Minister Due To Respond On Legality Of Bull-bars

The Age

Tuesday June 25, 1996

Bill Tuckey

THE dormant controversy over vehicle bull-bars is about to flare up again, with the potential to divide Australia's rural community from urban dwellers almost as massively as has the gun debate. The Federal Minister for Transport, John Sharp, is due by the end of this week to answer a series of questions on the subject from Queensland Democrats Senator John Woodley.

Senator Woodley on 29 May placed on the notice paper four queries: 1. Is it the case that the use of bull-bars on cars and other vehicles is illegal under Federal Australian Design Rule 42.9.1.1, or under any other regulation or legislation?

2. Are the restrictions on the use of bull-bars being enforced by state governments?

3. How many fatalities in Australia are assessed as being predominantly due to the presence of bull-bars?

4. Are there any proposals currently under consideration to develop and/or enforce tighter restrictions on the use of bull-bars?

A number of workshops and committees has already involved in the debate farmers' associations, the makers of the Shu- Roo electronic animal frightener, state authorities like VicRoads, safety engineers from Holden and Ford, and even the Country Women's Association. The Federal Office of Road Safety (FORS) set up a working group a year ago to examine the whole question of the safety threat from bull-bars, but it hasn't yet reported.

Australia is unique in the world in the widespread use of bull-bars, not only on four-wheel drives, heavy transport and coaches but on urban delivery vans and even private cars.

Our two biggest makers, ARB and TJM, export thousands of them to countries like Germany, Japan and the US, and supply them as factory-approved accessories or equipment to Australian importers, among them Toyota and Land Rover.

There are moves in Europe to ban the metal tube or section bars, while allowing fibreglass or plastic ``nudge bars".

A large British insurer, CGA Direct, is refusing cover on any vehicle equipped with a metal bar, and the British Parliament has several all-party motions in front of it to ban them outright.

The dangers of bull-bars to pedestrians first reared its head in October 1993, when the Victorian deputy state coroner, Mr Iain West, said after an inquest into the death of a pedestrian, Ernest Edward Bowd, hit by a Toyota Tarago, that bull-bars contravened ADR 42.9.1.1. This is fairly broad in form, but does seem to ban any "object or fitting which protrudes from any part of the vehicle so that it is likely to increase the risk of bodily injury to any person".

The Victorian Town and Country Planning Association has been very criticial of bull-bars, claiming they pose particular danger to pedestrians and cyclists because they kill and injure at lower speeds. In a recent report it said that of 85,000 4WD vehicles sold in Australia in 1994, half were fiutted with bars, adding: ``It is unethical to sit around and wait until the accumulating evidence is eventually recognised because the pile of body bags gets so high it inevitably finishes up in the political arena."

Other opponents have emerged in the Australian Consumers' Association, the RACV, RMIT, and senior medical authorities.

Both VicRoads and its New South Wales equivalent, the RTA, are doing crash tests on the bars.

The RTA claimed in 1994 that bull-bars made vehicles and possibly drivers more aggressive towards pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists, as well as in parking situations. It said they removed the protection of energy-aborbing bonnets and sloping bonnets, interfered with aerodynamics and increased fuel consumption and air pollution through greater emissions.

Another bogey was raised in April, 1994, when in The Age I broke the story that car makers were advising dealers not to fit bull-bars to passenger cars because they might interfere with airbag sensors. Both Ford and Holden then embarked on extensive research (including Holden designing a kangaroo dummy) and the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association (AAAA) commissioned RMIT and Monash University to run computer simulations to resolve the claims.

That found properly engineered and fitted bars had very little effect on the crash pulse of airbag-equipped cars. It also pointed out that of all fatal crashes involving hitting something, 67 per cent were against something like a tree or a pole - ``these are hazards from which city drivers need protection, just as much as drivers in rural areas".

The National Party is also starting to look askance at the lobbying against bull-bars. Their point is that the bars might be a fashion statement in the cities but are an integral part of driving in the country. In a June 1994 statement that now echoes country attitudes towards the anti-gun lobby, NP Senator Julian McGauran said: ``There would be no justification to change rural motoring habits because of a metropolitan-based scare campaign." Brisbane-based Shu-Roo Australia is, not unexpectedly, one of the major lobbyists against bull-bars. Claiming it has more than 15,000 of its ultrasonic early warning systems in operation, including with government departments and long- distance transport operators, it says that because of the way bull-bars are mounted, the repair costs to insurers are generally increased.

It says some of its legal advice is that bull-bar makers, fitters and vehicle owners could be held partly liable for contributing to death or injury. It believes the insurance industry should either refuse to cover bar-equipped vehicles or increase premiums for them.

However, this doesn't solve the vexed problem of discriminating against country vehicles with bull-bars coming into the metropolitan area. Indeed, it does seem bull-bars have the potential to lose political parties as many rural votes as banning some kinds of weapons. Wired for safety.

ONE good news crash story comes from the people who supply a wire rope safety fence called the Brifen. In the first report since the Brifen Barrier came into use in Australia five years ago - 72,000 metres have now gone up - Sydney-based supplier LB Wire Ropes says there's solid evidence it has saved lives.

General manager Paul Hansen said that on one stretch of Sydney's M4 motorway there had been 16 deaths in two years but no fatals and no injuries since the Brifen Barrier was installed. Over five years in South Australia there have been no deaths on a stretch that had been averaging two fatals a year.

The barrier comprises four wire ropes suspended on and woven around posts that give way on impact. In a crash the barrier cushions the vehicle to a gentler stop - one Sydney crash saw the driver of a 10-tonne truck hit the barrier after he had a heart attack at an estimated 90 km/h; the truck was later driven away.

Mr Hansen said the barrier has been used in 20 countries for 24 years. ``There are no known instances world-wide of death as a result of impacts with the fence."

AND this may be the last chapter in our saga of claims about tyre life. Regulars will remember we gave the gold-plated peanut award to Melbourne's Tony Lewis for 170,000 kilometres from three of the four Michelins on his Renault Fuego. That was challenged by Renault Car Club president Trent Rowe, who said 80,000 to 90,000 km would be more likely.

Then Dunlop snatched the gold with Korumburra man Malcolm Ryan-Cowell, who got 203,000 out of a set of Dunlop Adventurers on his Nissan 720 Crew Cab diesel. Now Mr Lewis has struck back with this fax: ``What will it take to convince the doubting president of the Renault Car Club - an oath sworn on the graves of Andre and Edouard Michelin? Or a statutory declaration?"

Me, I'm getting tyred of all this, so let's all go and lie down in a dark room with used tea bags on our eyelids, fellas . . .