Call for ban on four-wheel drives in school zones, shopping areas

[nota]

ridiculous overregulation to appease the hysterical mothers association.

who's driving these school-zone SUVs?

[IBrake4Rainbows]

Let them try and enforce the ban. Waste the time & money involved.

Honestly, Ban 4wd's, indiscriminantly. nevermind the hoon in the Holden ute railing through a school zone knocking over little timmy.

No offence to the nanny brigade who thought this up, but it's the largest waste of effort I can possibly think of.

The best way to save lives? keep people who come up with conclusions like this the hell away from our chidlren.

[henk4]

if you deconnect FWD is a 4WD than legally still a 4WD?

[W.R.]

Sounds like a call for fascism if you ask me, you can't tell people what they can and cannot drive (unless ,of course, it's an unsafe vehicle) What next? Are we going to be told that we must only drive every three days due to the compulsory electric car sharing scheme rota?

[IBrake4Rainbows]

if you deconnect FWD is a 4WD than legally still a 4WD?

Easy way around it, of course.

Just buy a Ford Territory RWD

Thats MUCH safer!

[nota]

if you deconnect FWD is a 4WD than legally still a 4WD?

When early L/R Freelander transmissions clag up - as they often do - a quick fix 'on the cheap' is to disconect the RWD and use FWD-only, but they don't pass a roadworthy check in this condition

[Ferrer]

You lost me at alpha.

alpha is the amount of risk you are willing to take. so you want 95% confidence, then your alpha is .05. make sense? if not, don't worry about it.

Isn't alpha a car that breaks down a lot...?

[lightweight]

The main factor for fuel consumption is engine size and weight. The number of wheels that the engine power is transferred is rather secondary.

From that perspective, the claims made for 4x4 are not based on facts because Suzuki Swift has a 4x4 version and I don't think that it should be banned. On the other hand, if such a law is passed I could easily see Porsche shipping RWD Cayennes. Now, 450 bhp on the rear wheels of a 2 ton + behemoth is what frightens me.

The solution for me is the most objective one: Carbon Dioxide emissions. Simple, efficient and will encourage manufacturers lower emissions even more. No need to witch-hunt certain types of cars and their owners...

[G35COUPE]

well, that depends on your alpha. so let's break this down to be perfectly correct and not just throw out bullshit for the sake of bull shit. lets talk about trying to determine a proportion for a population, since that seems to be what the topic at hand is. this is the whole formula to determine sample size:

that is a bit cumbersome, so we combine some factors, and estimate the parameter at 1/2 (thats the p-hat and q-hat) and we end up with this:

so now we can solve this. for example (and i haven't looked at the study at hand to see their data, but again, this is just to minimize bullshit spatter) we will use a 95% confidence interval for the mean, which is pretty much the standard, and a width of +/-3%. so Z for an alpha of.025 (half of .05) is 1.96, and W is 2 the width of the proportion.

so that works out to n=1.96^2/.06^2=1067.111

and in order to actually get 1068 respondants, you need to ask more. and if they all respond you have a larger sample size, which means greater accuracy, so with 2500 respondents, there is a very high likelihood that this represents the population.

I am not sure what your point really was with the formulas you laid out, however, I am pretty comfortable with them. In practice, as I have done numerous times, especially at a 95% confidence interval or 2 standard deviations from the mean, assuming a true random sample is used, I have found less than 1,000 samples to be more than enough in any sampling technique. I repeat again, depending on use and purpose, over 1,000 samples is an overkill as far as the significance of the data is concerned.

The larger the number, the less the probability of the margin of error and possibly standard deviation from the mean. For example, a sample size of 1000 and 1,100, given the same alpha, as you have stated, will produce almost similar levels of significance. What may differ, may be your margin of error. Of course the 1100 sample size will most likely have less errors. This is explained by the "LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS".

