{"id":220042,"date":"2025-10-17T11:02:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/220042\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:02:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:02:13","slug":"wa-farmers-and-caravaners-defend-australias-growing-love-affair-with-us-style-utes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/220042\/","title":{"rendered":"WA farmers and caravaners defend Australia’s growing love affair with US-style utes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farmers and caravaners have defended Australia’s growing love affair with American-style utility vehicles.<\/p>\n

The increase of such makes as Dodge Ram and Ford F150 on Australian roads has sparked safety concerns and calls for higher import taxes.<\/p>\n

However, Caravan Industry of Australia\u2019s Luke Chippindale said big, American-style utes were not a cause for concern.<\/p>\n

“There’s a place for them,” he said<\/p>\n

“We don\u2019t necessarily see them being used as much for recreational vehicles.<\/p>\n

“They are predominantly used for commercial vehicles, and the number of them on the roads are still fairly low.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

John Barber and Lone Corley love their Ford F150 that has driven more than a million kilometres around WA. (Supplied: John Barber)<\/p>\n

Big farm, big truck\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Barber uses his big ute to cart cattle from his farm in the West Australian town of Manjimup, 300 kilometres south of Perth.<\/p>\n

“I’m a farmer, and we buy and sell cattle \u2026 and we’ve got an F-truck that’s done [more than] one million kilometres,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’re the safest car on the road, to be honest.<\/p>\n

“The biggest problem we’ve got is when you’re doing 100 kilometres an hour with a trailer filled up with cattle and you get these little 1.6 litre cars trying to pass you.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"e\"<\/p>\n

The bigger cars are useful for towing trailers and caravans. (Supplied: John Barber)<\/p>\n

The cars are sold as good-carrying vehicles, but some say they’re unnecessary and unsuitable for Australian roads and car parks.<\/p>\n

Pedestrian Council chair Harold Scruby is one of the critics, arguing that many are carrying a “hammer and chisel” at most.<\/p>\n

“They are gas guzzlers at a time when this country is trying to reduce it carbon footprint [and] they are incredibly dangerous,” Mr Scruby said.<\/p>\n

Mr Scruby was an expert witness in a coronial inquest recommending a ban on four-wheel drives around schools following the death of a five-year-old in 2001<\/a> who was struck by one.<\/p>\n

He said the car involved in the incident was “relatively small” compared to some of the US-style utility vehicles on Australian roads today.<\/p>\n

“Where is the government on this?” he asked.<\/p>\n

“They’re trying to get the road toll down; it’s the worst it has been in ten years, particularly in Western Australia.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

US-style pickup trucks rare becoming more popular in Australia. (RAM Trucks Australia)<\/p>\n

‘Big dumb utes’<\/p>\n

Progressive think-tank, the Australian Institute, has previously taken aim at what it called “big dumb utes”.<\/p>\n

It urged the federal government to close the loophole, which means buyers of big, imported utes do not need to pay luxury car tax, because it’s considered a commercial vehicle.<\/p>\n

Australian Institute economist Jack Thrower said there was a “proliferation” of big utility vehicles but a lack of action.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Owners of cars designed to carry goods, rather than people, are excempt from paying luxury car tax. (ABC South West WA: Jonathan Daly)<\/p>\n

“Less than 25 per cent of new car sales are ordinary passenger cars these days, it’s mostly things like SUVs and utes.”<\/p>\n

“These big luxury utes, so things like your RAMs, your Chevrolets are exempt from the luxury car tax.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the South Australian government proposed laws to force developers to build bigger garages to avoid residential streets being clogged up by big utes.<\/p>\n

Mr Thrower said it was a worrying policy response.<\/p>\n

“Instead of dealing with the problems of big cars causing big problems, we’re seeing people call for ways of essentially [making] the rest of society subsidise the cost of these vehicles,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Reece<\/p>\n

WA Police Minister Reece Whitby says it’s drivers who are the problem, not the cars. (ABC News: Briana Sphepherd)<\/p>\n

WA Road Safety Minister Reece Whitby said he did not see a need to crack down on big cars.<\/p>\n

“I’m not going to tell them what sort of car they can buy, ” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Whitby said he was instead focused on driver behaviour.<\/p>\n

“Far too many people don’t take responsibility,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You can be in a huge F150 and a little Hyundai, and you can represent the same danger to other people on the road through reckless behaviour.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farmers and caravaners have defended Australia’s growing love affair with American-style utility vehicles. The increase of such makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,134176,22680,843,127904,134173,44,2948,134174,33433,134175,45],"class_list":["post-220042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-big-cars","tag-bunbury","tag-cars","tag-chevrolet","tag-commercial-cars","tag-news","tag-pedestrian","tag-pickup-trucks","tag-ram","tag-utes","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}