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A very topical blog Douglas which addresses a subject that our political masters have not bothered to look into. If you live somewhere like the Spey Valley or Dumfries and Galloway where you have been bludgeoned with snow and ice these type of vehicles are the only way to get around. In remote parts of Scotland like Aviemore(where the ski slope has had to close because of the amount of snow that has fallen)these cars are pretty much essentials because without them you wouldn't get moving and the economy would grind to a halt. The people who rely upon them most are ordinary people who work in shops, as cleaners, as barmen or hairdressers frequently on minimum wage and as far removed from the Chelsea School Mom type as its possible to get. When you ask these people to dip further into their pockets you are pushing an already fragile rural economy to the brink. Greens like Steve Burgess totally miss the point when they bang on about how they are not required in the capital for 355 days of the year. What about the rest of Scotland Steve? the north, the islands and the south where people don't earn what they do in the cities and where the weather pattern is completely different. This is another example of how our politicians aren't the brightest.

How will the poor country people be able to follow the hunt if they dont have a four by four ? One couldn't be seen driving around in an ordinary car could one ? ( unless it's a rather large Volvo estate with it's lights on ). Gies a break !

Most of what you say does have some logic to it but for the fact that the overwhelming majority of regular 4x4 drivers are female and the vehicles are simply used as personal transport. How many, 'young mums' were out there dragging people out of trouble? Precious few I think. There needs to be a system whereby persons who drive these things as part of their business, like farmers and builders etc., should be given consideration. All you get just now are 'kiddie taxis' that never see a spec of dirt yet alone drive off road. If you were to ask any of the, 'young mums' how to operate the four wheel drive options thay'd enter a state of panic as all they do is climb up and in, strap their (usually) one child in and drive off to school or wherever. £950.00???? No where near enough!

The 4x4 tax is just another labour stealth tax and it's not coming off anytime soon - heaven knows they need the money!

It's a grossly unfair tax for those of us living in the countryside down muddy tracks where a front-wheel drive just wouldn't cut it.

Can I also point out that the reduced fuel consumption of these vehicles means that we already have to pay more for our fuel and by implication, emissions.

It'd be nice to see Mr Cameron getting rid of this one.

I have had a 4x4, small road cars and larger family cars. I also live in a more rural area where roads are often untreated in winter and I am often off road (farm tracks etc.)

The family car is awful, whilst fairly nice to drive and quite it used almost as much fuel as the 4x4 did. Traction wise, on an icy road it just won't move and it slides no matter how well you are driving, certainly makes for a hair raising ride to work.

The small car (corsa, fiesta, astra etc) were great, good drip from narrow tyres the diesel variety low revs so you can pull off in a higher gear without wheel spinning. Managed most roads and hills but not the farm roads or bad back roads.

The 4x4, surprisingly cheap to run, diesel you could choose to run it on 2 or 4 wheel drive. Only time needed to engage 4 wheel drive is when you get into a situation and you need the push from all 4 wheels, e.g. hitting snow/ice/boggy grass etc. However a 4x4 is only as good as the driver, if you don't know how to engage 4 wheen drive or how to use your high and low diffs then you will not get a much better drive than you would out of a family car.

The government tax is unfair on those who NEED 4x4 in order to get through winter and whilst I can do without their are many who do NEED them. Often townie do gooders feel that it's all country elite or Chelsea tractor types that have them and forget that infact it's people who live 20+ miles from the nearerst town along back roads who need them to get food and to work. And before you say it, yes people do need to live in these places not everyone can live in towns and cities.

the school run, the madness of crowds with mass hysteria
as to who can get closer to the gates. these dainty young
mums in their 4/4 bumping up kerbs to get even closer, nothing
will prevent them getting their children closer. is there an answer,
well yes, new schools are built with different entrance and exit points.
people fail to understand times have changed, 30 years ago when i went to school no one got dropped off in a car, we all walked. most mums didnt work so walked their child to school, now all mums work because of finacial constraints. TIME has become their most important commodity, then safety and then nourishment. you will find it hard to change them without hitting them in the pocket im afraid.

This discussion of 4x4 vehicles in the context of winter conditions misses the point that if you put a set of proper winter tyres onto any car, driving on snow, ice, and mud gets loads easier.

