Sunday, September 18, 2011

NSW Vehicle Modification Laws VSI 50 and VSB 14 - What's Wrong, and Why?

Leading 4WD Journalist and Author Robert Pepper has published an informative article on the proposed VS150 on his blog. Check out the full article on the link below.
"So what is VSI50 and why should you, the recreational offroader, care?
VSIs, or Vehicle Standards Information, are official documents describing what you can or cannot do with vehicles. Clearly, there has to be some limit on modifications otherwise entirely unsafe vehicles would be driving up accident rates.
The NSW RTA’s VSI50 covering the raising and lowering of vehicles, and as offroaders, we’re more concerned about raising than lowering. The industry uses the term “lift” instead of raise, and generally a lift through suspension or body, so I’ll use the term “lift” instead. But for the purposes of VSI 50 a lift also means increasing tyre diameter."
Roberts article makes a heap of sense and takes out some of the 'hype and emotion' from the reporting.
"Some people are asking what's driven this change. Is it a result of a study showing that modified vehicles have a disproportionate effect on the road toll?  The answer to that is no.  It is not clear what the thinking is behind this, and one could well argue that if a lower road toll is the objective the effort for VSI50 could be better directed elsewhere.
There are no studies, to my knowledge, of the effects of modified vehicles on road safety, just anecdotal evidence and guesswork.  I don't think statistics from accidents are collated and analysed."
See the whole article HERE

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