# A SUV and BMW almost collide. Whom do you laugh at first? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 22, 2000, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286 "2000-08-22T08:22:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/61 "2000-08-24T03:01:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by oldscratch \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > Contrary to public-service announcements and public-school civics teachers, you can hardly ever make a difference by yourself. A single vote has never swayed an election of any importance, putting on a happy face has never stopped war, and sorting your trash for recycling hasn’t done squat for cutting back pollution. Each of us amounts to less than 0.0000004 percent of the population, which in a democracy means you’re worth something less than jack and very little more than zero. > > A rare exception is the 7 percent of Americans who choose to drive those laughably named sports utility vehicles. Their decision to ride high is having an enormously disproportionate impact on the American economy, environment and quality of life, not to mention the issue of life and death. > > The 93 percent of drivers who are either too considerate or too poor to buy an SUV are well aware of the fact that they’re three times more likely to die in a car crash if they’re hit by an SUV rather than a regular car – hell, terrorizing other motorists is half the fun of owning an Expedition. Now researchers for the National Transportation Research Board (part of the National Academy of Sciences) have found that drivers’ tendency to follow SUVs at greater distances is causing traffic jams in suburban towns that never experienced them before. And as anyone who drives regularly can attest, SUVs accelerate much more slowly – partly because they weigh three to four times more than cars, partly because their drivers are worried (justifiably) about SUVs’ tendency to roll over in turns. > > Considering all of these factors, researchers calculated that a large SUV takes up as much space in traffic as 1.41 cars. At intersections with short signal cycles, says Hugh Greechan of the Westchester (N.Y.) County Department of Public Works, “If you have three cars in front of you, you’ll get through; if you have two sports utility vehicles in front of you, you’ll get through. But if you have three sports utility vehicles in front of you, you won’t get through.” > > Each incremental delay builds exponentially. It doesn’t take long for a seemingly trivial additional delay per 45-second cycle to cascade into a colossal traffic jam, even in suburbia. Sprawl’s not the problem – since population density remains the same in most suburbs, it’s clear that SUVs are the culprit. > > Adding to the smog is a federal loophole that allows SUVs to spew five times more pollution and one-third more carbon dioxide into the air than cars. And with SUVs getting as little as nine miles per gallon, your decision to go the screw-the-planet route has the same impact as driving 10 cars at the same time. Ever doubted that you can make a difference? That 7 percent of SUV owners is the sole reason the United States can’t meet its targets for air pollution reduction under the Kyoto Accords. > > “We sell a lot of SUVs because that is what the customer wants,” Ford spokesman Terry Bresnihan says. “We’ve got to build a vehicle that someone will want to buy. Don’t you think if we could build a 40-mile-per-gallon Explorer we would?” The trouble with this puerile free-market reasoning is its reliance on a basic assumption – that Americans are entitled to buy anything they want, regardless of how dangerous and harmful it is. Of course, our society doesn’t really believe that; we ban heroin, nukes and kiddie porn despite the fact that they’re all viable products with eager markets. SUVs kill far more Americans every year than smack. In a few decades, we’ll all look back and wonder what the hell we were thinking when we put up with this madness. Why wait? Let’s ban SUVs now. > > Americans with large families and those who live in rugged rural areas make a case for SUVs. How else would they get around? The question ought to be: How did they get around pre-SUV? Vans and station wagons, and jeeps, respectively. In any case, inconveniencing the tiny percentage of the country that drives unpaved roads and produces more than three kids seems like a tiny price to pay for eliminating these gas-guzzling, smoke-belching deathmobiles. > > Finally, if saving bunny rabbits and little kids doesn’t make the case for junking SUVs, try saving your 401(k). As the price of gas hits $2 per gallon around the country, the economic impact – mainly from higher transportation costs being added to consumer prices – threatens to unravel the current economic boom. For instance, FedEx just added a 3 percent fuel surcharge for package deliveries, and airlines are passing $4.4 billion in expected jet fuel price hikes this year to passengers. With the labor market tighter than ever, inflation can’t be far behind. Since SUV drivers consume 43 percent of all gasoline in the United States, putting them back into cars would reduce consumption by more than a third – and that would have a huge impact on the current OPEC-induced squeeze. > > Why should 93 percent of the