4×4 Magazine Australia – July 2023
English | 134 pages | pdf | 82.24 MB
Welcome at 4×4 Magazine Australia July 2023 Issue
ON THIS page last month, I spoke about the increasing number of cases of folks getting in trouble out in the bush or driving where they shouldn’t be, and I said that in some cases it’s not because they were being stupid or negligent, but they just weren’t prepared with the right knowledge of where they were going and the risks posed.
Back in the day, when someone was new to four-wheel driving and wanted to know more about it, they would either seek out an appropriate training course and learn from that, or join a four-wheel drive club that offered training and the possibility of joining club members on trips. These are still great ways of learning the ropes, and if you don’t have mates with experience to help you out, they are probably the best way to get the experience needed.
There are still 4×4 clubs in most areas, with many of them representing certain makes of 4x4s or just the region where they are based. Likewise, there are plenty of accredited driver training courses specifically for four-wheel drivers to learn the basics and essentials.
If you don’t have the experience, know-how or the confidence to use your 4×4 in varied and challenging conditions – and don’t know what to do when something does go wrong with your trip or the vehicle – then it would be wise to find the club or trainer near you and learn the ropes.
Not only will you learn something, but you can have a lot of fun doing it and there are plenty of people out there who have formed lifelong friendships being in a 4×4 club.
Getting it wrong and ending up stuck in a remote location could be life threatening, and you wouldn’t
be the first to have lost their car or their life when the right knowledge could have got them out – or better still, avoided the situation in the first place.
The same can be said for driving where you’re not supposed to. Aside from the dopes who pull out bollards and break down gates to access tracks they shouldn’t be on, there are plenty of people who drive where they shouldn’t because they don’t know otherwise and there wasn’t a great big sign there telling them they can’t.
Sticking to existing tracks and not creating new ones; not driving on vegetated sand dunes; and using the right driving techniques to limit damage to tracks and the environment are things that are
learned and not always obvious to everyone. Aside from the previously mentioned risks to vehicles and passengers, by unknowingly damaging tracks you could be the one to blame when the fences and gates go up to prevent anyone from using them in the future.
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