Facts about 4x4s

Many off road cars use around 300% more fuel and pump out 300% more pollution than ordinary passenger cars. Some of them pump out two or three times their own body weight in carbon dioxide every year.

In an accident, many 4x4s are three times more likely than ordinary passenger cars to kill a pedestrian. They are twice as likely to cause severe traumatic brain and abdominal injuries and 50% more likely to kill the passenger of another vehicle.

4x4s are among the worst offenders in the road transport sector - the sector responsible for almost a quarter of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. According to The Independent, one in seven cars sold in London is now a 4x4. Most of their drivers will never use the all-terrain features that make the cars so criminally irresponsible.

Climate change already kills 150,000 people every year; parents who drive 4x4s for the "safety" of their children are contributing to the likelihood that those children will face a dire global emergency while they are in their twenties.

For more facts about 4x4s, read Offroad cars, onroad menace by Dr Peter Wells at Cardiff Business School’s Centre for Automotive Industry Research.