population suffer increased air pollution and risk of death, not to mention another recession, for a tiny minority of selfish jerks who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves? Think about it the next time you’re stuck in traffic. > > \*\* Remember class, it’s all about attitude. Not just how you drive (bad drivers own cars of all sizes), but what you drive (social responsibility). When I drive a large truck or flatbed, you better believe that I signal for an increased distance. For that matter, I also increase my following distances, knowing that my vehicle is more dangerous to others on the road. The callous disregard for human life demonstrated by people who have taken it upon themselves to navigate in a multi-ton vehicle, yet refuse to use their turn signals, cut into your following distance and drive up gas prices all at once is stupifying. Bad drivers in smaller cars just don’t have the option to mar the world with such a wide swath. Furthermore, there is a fairly close tracking between vehicle cost and degree of education. People who drive more expensive cars should know better than to have poor driving skills. Yet it is precisely these people who, too often, are the very worst drivers. It’s not about envy. How could I envy an antisocial submoron? For those of you who actually work with your SUV or get some mud on your wheel wells, hats off to you, you are using your vehicle for its intended purpose. To those for whom it is the remotest sort of status symbol, I leave you with a bumper sticker on a well used jeep, replete with mud strata and Nevada pinstripes: Driving one is not a spectator sport. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/62 "2000-08-24T08:27:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > > Remember class, it’s all about attitude. Not just how you drive (bad drivers own cars of all sizes), but what you drive (social responsibility). When I drive a large truck or flatbed, you better believe that I signal for an increased distance. For that matter, I also increase my following distances, knowing that my vehicle is more dangerous to others on the road. The callous disregard for human life demonstrated by people who have taken it upon themselves to navigate in a multi-ton vehicle, yet refuse to use their turn signals, cut into your following distance and drive up gas prices all at once is stupifying. Bad drivers in smaller cars just don’t have the option to mar the world with such a wide swath. Furthermore, there is a fairly close tracking between vehicle cost and degree of education. People who drive more expensive cars should know better than to have poor driving skills. Yet it is precisely these people who, too often, are the very worst drivers. It’s not about envy. How could I envy an antisocial submoron? For those of you who actually work with your SUV or get some mud on your wheel wells, hats off to you, you are using your vehicle for its intended purpose. To those for whom it is the remotest sort of status symbol, I leave you with a bumper sticker on a well used jeep, replete with mud strata and Nevada pinstripes: > > Driving one is not a spectator sport. > \*\* Amen, brother! This is one of the most intelligent posts I’ve seen and it makes me happy that the small handful of us decrying these things are not alone. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/63 "2000-08-24T12:57:22Z")
> [@](#): > > MC, > > If you accept the idea that 2 gallons of burned gasoline causes more environmental damage than 1 gallon of burned gasoline AND 2000 pounds of raw material causes less damage than 4000 pounds of raw material AND during most rush hours here in Dallas I don’t see a whole lot of Excursions (or other big SUV’s) carrying more than one person to work, then yeah, Excurions cause 2 to 3 times the damage of a Metro. Here are the stats: > > Metro: 1895lbs, 41mpg, 3 Quarts Oil every 3K miles > > Excursion: 7150lbs, 16mgp, 6 Quarts Oil every 3K miles - Unix Geek - Yes, but not all the stats: on a cost-per-passenger basis the Metro comes up short. My quick search for prices of each turned up ~$9000 for a Geo Metro (dealer price, claimed on a personal web page) and ~$32,000 for a Ford Expedition (kelly bluebook, 5000 mi., the only non-standard option I assumed was 4WD). The Expedition does weigh about 3.5 times as much as the Metro and it also costs about 3.5 times as much, but doesn’t burn 3.5 times as much fuel and doesn’t use 3.5 times as much oil. The Metro can only comfortably carry two adults while the expedition can comfortably carry nine: that’s 4.5 times as many passengers as the Metro. The (gallons-per-mile)-per-passenger of the Metro is .01219; for the Expedition it’s .00694. At full capacity, the Expedition actually uses _less_ fuel per passenger than the Metro does. So much for environmental damage. A driver with a Metro loses badly especially when he has to make multiple trips to transport something that could have been done in a single trip by the Expedition. Such as, , , multiple children. This impacts milage rates, which also affects resale values: the Metro isn’t as likely to hold its value. If both are involved in any collision, the stronger structure and higher replacment cost of the Expedition means that it is more likely to be repaired or salvaged while the