You don't actually need 4x4 if you have appropriate tyres for the conditions.

In many countries (e.g. Germany, Austria) it is the law that you must use winter tyres in winter. This is why in other countries people just get on with life through the winter but here in the UK we get transport chaos every time there's a wee bit of snow or cold weather.

"7 Reasons why we should use winter tyres in the UK":


A guy from Estonia writes here "Having 4 wheel drive does not relieve you from fitting winter tyres. Some people seem to have strange understanding that 4WD is good enough for all weathers and situations. Well, it isn't, I drive a front wheel drive car and 3 days ago I pulled 4WD car out of a snowbank. The guy who drives it thought that 4WD will go through anything in any weather. Nonsense and proved it to him."

It's about time the UK Government (or at least the Scottish Government) took note of this and at the very least ran a safety campaign promoting the use of winter tyres, especially since harsher winters seem to be becoming more common.

Tests and Demonstrations:-

Just owning a 4x4 does not mean you can benefit from it.

I watched a Long Wheel Land Rover sliding sideways down Union Street in Edinburgh with the diver still slamming on the brakes and steering frantically.

If the conditions are severe enough that you need a high 4x4 vehicle then you require some common sense, skill and often different tyres from the ones on most vehicles I see.

To claim 4x4's kept the country going is, I respectfully suggest, nonsense. I have kept moving on some bad stretches and found experience, old carpetting and a small shovel allowed my old saab to keep going forward. 4x4 vehicles allow people in rural areas to keep going, no doubt. A lot of folk out of town have requirement for them and make good use of them but it is the tens of thousands of them sitting in traffic queues in towns which have prompted the tax change.

The posing value of these vehicles shall be their demise but surely the manufacturers could have tried harder to make them efficient. I suspect they know most of their market have not a single real reason for purchasing massive torque, high capacity engines but if folk will keep paying for them, who can blame them?

I've thought the same as #3 for some time now. Clearly, there are people who need 4x4s, but a great many have no need for them whatsoever, other than a misplaced idea that they'll be safer in a crash (shame the people in the car you hit with your little tank aren't so lucky, eh?) so why can't we have a system where you need to prove a need for them?

There are various rules stopping us all from driving lorries, trucks, buses etc, so why not impose similar restrictions on 4x4s? After all, people have already mentioned that you only get the good of them if you actually know when to engage 4-wheel drive and things like that, so there is scope there to say they require more driving know-how than ordinary cars.

Why are we obsessed with 4x4s being the ONLY vehicle of any use in this weather? I have lived in Canada and Sweden and they do NOT like 4x4s and you'll be lucky to see one there. They like sturdy front wheel drive vehicles and lessons in driving properly in such conditions. High vehicles are considered liabilities and everyone is always prepared. As several other people have commented, keeping a few basics in your vehicle and learning to drive properly combined with taking note of forecasts and weather warnings overrides ANY daft fashion statement 4x4.

This current weather situation is a 'once-in-a-decade' occurence and hardly a sound reason for anyone to buy a vehicle that is otherwise a gas-guzzling PITA for most of us. Jon #7 is absolutely correct; a proper set of tyres on a decent f-w-d vehicle is cheaper, easier and environmentally sound. Add in some hazard driving skills training and no one should ever "NEED" a 4x4 as mentioned by downhillalltheway #5. I too live in an highly rural area and I know what has kept me going over the last 3 weeks and it definitely wasn't a poseur's wagon!

A 4x4 is completely unnecessary in bad weather. The simple solution is to fit cold weather tyres to your 2wd car in the winter months.
The ignorance surrounding their use in this country is unbelievable. They are very widely used on the continent and are actually compulsory in some countries. In Holland for instance, about 40% of drivers use them, and their winter climate is very similar to ours.
The don't just provide massively better traction on snow and ice (better than many 4x4 vehicles on standard tyres), they provide better grip on any road surface when the temperature is below +7C. This is due to the softer compounds used and the non directional tread patterns and siping which work like saw teeth, and also disperse much more water on a wet road than summer tyres.
I have driven on some appaling roads lately and haven't been stuck anywhere, including up a steep hill through about 6 inches of snow. The extra grip winter tyres provide really is amazing.
So keep on taxing the utterly unnecessary 4x4 behemoths into extinction. They are nothing more than pure vanity purchases for 99% of their owners. If you really do need one (i.e. you live and work on a farm), there are many available now with more acceptable emissions levels than the ridiculous V8 powered gas guzzler variety.