Fortunately, for public policy purposes as is the case here, error rates to include +/-5% around the mean, can be acceptable. Statistics, unfortunately, is not an exact science and thus, it remains prone to all manner of interpretation. This is why i wondered why yoiu took the pains to draw up those formulas. For what?

I don't do theoretical statistics. I do practical and live statistics, and you would be surprised at how much cleaning up and manipulation (removing outliers) has to do be done to the rough data or sample collected, before it is actually good to be used for any analysis. For example, rough and random data, using a normal distribution, will never ever have the right set of skewness and kurtosis required to start a true statistical analysis and calculation. One has to clean up the data in order to get the skweness and kurtosis they think will be appropriate for the analysis.

So, simply throwing out a formula about Z scores and error rates, does not provide us with all the picture regarding the size of the data and whther it will be significant in the analysis or not. Of course, if your argument is about descriptive statistics, then may be i could see your point. If your argument is based on inferential statistics, then, it would be nice to inform you that there is a lot more that goes on with data besides Z scores and margin of errors.

This is why statistics remains a tool for predictions that may or may not represent reality, and not a tool for absolutes.

[culver]

This proposal is proof that stupid people have voices.

Really, "4WD"? So 2WD versions of the same vehicles are OK? I will assume snow is not an issue there. In many norther states of the US 4WD is handy in the winter even in cities. It's not essential but it is very handy.

Also, as many have pointed out, 4WD can apply to a 911, Subi or Landrover. A blanket 4WD ban/tax would be incredibly stupid.

The person who started this is clearly an ignorant fear monger.

[henk4]

Also, as many have pointed out, 4WD can apply to a 911, Subi or Landrover. A blanket 4WD ban/tax would be incredibly stupid.

The person who started this is clearly an ignorant fear monger.

but banning any Audi Quattro will be an esthetic relief...

[LeonOfTheDead]

From that perspective, the claims made for 4x4 are not based on facts because Suzuki Swift has a 4x4 version and I don't think that it should be banned. On the other hand, if such a law is passed I could easily see Porsche shipping RWD Cayennes. Now, 450 bhp on the rear wheels of a 2 ton + behemoth is what frightens me.

The solution for me is the most objective one: Carbon Dioxide emissions. Simple, efficient and will encourage manufacturers lower emissions even more. No need to witch-hunt certain types of cars and their owners...

carbon dioxide emissions should be taken with a bit of salt though:
You can obviously say a Pagani Zonda emits about 34 kg of CO2 everytime I think about it, at the same time, there barely are 104 Zondas out there.
At the same time, Porsche is so proud of how many Cayennes are infesting the streets...
It's not something my beloved supercars, just there are some kind of cars (even SUVs like the Fornasaris, or absurdities with 16 cylinders and four turbos...oh wait!) aren't a real threat as much as the much larger number of more commons cars.
I don't care how much a certain Aston Martin pollute, probably I'm polluting more of it when we have a barbecue at my house, or when a car explodes during the filming of a movie in Hollywood. On the other hand cars much more diffused have a general impact much more important.
Not even talking about a single F1 car during a race weekend.

It may be sound a bit selfish as ALL cars contribute to the general pollution, still it's a way to save differences on a world pointed toward anonymous homogeneity.
Surely everyone has to do his part to contribute, still a weighted system could be a better idea.


So, how many X6s have been sold to day? can we scrap all of them now?

[cargirl1990]

I don't see the point in banning 4WD vehicles. I honestly don't. It doesn't make sense to me at all.

[jcp123]

Oh, there's a great idea. Let's pile yet another law on the books for the do-gooders' sake. I don't know how Oz is, but if it's anythink like here it'll be a pain in the @$$ for a lot of moms dropping kids off at school with what benefit i can't really see.

[clutch-monkey]

but if it's anythink like here it'll be a pain in the @$$ for a lot of moms dropping kids off at school with what benefit i can't really see.

i'm okay with that, soccermum's in SUV's = raaaaage
it's just pointless vote grabbing by some polly though. i mean that's a dangerous slope to start down.