Motoring: A dangerous fad that car firms foster

The appalling accident that occurred on the A303 near Andover recently, in which a young London woman and her two children were killed as she drove home in a Range Rover, may at last dissuade people from buying four-wheel-drive 'trucks' as ordinary family transport. The vehicle suddenly crossed to the wrong side of a dual carriageway and was hit by a lorry; the woman's husband, driving ahead, saw the fatal crash in his mirror.

The fad for 4x4 off-roaders is one of the greatest marketing cons ever perpetrated by car makers. Off-roaders are slower, thirstier, heavier, and - whether this was the cause of the accident or not - more difficult to drive at speed than well-engineered saloons. They are higher and are naturally less stable at speed, whether travelling in a straight line or cornering, and most display a very slight rock-roll motion, often requiring minute steering corrections while driving straight ahead.

That is not to say that 4x4s, perforce, are difficult or dangerous to drive; they are not. But they are harder to drive precisely than a well-engineered saloon. It also means they are more likely to roll over, as Which? magazine has demonstrated - targeting, in particular, the little Suzuki jeep that was fashionable in London's suburbs a few years back.

You can't really blame Land Rover for the proliferation of 4x4s. Although they begat the breed, they didn't breed the hype, even though they have benefited mightily from it. The Range Rover was never designed as an on-road luxury rival to a Mercedes estate, although that is what it has become. It has transmogrified into one, coincident with the city-dweller's urge to mimic a rustic lifestyle.

As Range Rovers changed from being prettier Land Rovers aimed at affluent farmers to suburban status symbols, so the more cynical car makers pounced. Now, most of them are at it, and Land Rover's little niche - which it shared with Jeep in America and one or two of the Japanese makers primarily serving Third World markets - has become crowded. None, be it the Japanese, Ford, Vauxhall or even Mercedes, does it as well.

Land Rover is astonishingly good at serving up both off-road prowess and on-road ability (the newest Range Rover, on sale in a fortnight, is every bit as comfortable as the best luxury cars in the world; initial reports suggest that it also drives very nearly as well as the top-line executive saloons). They are technological tours de force, possibly Britain's most impressive vehicles. Yet they are increasingly being bought by the wrong people.

No matter how much manufacturers try to disguise the fact, a two-ton vehicle that is 6ft high and carrying hundreds of pounds of weight under the floor to cope with mud and mountains is still not going to be as competent on road as a well-engineered vehicle designed exclusively for Tarmac.

There are plenty of people who need that ground clearance; need that four-wheel-drive; need the extraordinary ruggedness and mountain-goat-like dexterity - and yet still want reasonable on-road refinement, when the motorway journeys beckon.

But, just at the moment, there are plenty more people who mistakenly feel that they're buying safer, because they're buying bigger and higher. They are not. In most cases, they're simply buying a vehicle that, because of its comparatively slow responses and greater propensity to roll, is more likely to be involved in a high-speed accident than is a well-engineered saloon.

The signs are already there that the fad - which saw August sales jump 10 per cent on the same month last year - is starting to fizzle. The insurance companies, which so often spoil the car companies' fun, are now targeting off-roaders. More and more flash 4x4s are being stolen. Premiums are growing; many insurers are demanding alarms or immobilisers. Higher premiums will mean lower sales and higher depreciation. The ephemera that is fashion will surely soon identify a new motoring fad - which can't possibly be as irrational as the urban family's love affair with two-ton trucks designed more for the mud than the motorway.