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Andrew Dickens: What's wrong with Ford Ranger drivers?

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Mon, 15 Apr 2019, 12:19PM
Photo / File

Andrew Dickens: What's wrong with Ford Ranger drivers?

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Mon, 15 Apr 2019, 12:19PM

What a fantastic weekend I had. Due to a couple of reasons I went for a big ramble all around the hinterland yesterday. Travelling from one side of the island to the other. I drove 200 kilometres and we visited four different beaches in the day. The dog didn’t know what was happening. Not just one beach walk Dad but four!!!!

But as I drove around the place I noticed some atrocious driving and particularly some aggressive tailgating and then overtaking and the funny thing was that every time it was the same make of car.

A Ford Ranger Double Cab Ute.

That shouldn’t surprise me, after all, they are the biggest selling car in the land and diesel-powered double-cab utes are our car of choice. The statistics are incredible. Double-cab utes make up eight of the top ten new vehicles sold every month. The top five double cab utes are outselling the top five normal cars by a ratio of almost two to one right now. Our next favourites are SUVs and vans then way back in the field passenger cars.

When it comes to electric vehicles the figures are even more overwhelming.  or every electric car we bought last year we bought 64 mostly-diesel double-cab utes! One electric car, 64 double-cab utes!

This is all bad news for our carbon emissions from transport because we love our caravan towing, bike carrying weekend adventure machine with the 3.2-litre motor.

There are 4.2 million vehicles in the fleet today, if you want to replace all those with electric vehicles you’d be doing so at a rate of 131,250 a year for the next 32 years! Every year you don’t replace them at that rate you have to add that to the following years. Last year we bought about 3,000 electric vehicles. So, only 128,250 short. We’re toast. No wonder the carbon emissions are going up over 2 per cent every year.

Now I don’t know what the matter is with the drivers of the Ford Rangers on the open road, but something’s up. They may be driving what is essentially a small truck but their mindset is that they’re racing a Ford Escort rally car.

Not content with demolishing the air quality they are also very keen on driving a foot behind you with their front bumper bars looming in your back window. Lights flashing because of course, they need to get ahead of you for some vitally important reason. I wouldn’t mind if I was poodling along at 7ok in an old Ford Anglia but when you’re in a Ford SUV yourself with cruise control set at 100k you have to wonder what they’re up to. 

You know I’m trying to figure out if buying a Ford Ranger turns you into a dick or whether it’s dicks who prefer Ford Rangers.

But whatever it’s holiday time and I’d urge everyone just to chill out and enjoy the journey.

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