Call To Ban Bull Bars On Cbd Vans
The Age
Thursday July 8, 1993
Bull bars can make motor accident injuries worse and should be banned from commercial vehicles in the central business district, according to two Melbourne academics.
Professor Josef Tomas, professor of mechanical engineering at RMIT, said the impact of a bull bar at 35 kmh was ``like getting hit in the hip with a crowbar".
Professor Tomas said he had presented evidence of the effect of bull bars on motor accident injuries to a State Government committee in 1980, when about 30 per cent of vans had bull bars.
He said nothing was done and today 70 to 80 per cent of vans were fitted with bull bars.
Professor Tomas said he was approached recently by a man whose father was killed while crossing the street. He was able to simulate the accident using crash dummies, and had found that the vehicle's bull bar had contributed to the man's death.
Vehicle manufacturers had designed sloping front ends, made from impact-lessening materials with few sharp protrusions, specifically to reduce pedestrian injuries, he said, but a rigid bull bar could eliminate the effectiveness of these design features.
The director of the Monash University Accident Research Centre, Professor Peter Vulcan, backed Professor Tomas's call, and said that bull bars on larger four-wheel-drives and trucks were lethal when hitting the side of a standard car. The car being hit would be struck by the top rung of the larger vehicle's bull bar at head height.
Both men agreed that bull bars were useful for private vehicles in rural conditions, but that they should be banned from commercial vans in the CBD.
The executive director of the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce, Mr Bob Davison, said: ``The orginal purpose of bull bars was to protect the vehicle against wandering livestock _ but they are still useful for delivery vehicles ... If the evidence shows that they're dangerous for pedestrians, though, they need to be looked at again.
© 1993 The Age
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