Are they killers on four wheels or handy, comfortable family vehicles, asks Rebecca Smithers?
Teachers will today become the latest group to declare war on four-wheel drive vehicles which are being used increasingly for the school run, claiming that they are dangerous and unjustifiable in built-up inner-City areas.
Delegates at the annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Gateshead are expected to back a motion this afternoon pressing the government "to seek to change social attitudes to such vehicles by publicising the dangers and legislating to place warning notices on them."
The vehicles - also dubbed 'Chelsea tractors' having never attracting so much as a speck of rural mud - have become a scourge in City centres, with their safety risks to pedestrians (particularly children) increased when fitted with bull bars. ATL general secretary Dr Mary Bousted summed up the spirit of the motion, proposed by Phil Whalley of Hardenhuish school in Wiltshire:"Hampstead and Highgate parents should get their green wellies out and walk their children to school rather than driving them half a mile to school in their SUVs fitted with bull bars, spoiling the view."
Should four-by-fours be banned completely from the school run? Or are they simply an easy target?
