate change, that is.

However, Livingstone actually tries to justify his planned attack on 4x4 owners by talking of 'improving London's air quality'. If this is his goal, then the solution is different. It's not petrol engines and CO2 that are the culprit but diesels and their far more harmful NOx and particles emissions that directly harm ground level air quality the worst.

So instead of picking on a class of vehicle based only on its appearance and number of driven wheels, surely a more sensible course of action would be a study into whether what must be by far the biggest singly-managed source of diesel emissions - the 6,800 buses Livingstone is ultimately responsible for - are really all necessary. Especially given they are likely to travel four times more miles a year spewing their emissions than any average private car.

Since Livingstone became mayor, the number of buses on the road has increased rapidly. Oxford Street is now frequently nose-to-tail buses, emitting NOx and particulates into the lungs of thousands of shoppers.

How many buses are regularly seen almost, if not completely, empty? Certainly every single one of them is constantly stopping, accelerating again from standstill and standing stationary for extended periods in busy shopping centres with many people to breathe in the fumes nearby.

Of course, I'd be the first to agree that all reasonable steps should be taken to reduce harmful emissions from any source.

But to irrationally and disproportionately persecute a small number of Londoners for their car choice while simultaneously jamming ever more buses onto London's roads to travel hundreds of thousands more miles and spew more health-threatening pollution into the air we all have to breathe than any 4x4 is likely to is quite obviously ridiculous behaviour.

Conclusion: Ken's real problem

So if it can't be the size of 4x4s, or that they supposedly guzzle fuel, or even that they're a major culprit for poor air quality in London harming human health, what could it possibly be that 'Red' Ken finds so objectionable about these conspicuously larger cars - these cars most often owned by London's wealthier inhabitants?

The only explanation that makes any sense is that the anti-4x4 agenda is nothing more than a remnant of lame, outdated class warfare, with which Livingstone used to be so closely associated.

Surely it's about time someone with the ear of Mr Livingstone bought a car magazine, pointed out a few facts, and advised his boss to stop embarrassing himself by supporting such an either simply illogical, or lamentably outdated, campaign.

This sort of mindset may be expected from a small rump of anti-capitalist fanatics trying to dress up their outdated ideas in 'green' banners in a last ditch attempt to attract some interest.

But surely the last thing our leading 21st century capital city needs is its mayor hitching himself to such unjustified and outdated dogma. Modern London deserves better.

I've had a Basil Fawlty moment.

No, I don't mean the moment when he decides to give his car a 'damn good thrashing'. Think more the explosive result of his having been hen-pecked once too often by Cybil.

For me, a car user hen-pecked once too often by politicians, this is the result. Welcome to the Pro-Car Blog.

Criticism of the car, and the continued ratcheting up of financial punishments for those who use them, is reaching intolerable levels. Yet the arguments made to justify such increasingly unreasonable and extreme attacks on the motorist defy common sense.

Politicians seem to think drivers are all self-indulgently using their cars just for the fun of it or because we can afford to as a luxury, when we could be choosing to be more environmentally 'responsible'.

The reality is that, in most cases, there is simply no alternative to using a car to do all the tasks that must be done, and carry all their associated paraphanalia; take the kids to school, go to work, collect the kids again, take them to after school clubs or on visits to friends, do the family shop at the supermarket, and so on.

For the millions for whom this is a familiar daily routine, the idea that public transport is an option is quite simply ridiculous.

Similarly, commercial car users needing to visit a number of clients, or potential clients, in a day - numbers on which their income and family prosperity directly depend - simply cannot afford to spend long periods on stop-start public transport that still leaves them a long way from where they need to be.

Yet all are hit with ever higher costs for the essential of a car. Politicians expect those who have no choice to pay for the 'privilege' of using a car over and over again through an ever-increasing array of taxes, charges, fees, tolls and fines. Motorists already pay tens of billions of pounds more to the Treasury than are spent on maintaining road transport infrastructure.

Every new or increased tax is daubed in green and we're solemny lectured about the horrors of global warming, when the case that reducing car use can in any way alter climate change is flimsy at best and the fact that many drivers don't have any real alternative whether they wanted to reduce their car use or not is ignored.

In this dire situation, who is speaking out necessarily strongly for the car and its users? Several small, under-funded organisations are doing tremendous work with the limited resources they have available: the Association of British Drivers and SafeSpeed, to name but two. A number of motoring journalists like Mike Rutherford (Auto Express) and 'Honest John' (Daily Telegraph) also persistently work to right the information imbalance in their national media columns.

But where are the organisations with massive resources like the AA and RAC, whose primary interest used to be to defend the interests of the motorist? Have they today become far too absorbed in providing profitable commercial services and obsessed with being 'listened to', though largely ignored, in the corridors of power to really stand up for motorists? We'll look in more detail at those two organisations in later postings.

So in this context, this blog has two purposes. Primarily, to expose the flimsy arguments of those who see car users as a soft target, imagining the environment to be some kind of trump card able to justify any financial battering they may wish to administer, while no thought is given to the essential practical role cars fulfil in most peoples' lives or their importance to the economy and the prosperity they bring us all, not just car users.

We'll also be promoting, and spreading good news about, the British car industry. Contrary to the focus of the misery-mongers in the mainstream media (MSM), whose only interest is ever bad news, Britain has a vibrant, innovative and successful car industry. If the MSM aren't interested, this is where you can expect to find news of that ongoing success story.

So I hope you'll find the Pro-Car Blog an interesting and useful read.