"If I show up at the school gate in the tractor, I'm dead." (afr 21 May 2005)

After a few years of being fashionable, 4 wheel drive cars are now suddenly out of fashion. No-one wants them. These expensive cars are now passé, and will be hard to sell. As well as using a lot of petrol, they have now gained a deadly reputation.

After a 5-year-old girl was killed by a slowly moving 4WD outside a school, the Coroner recommended that they be "banned from areas around primary schools". Now it is embarrassing for mothers to bring their children to school with these cars.

4WDs are seen as an extension of privatisation, like high fences and private schools. The view is better from up high but others can no longer see past them. In crash situations, these drivers prefer injuries to be incurred by those in the other car. As in war, they want to minimise injuries and damage to themselves. This is known as the "arms race" on the roads (afr). The biggest and heaviest car wins. The children do not survive.

One 5-year-old was sacrificed to discredit these gas-guzzling tanks in the law courts. How many will have to die before cars are banned from all the places where people move about, like cities and towns?