I do wonder how many of those brand new 4X4s never again venture off the paved roads after their first experience with getting stuck?teledork said:I'm thinking not just snow.
Who else here has watched Matts Off Road Recovery on Youtube?
He's often pulling out 4Xs that are so new they don't even have plates on them.
In the 70's I worked for a federal agency (which will go unnamed) doing fieldwork in the southern Idaho boonies. One summer they hired a bunch of college students to do a mass measurement thing. Gave them all 4X4s. Those youngen's found lots of creative ways to get themselves in all kinds of rollovers, mudholes, sand pits and such. Since then, I thought it ought to be mandatory to take, and pass, a backcountry driving course before getting the keys to a 4X4.
Some of us, me included, were raised around jeeps and scouts and Dodge Powerwagons. But far too many buy their shiny new jacked up big wheels toy and immediately head out to 'tear up the backcountry'! Many of them don't even know how to change a tire or pitch a tent.
I am not trying to be judgmental, but when I encounter a brand new 4X4 in the backcountry, I now assume the driver does not know any rules of road and will get me in trouble if I don't give them plenty of room. Like the guy we encountered on Cedar Mesa coming towards us in his brand new bright blue 4X4 with two bikes in a fancy rack in the back. Rather than back up 30 yards, he just tore off through the sage brush around us and in the process ripped up 40 yards of previously untouched landscape.
Contrast that with the guy in his 4 or 5 year old plain 4x4 we encountered 3 times on cedar mesa during the same trip. Each time we gave each other plenty of room and consideration. He wasn't a talker, more like a one finger raised from the steering wheel type, but I would bank on him being the right guy to trust in a pinch.
Things are not worse now than before. You only have to read Mark Twain's Roughing It to know that fools, greenhorns and dudes have always infested the wild lands. I still try to avoid them if at all possible.