Metro (more easily damaged and less costly to replace) is more likely to end up rusting in a junkyard somewhere. -And of course the medical costs of being involved in a collision can positively _dwarf_ the vehicle replacement costs. So much for raw material costs. Also consider if a multiple-driver family has the choice of purchasing one Expedition or two or three Metros what the results would be: the family with only one vehicle is going to have to coordinate trips much more effectively than the family with three vehicles, and they’re more lilely to maintain that one vehicle better (poorly maintained vehicles being the cause of most auto pollution). Coordinating trips together also results in less fuel consumption, _not_ doing so _doesn’t_. And because an Expedition is more expensive to buy, it is likely to be kept longer before replacement. - Your observation that you only see one person in each during rush hour isn’t worth much; not many people take their kids to the office every day, and not many people work at the same locations as their spouses. You _are_ likely to see more carpooling in smaller cars, because smaller cars tend to be less expensive, and the people driving smaller cars tend to have less income than people driving larger vehicles, and poor people benefit comparatively more from the savings of carpooling than wealthy people do. On the whole, the argument of the OP seems to center around the “that-guy-has-a-bigger-car-than-me” complaint. - MC ---
**Author:** ![HomeSlice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9d8465/32.png) [@HomeSlice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HomeSlice)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/64 "2000-08-25T14:09:47Z")
I have an SUV. ---
**Author:** ![Tymp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Tymp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tymp)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/65 "2000-08-25T14:18:10Z")
**MC** , “That-guy-has-a- **better** -car-than-me” would more accurately summarize the argument of the OP. Remember, the sweeping insult also included me with my little Bimmer as well as drivers of the mighty behemoths. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/66 "2000-08-25T16:44:35Z")
Zenster & Ike Last time I checked, both the SUV and a large BMW were both EPA approved to be sold and driven in the US. If you don’t like the fact that these expensive and large cars are permited to be built and licensed for North American roads then I suggest you contact your congressman and request that he take up your cause. Until then, flick that giant chip off your shoulders and get a life - there is nothing funny about the potential of injury or loss of life due to automotive accidents… especially when they are caused by driver error. I don’t own an SUV. I don’t like how they handle. In traffic, I’m often incovinienced by the fact that I cannot see sufficiently if I am behind/beside a particularly large SUV or minivan. I prefer midsized european sport sedans and sport coupes. I find the large BMW a bit too big for my needs but I do appreciate that some people like them. You two (and other like you) must remember that people who drive big expensive cars or SUV’s: a) can usually afford them, and b) simply like them. Who the hell are you to dictate which cars people can or cannot purchase with their own money? Are you some kind of automotive moral purchase authorities? Self declared voices of automotive reason, are you? Finally, if my yacht sinks, I will most deffinately not come crying to you… unless you are in the business of yacht recovery and repair. It is for these kinds of unpleasant occurances that I buy yacht insurance. Oh, and in case you still don’t get it… people who can afford to buy yachts (and SUV’s and BMW’s), can also afford to lose (and maintain and repair) them… ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/67 "2000-08-25T19:50:56Z")
Due to a stunning lack of participation(or defense), I thought I’d let you guys know. Ive started a thread in Great Debates so that all you SUV apologist can come over and defend the SUVs. Come join me 🙂 Hey you too, Quick ---
**Author:** ![Ad\_Noctum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b19c9b/32.png) [@Ad\_Noctum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ad_Noctum)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/68 "2000-08-25T20:07:51Z")
hmmmm… I don’t have a BMW, but I’m gonna buy a 1972 Mustang Mach1 here pretty quick, and I know I’d be pissed if someone ran into it… but it’s got VERY nice brakes and handling, so… ANYWAY, I think I’ve be laughing at the SUV owner because they get them to feel safer, and if they get into accidents anyway, they are just dumb… people that do drive large SUV’s in my opinion are not always snobs, but are most of the time… I know an 18 year old that is the bitchiest I know, and he drives a Tahoe because he dad’s a doc… don’t gime the Whyfor about that, I could go on… but anyhow… ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286/69 "2000-08-25T21:17:24Z")
laughing at other’s misfortune – real nice. hating people just because they drive a BMW or SUV – real mature. :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-suv-and-bmw-almost-collide-whom-do-you-laugh-at-first/30286.md?page=3)