astoundingAndi whilst I would agree that many people do not need a 4x4 there are some people that do. You may live in a rural area but I take it that moving livestock around is not something that you have to do on a regular basis? Using a standard fwd car to move livestock (such as cows and horses)would be often illegal and/or totally unsuitable. Not all 4x4 are top heavy, however they do have a different type of chasis used for towing. (This is not soft roaders. So if you have a need to move livestock around, especially over rural roads and hills (offroad) then you cannot do this in a conventional car safely.

The argument will always be biased by people who see 4x4 as a poser's wagon. Every car I have owned has been a work horse the only reason I have it is to get from A to B with minimal problems transporting what I need safely and securly. As I said in my post I find the best cars for the snow are small cars with narrow tyres that will go almost anywhere, unless the snow gets too deep.

I would also agree that winter tyres are needed in some cases but also winter driving skills are essential, it would appear that people don't know what speed to do, what to do if they skid, how to drive on ice etc. The biggest danger/problem on the roads when conditions are bad are drivers who don't know how to drive for the conditions.

Scrap the Tax!

Put on it on fuel duty instead.... then we can all pay for what we actually use. If you're stupid enough to drive your 4x4 to school each morning then you'll pay for it! We'll all pay the same, relevant to what we consume, if you think you'll be worse off then you must be getting subsidised by someone, somewhere, at the moment! :-)

When not using a bike (or one day last week a two wheel drive Longstaff trike) I have been quite happily using a 12 year old rear wheel drive Volvo wagon in all of the recent weather.

I've pushed a few people out of the snow because they were doing silly things like trying to start off with their front wheels at an angle but I've not had any bother. Front wheel drive is not the only answer either, it loses traction going up hill and the driven wheels are not parallel if you don't keep them straight so they don't pull in the same direction.

Yes there are plenty of 4x4 drivers with kids in the back. We drive our kids around sometimes in our 2 litre diesel 4x4, but certainly not to school - they can easily walk the 10 minutes it takes. I can also catch the bus into Edinburgh or cycle. So do we need the 4x4 all the time? Of course not. But I cant afford to run two cars and without it we certainly wouldnt have got home from the north of Scotland recently.

Without a large family car we also couldn't transport 2 children and 2 adults, a boat, four mountain bikes and all the gear for two weeks family holiday in Scotland. Of course we could just trade it in for a small VW Golf, give up all the outdoors gear and drive to the airport every year for a family holiday in the sun. Would that be better?

The one and only time we caught a plane to take us on a family holiday "cost" us a whopping 2150kg of C02. Compare it to my average ANNUAL C02 footprint for vehicle usage last year which was only 3430kg, including work travel. The VW Golf would have still used approx 2680kg of C02. Look at the whole lifestyle, not just the badge on the car.

In the 1980's and 90's I did an awful lot of winter hillwalking in Scotland. Vehicle was a 3-door Honda Civic, front wheel drive. I had a spare set of wheels with winter tyres on, which got me pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. Specifically I recall going up hills past the struggling vehicles with low profile wider tyres that are not suited for snow.

My point is that a spare pair of wheels with winter tyres is a good solution. That's pretty much how it works in Norway, Sweden and Finland where they get loads more cold and snow than we do and it is mandatory to use winter tyres between specific dates that cover the winter months.

We've had snow & ice in the Highlands for 4 weeks and while the family car front wheel drive car with snow tyres has managed to move most of the time, there have been a few occasions when it has been stuck and has needed help from my wife's 4x4 which is a compact car made by a well known Italian car maker and which averages 43 MPG (petrol) and costs £150 PA to tax. It's also pulled our neighbour's car up their drive way. Yes, most of our problems have been on driveways or in parking areas but when the public road is single track you need to be able to get off it to avoid blocking the road. Several points then...snow tyres on 2 wheel drive cars do make a difference, working families living in the Highlands often have to run 2 cars, a small and lightweight 4x4 makes a very useful second car.

