Motoring Opinion: So Much Stronger Together

Why isn’t the motoring scene more united?

The motoring lifestyle is under an unprecedented level of attack. Not that it's ever had a good run in my memory, with ebbs and flows that never really allow for an environment where we can be relaxed about our passion.

Whether it's a trashy episode of A Current Affair, defect stations around popular cruise spots, gates erected to lock us out of our favourite off road tracks, or legislative changes; it would seem the powers that be don’t really care about motoring enthusiasts.

This article is not to protect the small percentage of idiots, which I say meekly, because I’ve been that person before. I think many that go through formative years with an ounce of motoring in the blood will have been the same. Its a separate issue that requires attention.

I recently attended a forum held by the NSW State 4WD Association. It hosted a collection of delegates from different entities to discuss the upcoming changes to State Forests on the NSW mid-north coast. The changes will see these currently public spaces, which also double as vital timber production industry, turned into National Park. No more timber production and no more access for recreational four-wheel drivers.

Locked gates preventing public access are an ever increasing sight for recreational four wheel drivers

This is not a new issue in the 4WD scene – rather a string of successive and similar closures under the veil of environmental protection. The latter is an admirable cause, because let me be clear, I love the bush. I back onto National Park at home, I’ve explored it in various capacities for much of my life and go out of my way to live a “tread-lightly” ethos in everyhting I do.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack with this ruling. This includes evidence issues that contradict the notion of the park being created to protect Koala's and the social challenge of job losses that come with the timber industry being shut down.

Most bewildering is a long list of organisations that have done very well off the back of this market, but seem all too intent on navel gazing when it comes time to backing the four wheel drive community against these issues.

That’s for another day, but I want to focus on something that truly frustrates me: the fragmented nature of the car scene. Why is it that we are all intent on staying in our own little groups, rather than pooling numbers and resources to support each other?

At a micro level, Landcruiser guys put the proverbial on Patrol guys. Rotary lovers profess their undying affection for the rotisserie, while V8 drivers laugh at them. Track racers don’t really blend with the Stance Crew, because why would you build a car if you don’t race it? Rock Crawlers think those that tow a camper are sissies. At the highest level, four-wheel drivers don’t really band together with their tarmac loving counterparts.

Why? I'd caution a guess that much comes down to the differences between the vehicles and the use-case. You can’t throw a lifted GQ into a corner at 10/10ths (unless you’re coming off the Mooney Mooney Bridge), and you can’t take a Chevrolet Camaro up Mt Airlie.

But with a slight perspective shift, you may come to the realisation that you can’t undertake any of these pursuits without a chassis that holds a driveline, 4 wheels, a steering wheel and controls, and a driver behind the wheel to pull it all together.  

The similarities are far deeper and more meaningful.

A love for the vehicle is another commonality. We care for them, often better than we care for ourselves. The medium under the tyres is different, the challenges are different, the end location and what you do there is different yes, but at the most basic level it's man and machine working together to reach an outcome.

Both the four-wheel drive and the road-going motoring scene cops its share of flack. The earlier are branded “environmental vandals” damaging wilderness areas with reckless abandon, if you believe the garbage on mainstream media. They’re fed by lobby groups with a motivation revolving around “science”. Personal experience has show that they cannot prove the case with credible, non-biased sources, no matter how nicely you ask.

The latter have been the target of media and police for decades. Not a month or two goes by without a click-starved media outlet publicising grainy footage of a pimple-faced teen doing a burnout in an abandoned industrial area, consequently tarnishing the name of car people across the country.

It’s a red-carpet invite for our illustrious public officials too, who are quick to apply the foundation and find a camera to denigrate the lot of us to an appreciative crochet-loving audience.  

But what if we all banded together to combat these issues as a team?

The last time I checked, the way to get a politician’s attention is to demonstrate one of two things; the number of votes, or tax income that is on the line.

The biggest 4wd aftermarket business in Australia is turning over just under 1Bn in revenue. Yes, corporations find funky ways to minimise tax, but its still got to be a big number for that business alone. An Economic Value Study conducted for the Australian Motoring Heritage Foundation revealed 970,000 historic vehicles in Australia. Theyre owned by motoring enthusiasts that spend 9.9Bn on their hobby per annum. It goes on to identify 79,000 jobs and a combined 25.2Bn pumped into the economy.

The numbers of true recreational four-wheel drivers are not as well documented unfortunately. However, having run a business in that scene in a past life, I can safely say it’s in the hundreds of thousands across the country.

The psyche of the car person chooses to ignore the noise – we don’t stand and speak up enough or voice our own opinions. There are many that have tried and put petitions together that gain some traction, but it’s simply not enough.

The reality is if we don’t take some sort of action, we have no right to complain later.

I can see you nodding… What if we had our own lobby group with representation from all cohorts of the motoring scene? One cause; to defend the rights of law abiding, tax paying, voting-age individuals that just want the right to enjoy their passion like everyone else?

Let us use conservative numbers and assert that there are 500,000 motoring enthusiasts across all cohorts affected by the issues noted above. Thats 1.8% of the population; hardly exciting, right?

But what if all 500,000 of those people voted on a petition? What if 500,000 people liked and shared a range of posts supporting the various causes affecting all the different cohorts? What if 500,000 motoring enthusiasts rallied across the country? Not such a small number now is it?

We are powerful beyond imagination if we were open to leaving ego at the door, and coming together to protect our combined rights

Because I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of being made to feel like I’m a second-rate citizen by people who have no idea.