Is your bullbar going to be banned?
The new laws surrounding bullbar design, and what they mean for you.
The bullbar is under threat in Australia. Once upon a time, it was a 4X4 accessory firmly in the domain of the backyard fabricator, and largely free of restriction. A compilation of tube, sheet, box section, and weld, installation was simply a case of bolting it onto the front of your 4X4 for some extra protection.
For better or for worse, those days are firmly over. Laws and regulations that surround the design and impact of vehicles, and anything that gets fitted to them are strict and complex; something that will only get more-so in years to come. Modern cars have airbags and crumple zones, and are shaped to minimize injury to pedestrians in the event of impact. Whacking something that resembles the Max Max Thunderdome on the front of your car changes all of that, so authorities are clamping down on those that are deemed ‘dangerous’.
The bullbar is probably the original and most definitive 4X4 accessory. It’s often the first item fitted, and many others are in turn fitted to it. It’s what you need when you’re mounting a winch and driving lights, and it most importantly protects you from the many critters that you will cross paths with in the bush, and the bush itself.
If you have ever hit a decent sized animal in your 4X4, or even come close, you’ll know how important a bullbar can be. It can save your vehicle, and save you from being stranded, injured or worse. This has become chief purpose of many a bullbar out there, so they have been designed with protection in mind: strength and deflection.
Certain parts of the media and spokespeople from the Police and roads authorities have said that the crackdown is a move to get rid of the ‘five poster’, a design synonymous with rural cars, B&S utes and concrete cowboys. That’s categorically wrong, however. Here’s an important grab from the “Bull bar tolerances and conditions” document from the NSW Transport Centre for Road Safety:
“(The law) requires bull bars be designed with a profile that generally conforms to the shape, in plan view, front view and side view, of the front of the vehicle to which it is fitted; the VFPS (Vehicle Frontal Protection System) must not increase the overall width of the vehicle (excluding mirrors); and to prevent the VFPS from hooking or grazing other road users, all exposed edges must be chamfered and free of burrs or sharp edges, forward facing edges must have a radius of at least 5mm, there must be no open-ended frame members, and small components, such as brackets, must be free of burrs and sharp edges and be rearward of the front face of the bull bar.”
There also can’t be any leading edges or sharp points, like big, beefy posts and rod holders. They can’t be wider than the car or block the driver’s vision either, or in other words, a few of the entrants at the Deni Ute Muster would be sweating.
The bullbar will live on, albeit in a more conservative and controlled manner.
Harold Scruby, self-appointed chairman of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, has been the most vocal opponent of the bullbar. During his prolific media campaign over the last fifteen years, Mr Scruby has often called it for it to be banned completely in Australia. “They’ve banned bullbars in Europe and they’ve got much bigger animals than us they can hit” is a quote from Mr Scuby, back in 2010.
I went driving from Sydney to Cameron Corner and back a little while ago, and the amount of pedestrians I saw outside of cities was a zero. Not one. How many kangaroos did I see? Lost count. I had to hit the anchors pretty hard a handful of times to dodge an encounter with nature – not an uncommon occurrence. That’s not counting all of the cattle and goats, either. I don’t use those long, straight, unfenced Outback roads for commuting personally, but I can still see why those that do want some serious barwork.
That’s the thing that doesn’t make sense about these new laws, and something Mr Scruby has failed to address in his criticisms. Firstly, Europe is about as far away as you can get from rural and regional Australia. Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world, especially in regional and remote areas. Distances are long, and the roads are flat and narrow. Secondly, the wildlife is absolutely everywhere. It’s estimated that between 50-60 million kangaroos are hopping around Australia (more than double the human population), along with around 30 million cattle and a few million goats. If you’re driving in regional and remote areas, you will come into close proximity to wildlife.
As far as Outback drivers are concerned with barwork, the more protection, the merrier. A forward-angled bar is great, because that means it’s deflecting whatever they are hitting down and away from their cars, its engine and cooling system, and their family inside of it. They don’t want anything landing on their lap, or causing a breakdown hundreds of kilometres from town. And because of the simple fact that you’re more likely to get struck by lightning that strike a pedestrian out of the city, rural folk are potentially losing access to valuable and proven protection for no good reason; protection that might be the deciding factor in saving lives.
Thankfully, manufacturers of protection-oriented bullbars like TUFF in Toowoomba have taken the fight head on (or the bull by the horns, so to speak), and have ensured that their bullbars are compliant with traffic regulations, and meet Australian Standards and Design Rules. All of the world leading, major Australian manufacturers of bullbars take massive steps every year in testing and development, to ensure their products are as safe as possible for drivers, passengers and pedestrians, ensuring the livelihood of an industry worth $300 million a year.
We think the bullbar should never be banned. Stopping people from emulating Carmageddon with ridiculous barwork in metropolitan areas is something that should definitely be controlled, within reason. Pedestrian safety is important. But so is the safety of a vehicle and its occupants, and the safety of those thousands of Australian families commuting in remote areas. And at the end of the day, a well designed and engineered bullbar makes a safe 4X4 much, much safer.
