>"roo bars". Short for "kangaroo bars". Heavy duty tubing shield around the front of the vehicle to fend off kangaroos. Principally used for roos in the Strine. Used for show everywhere else ...
Being deficient in the marsupial department we have "bull bars" in the UK. As few people in cities come up against many bulls in daily life, they became a little less fashionable when it was shown that they dramatically increased the injuries of a pedestrian involved in a collision with a car with bull bars fitted.
You might like this extract from Hansard, from when the matter was discussed in 1996 (it gives me very little confidence in the quality of debate in the upper house)!:
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/pdvn/nineties/text/60708-3.htm I'd missed the comma in the following phrase "Lord Tebbit of xenophobia" and thought it must be a spoof!
By the way, if you read down to where the National Curriculum is being discussed, my younger daughter is, at this very moment, studying the Battle of Hastings in a Scottish school. I'm still in recovery from having to do the "Scottish Wars of Independence" from the other side's point of view but then that's history for you!