As so many others have said, in Central European Countries it is mandatory to change to winter or all-season tyres in the winter. Remember regardless of whether you have 4WD or 2WD sheet ice is always going to be impossible (unless you use chains or studded tyres). But as soon as there is some roughness/grit etc in the equation winter tyres on a 2WD make more difference to traction than summer tyres on a 4WD. And don't forget that once you are moving, all cars have 4 wheel braking anyway. The costs of buying an extra set of tyres or buying the more expensive all-season tyres are minute compared to the extra costs of running a 4WD.

I have now been driving my freelander diesel for almost 8 year and with 92k on the clock it is still doing well, serving its purpose of getting me, with a daily roundtrip of 34 miles, to work and back every day. I am satisfied and do not forsee to change this car until anything goes drastically wrong (probably another 5 years at least). In reference to the above article there are 3 point I would like to make:
1) My wife's 1.4 automatic skoda is more expensive to run on petrol than mine
2) One of my next door neighbours, drives the so called eco-cars. Over the past 8 years (which is the time I owned my freelander), he is on his third car(I wonder who is polluting the most).
3) With all the snow, over the past few weeks, I kept moving with no problems at all making it to work and other engagement. I have also given lifts (because they were stuck in snow) to two of my neighbours.

Maybe I am missing something here, but nobody has mentioned the height avantages of a 4x4. I live in SW Scotland and travel frequently on "B" Roads and side roads that are not as well maintained as the lovely smooth roads in the cities. Ie. I get Potholes and dips - A normal "Little" car is not always able to negotiate these problems and would most certainly bottom out on these and damage the chassis - it's not all to do with the types of tyres, fuel economy and Ice & Snow, it the condition of the roads. So please all you people who are against 4x4's spare a thought for us rural people. Perhaps, as many have already mentioned, why can't the government treat each tax application by its merit and let us apply for reduction if warranted. I would glady pay the extra tax if the councils will come and resurface all of the bad roads for me.

For years I've had friends with 4x4s who acknowledge that their vehicles are slower, poorer handling, more polluting, less fuel efficient and are more dangerous to pedestrians and other motorists in the event of an accident than a 'regular' family car. The one positive is that come the snow, they say that they will be able to plough through whilst mere 'normal' cars like mine flounder. However, in normal road use, they have never had an advantage over me even to the point of us timing ourselves over a set route in snow (to settle the argument) which they failed at miserably.
I work in a rural area where the majority of our management drive 4x4s - once again they are the ones leaving work early because they are panicking about getting home in the snow. On many occasions they've told me I should leave early, but I work my time and have never had a problem with getting stuck in the snow yet - all you need is a little momentum!
I will admit that the recent snow, particularly in areas like the Borders and Highlands has been exceptional and would probably have caught me out... but our 4x4 driving management shut-up shop and advised us to work from home (as they were). Roads to my workplace were impassable for 2 days - whether you drove a 4x4 or a Smart Car. That's 2 days in 10 years of working in the sticks.
John McGuire of Phoenix Cars might like to paint a picture of our 4x4 driving neighbours being the 'local heros', but what do you expect from a dealership heavily reliant on 4x4 sales? Meanwhile Douglas Robertson of the SMTA argues for a compensatory grant for essential users of 4x4s. By 'essential', I'm assuming farmers etc... in fact, other than farmers, I can't think of anyone else who 'needs' a 4x4 - unless a van is just too common for carrying your building supplies around. Agricultural users of 4x4s already have the 'compensatory grant' - it's called red diesel, a major tax benefit.

20 years ago, when our winters were harsher, Sierras and Cavaliers were typical of the cars on our roads, farmers had Land Rovers/Izuzu Troopers, and recreational 4x4s were in their infancy, how did we ever manage?

Just fine is the answer!

The explosion in recreational city & town based 4x4s comes either from snobs keeping up with the Braithwaites, or worriers - those people who live in a perpetual state of panic, worrying about who might crash into them (never mind that their own driving is often so bad that it is they who are likely to cause an accident). The panickers who like a 4x4 for the rugged outdoors image, but whose idea of living life on the edge involves riding their Jeep mountain bike around a Forestry Commission track. Tax them out of our cities and towns!

tosh ! .... more 4x4 rubbish,
Just look at sensible places like Switzerland etc, sure the rich mummies have the show-off-monster-trucks, but the masses do the sensible thing like use winter tyres and occasionally whip the snow chains out the boot for odd snowy day they need to get up an incline.
Common sense .... never
As for our hard done by rural/out of townies, I sure an efficient modern 2 wheel car costs way less to operate and is the car of choice for the less well heeled.

Surely a better way to put the Chelsea tractor brigade off from buying them is to introduce a new category on the driving test specifically for 4x4s. I suspect the average person doing the school run would soon loose interest in 4x4s then, along with the needy users getting some proper training into the pros and cons of 4x4s.

This is pure rubbish - burning more fuel is not he only way to drive in snow! - whilst large Chealsea Tractor type 4x4's can cope with the snow there are others that cope just as well. for example the subaru justy which has been produced in a 4wd variant since 1980's and the Fiat Panda also available in a 4wd variant since the 1980's These small cars are perfectly suited to snow driving, whitout the fuel consumption of the Chealsea Tractor. There are many 4wd variants availble from the smallest right through to family estates, even the MPV Renault Scenic has been produced in a 4wd variant.
If you want a car that can cope they do exist, you dont have to resort to a 12 ton tractor.

The only place that your big 4x4 Chealse Tractors are better than a standard car is in the role of vehicle recovery and towing, and driving across fields of deep snow.

The extra duty is justified and should remain.

This reporter should think before he types. It is often wiser not to just say the first thing that comes into your head.

@Mark Wood #20: "I would glady pay the extra tax if the councils will come and resurface all of the bad roads for me."

So you admit you would still buy a big 4x4 (and 'pay the extra tax') even if the potholes were fixed? surely then your argument of requiring a 4x4 due to potholes is therefore null?

From an engineering point of view I don't see the reason for only driving two wheels when 4wd is an established technology. I don't think we'd settle for 2 wheel breaking on a car just because there was less to maintain! Personally I live in the High Peak and the council does not grit our road. If you want to go out with even a bit of snow it needs either 4wd or snow chains, or a tow. And it is a real pain to put on chains for a few 100m to get on the cleared road.

But 4wd cars do not have to be especially large or uneconomical and one does not need a big engine and high ground clearance for a bit of snow. Serious off road vehicles with diff-lock and low range are quite specialised and few people need them even in snow.


That said older petrol Land Rovers converted to LPG are often an economical way to get 4wd and a large load/passenger space, and are very good for towing boats. LPG has a debatable marginal carbon footprint as propane/butane is essentially a waste product of the oil industry often burnt at the well head (but there are transport costs), and the sulphur and particulate emissions are practically nil if teh engine is well adjusted. And in my case very good for towing 2wd neighbours out of our road, including a transit van a neighbour needed for work.

Bla Bla. The usual myopic environmental excuse to complain about something few people know little about...and here I mean both the environment and 4x4's.

I agree that many people who own so called 4x4's have bought them as status symbols and the large V8 petrol engines they have are not the best for economy and the air we breath, however there are many true 4x4's out there being used by private individuals for volunteer work (such as 4x4 Rescue groups), the Police, Ambulance, RAC, AA and coast guard, RNLI to name a few..they normally are Land Rovers as they are real 4x4's that do exactly what they say non the tin. The bulk of these are diesel and the economy and pollution they put out is way less than most family cars, yet this is never mentioned.

It's always the green lobby going bash the 4x4 owner and yet they know little of the subject matter they speak of. I own a LR Discovery 300TDi that I use on the farm and for local 4x4 rescue work, it returns more than 35mpg and the emissions are lower than most family cars. When are the tax people to bankruptcy group going to attack those with very large engined cars, the real petrol heads who own Porsche's, Ferrari, Aston Martin etc. I love these cars, but many are neither practical nor environmentally friendly.

Lets keep the arguments in perspective please.

As for £950 tax...what a bunch of wallies...do they not realise that some will still pay this, and many will simply go out and buy second hand, circumventing the rules and using less efficient vehicles on the road instead...Usual myopic Labour rubbish.

The sooner we get a change of Government the better this nation will be. Gordon Brown is an insult who stole the job without an election, it should not be allowed again.