“The Australian public is subsidising big, dumb utes by hundreds of millions of dollars each year”.
I like this guy.
Tax the fuck outta them, no one wants these bloody things except for a highly select pack of cunts and they can go fuck themselves
I reckon that half the people who buy them are for a Tax Dodge (pun not intended) and the other half are people who are missing something in their lives and are trying to compensate for their own inadequacies.
The latter group includes those people who purchase them to tow their obnoxiously oversized Caravan.
It's a bummer smaller, Aussie utes aren't a thing anymore after Holden was killed and Ford axed all their AUDM cars. If you want a ute in 2025 it's pretty much gonna be big either way; of course those US shitmobiles are the biggest by far but still.
You shouldn't be able to import those big US tractors in the first place IMO, or at least not without paying a hefty tax on them.
Yeah my cousin had a new big truck for work and I thought it was an F150 or whatever, but it's some Chinese car, which is still like 25% smaller than an F150.
Most of these cars simply should not be legal. It would make sense if they could carry more than old utes but they carry less, and do it less efficiently. It's like the fossil fuel industry is manufacturing cars to consume more fuel. There needs to be a carbon tax and similar to prevent this type of obscene waste.
It's hilarious that you can see US youtubers, Eg, Tavarish salivate over the old Aussie utes.
And some of them import them lol
Hell, we used to have compact pickups. Chevy S-10, Ford Ranger, Dodge Dakota, not to mention similar sized offerings from Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, and Isuzu. They were very popular with consumers, but what the people want means nothing to the companies trying to squeeze every drop of blood they can from the turnip of society. The used market for small pickup trucks is crazy. $8000 asking price for a beat up 1987 S-10 is common and reprehensible.
My biggest complaint is the ANCAP rating system.
Since these vehicles are classed as Light Commercial Vehicles, they don’t need to be rated.
Meanwhile other vehicles are getting lower and lower ratings because they wouldn’t survive being hit by one at full speed.
The ANCAP system needs to be recalibrated for real world use. If a pedestrian gets hit by a 1200kg vehicle, they are in for a bad day. If a pedestrian gets hit by a 3495kg vehicle in the same circumstances; no more pedestrian, and the oblivious driver of the Ram wouldn’t even notice that they hit something.
ANCAP shits me.
The side impact test is done at 1600kg. A small < 1000kg car is expected to take this kind of hit, while these stupid monster trucks don't even have to punch half their weight.
My other complaint is that ADAS systems weigh heavily in their ratings, but most factory ADAS systems are barely functional, with false positives and false negatives.
Many drivers use Advanced Driver Assistance Systems as a substitute for driving skill and paying attention to traffic conditions.
ANCAP don’t even do their own testing. They literally just copy ENCAP ratings.
That is why so many vehicles in the Australian market are unrated.
ahh like how we banned a bunch of perfectly safe kei cars https://www.drive.com.au/news/imported-kei-cars-stranded-australia-blunder/ :\
Our country must be an international laughing stock by how many of our drivers are incompetent.
If you watch a few episodes of DashCams Australia, you will see some of the worse road-users in Australia, and they are all either oblivious or entitled and don’t give a shit about anyone else.
Considering how few people don’t have DashCams and how DCAU don’t show snuff films, there must be hundreds of other incidents where they either weren’t caught on camera or were unable to be published due to fatality or serious injury.
Also, international manufacturers struggle to keep up with demand for replacement car parts; I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some production schedulers asking themselves “why are we shipping so many parts to Australia for major collision repairs?”.
If the government isn’t going to act, I think it’s only reasonable for people to start torching these things on the side of the street.
While I don’t agree with you, it would be a shame if these vehicles constantly had issues with tyre punctures.
I’m not condoning anyone putting caltrops in front of and behind the rear wheels of any Rams, Silverados or F150s parked in suburban shopping centres.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/crafted-30-x-30cm-plywood-slatboard_p0323877
@Davriellelouna most of these things are shiny and polished. They aren’t tools of trade or needed to carry or pull a load. There only purpose is fashion and ego. Really they should be banned from supermarket car parks etc where they just don’t fit and present a hazard.
My dad worked in the trades when I was a kid. He would always get wound up at all these people who bought pickup trucks and didn't work in the trades. Also, the the fact that the trucks kept getting bigger drove him nuts as well. When you're working in the trades, you don't want to have to lift things higher to get them into the truck. These things are just ego stroke machines.
I do not like that these are being subsidised by the government here.
I don't want to admit it, but a lot of these chest thumpers have actually been the cars to give way to me on the bike. That could be because I'm extra cautious around them because of their size.
Walking through a carpark and there was, I think a Silverado. The edge of the front bonnet was at shoulder height.
How do these people check their oil? Get up on a ladder every time?
I've seen a little set ot steps pulled out to help granma and granpa crawl onto the back seat lol.
Dangerous as hell for those oldies. If they fall getting in or out...
One of my Aussie relatives has a top of the line Dodge RAM Laramie and it literally has sidesteps that automatically slide out when you open the door....
Soon they'll need combine harvester style integrated ladder to get to thr engine
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
If you're posting anything related to:
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
https://aussie.zone/communities
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone