Backpackers renting vehicles on Fraser Island

See thread 74375 it is about the same subject but 10 threads previous


Cheers Kev

It's such a great place for young kids to explore and create memories that will last a lifetime. More a shame that some will never get over it.

From my observations, and as a troopy owner acutely aware of the respect this vehicle needs to be shown, I was horrified to see them so overloaded and top heavy with all the gear stowed overhead. There is little protection for rear seated passengers on bench seats and in a roll-over or head-on these vehicles are a death trap.

Once this is known, you drive accordingly and with great caution on terrain that can vary greatly, particularly like Fraser island.

I believe the problem must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the rental companies who supply vehicles to people visiting Fraser Island. Why they do not require a hirer not to be accredited in some fashion is to say this frequency of loss of life is acceptable. It is clearly a risky activity and deserving of some mitigation strategies.

Perhaps an induction type of test is appropriate showing the do's and do not's. If you pass you can hire and the converse applies. If the accidents resulting in loss of life was more broadly based then you could require any driver to have passed an "induction test" before entry to Fraser. With all the technology around these days it wouldn't be hard to set up on the internet and ensure drivers had some awareness of the pitfalls associated with certain types of driving behaviour/ignorance. To be informed is to be aware, choices then dictate the outcomes.

The problem is not helped by irresponsible advertising aimed at youth that shows what remarkable feats are possible in light SUV's and to the middle aged purchasers of Landcruisers and Patrols whose vehicles can defy gravity and other laws of physics. Whilst I'm at it I'll also have a shot at some of the dvd's produced by a certain monthly 4WD mag that just perpetuates these myths at the expense of the unwary.

Too much testosterone and not enough education? Who knows??

Why were 8 people in a 105 series cruiser to start with. They only have seatbelts for 6 don't they? Were 2 people in the cargo area perhaps? I, like everyone else, was expecting this to be another troopy incident...

So why is one tourist/backpackers death on Fraser Island, as tragic as any death is, so newsworthy? What about the hundreds of lives lost on our roads? Is it that this is so commonplace that it doesn't rate a mention on a news bulletin? Not newsworthy enough? What about the tourist/backpacker that rolls up to the hire car desk with an international licence who may never have driven on the left hand side of the road or never been out of a city or town in his life. Hires a car either 2wd or 4wd and heads off onto our country roads with no experience of this type of driving. How does a hire company qualify who gets a car and who doesn't?
No I dont work for or own a car hire mob
Cheers
Pop

apparently it was a 105 series engineered to be an 8 seater like a 100 series is, so not illegally overloaded.

Q. Do people wearing seatbelts get thrown from vehicles. Seen roll-overs worse than that one where the occupant's walk away from because they were wearing their seat belts.

Rocko Wallaby wrote:

"Do we ban unskilled drivers from all our roads?"

We should! Then there'd be hardly any traffic problems!!

;-))


Cheers

Brian

And Qld govt reaction will be to hit all 4x4 drivers with a licence endorsment = $$$.

Surely speed limiting these vehicles to 60km/h would eliminate a lot of the trouble . If it's for hire to drive on Fraser I say it should be speed limited , not that would be a magic fix but better to roll over at 60 than 80 or 100km/h .
Kev.

It should be noted that between 2003 and 2007 there were 40 car related deaths on fraser island. 21 of these were Australian citizens. So it's not just a backpacker problem.

Part of the problem is the hire companies do not allow tyre deflation , presumably for insurance reasons.
This means drivers are trying to get up too much speed to get through soft spots.
Its also damaging the tracks

Having spent some time on Fraser Island, and doing a lot of FWD driving, we came upon a lot of foreign tourists in hired 4 x 4's.

One was lying on it's side, after driving into a washed out section of the beach. This vehicle a Troopy had 11 kids in it from the U.K. plus all of their crap on a roof rack (three across the front & eight in the back). Luckily for them, except for a bad scare, no one was hurt.

We pulled the vehicle back onto its wheels and eventually got it going. My mate who is a Supervisor Diesel Fitter in mining, claimed that the vehicle was a piece of crap, it had a lot of rust in the body, the poorest tyres possible, and how many times the odometer had done a world trip, no one knows. In his opinion should have been burnt at the scene.

As for the kids on board, and that's all they were bloody pommy kids, two of them had hired the vehicle at Hervey Bay, they had never driven a manual before. The hirers gave them a short, quick instructional drive, then they took off. Enroute they picked up their mates. It saves money when you don't have much.

Look, I know that they were doing the wrong thing, but FWD'ing is not big in the U.K. and though they could drive, well one almost could, they said that they weren't told about overloading, the only thing was not to let the tyres down, and that if the vehicle was returned with any damage they would have the amount taken from their credit card account.

I believe Transport Qld. has taken a number of the hire companies to task over the condition of their vehicles, and it's about time, but the practice/s that we observed that day, and a number of others was just a disaster waiting to occur.