The thing about the SUV is that, like it or not, it is a very powerful vehicle. People, for the most part, do not tend to handle graciously being more powerful than others. They get cocky. This is why we are seeing sort of an arms race in the Vehicle world (I do not want to know what comes after the Hummer).
In some ways it can be a lot like owning a gun. I know, from personal experience, that when I had a gun and carried it around I became less careful about avoiding danger. It is not that I was out looking for trouble, or for someone to shoot more that I felt powerful and decided that I was going to go where I wanted and when I wanted and that if anyone wanted to start something, they were going to get a lot more than they bargained for.
This is not to say that all gun owners are like this, but enough of them are. I, specifically, was a bad gun owner, which is why I got rid of the thing. In balance, the world was a more dangerous place with me owning a gun.
And I think that the analogy holds for the SUV. When you take away the elements of class envy and the higher impact that they have on other drivers (they are more dangerous to me and my compact car and they are much harder to see around) the fact is that they are more powerful than the cars that the non-SUV camp drive. Enough of the SUV drivers do not handle this added power well (and there could be an interesting debate about gender power dynamics and the SUV there) that it is easy for all of the parts of our brain except fight and flight to shut off when we see one coming our way.
You really can’t see how an SUV that gets 15mpg uses more oil than a sedan that gets 30mpg? Should we all just get the least efficient everything and use up as much oil as we possibly can until it runs out?
Obviously, different pumps for SUVs is a non-starter of an idea, but to say the higher consumption of SUVs doesn’t matter is just as silly.
So your complaint then is not that they’re inefficient, it’s that they’re consuming more than their fair share of a resource?
Waaaah. The SUV owners pay out the nose for that resource, and they assume that burden willingly. They are paying the price for their choice. You can dismiss that as stupidity if you like, but nonetheless it’s not your place to make decisions for other people.
If I have 100 gallons of gas, and one car can go 3000 miles on it while one can only go 1000 miles on it, I’m still burning 1000 gallons of gas. The pollution will be roughly equivalent in any case.
Fuel MPG has little to do with pollution. The burning of any equivalent amount of fuel will result in roughly the same amount of pollution. Once the oil’s gone we’ll have the equivalent amount of pollution no matter how quickly or slowly it is burned. SUVs have to follow the same pollution laws, right? They don’t have to meet CAFE standards, but that’s something entirely different.
So the fact that SUV’s pollute more than cars per mile driven is of no consequence? We should just consider the fact that SUV’s pollute the same as cars per gallon of gas used? Nice little sleight of hand there. I understand your point now, thanks. Not that it has any real merit, but at least I understand it.
Bullshit. Cigarettes are taxed big time. Luxury taxes are in place all over this country. It’s certainly my place to advocate what I consider appropriate taxes, just as it is your to oppose them.
And I don’t consider SUV drivers to be paying enough. $10 per gallon would be ok for now.
SUV drivers already pay a “luxury tax”, also known as the “gas guzzler” tax. So there you go.
And the thing about cigarette taxes is that ALL smokers pay that tax, form the one-cigarette-a-day smoker to the three-packs-a-day smoker. So that doesn’t wash either.
I’ll repeat myself just this once…I am advocating “raising” the taxes on gasoline for SUV’s to $10 per gallon. More taxes, get it, higher taxes, get it. See, I knew that you could.
And I’m asking you to justify why someone should pay considerably more for a product than you do when they have already paid more and will continue to in the future.
I used to drive an SUV. I drove a 1996 Chevy Blazer, one of the smaller SUVs. I got between 18 and 20 miles to the gallon. My current car, a 1998 Volvo S70 gets between 22 and 25 miles to the gallon. There isn’t a huge difference there.
My Volvo weighs more than my Blazer did.
I started driving the Blazer at age 17. I was a responsible SUV driver. I had two accidents in that car (and no accidents in my Volvo). The first was a parking lot bump at a crowded movie theater. The second was a rear-end bump when the person in front of me stopped short to turn left on wet roads in heavy traffic (we were only going about 20mph) and I didn’t have enough time to stop.
Not all people drive SUVs for status. My father had just bought a new pickup truck for himself and I got the handmedown Blazer. I was very lucky (as were my friends as we could get eight people in that car) to have a car that was reliable and could carry all the various stuff I lugged around due to theater and film projects.
I didn’t want a penis when I drove and SUV and I don’t want one now. Not all female SUV drivers do, and it’s asinine for anyone to suggest it.
As for aggressive driving, the only time I was a seriously aggressive driver was when I was visiting LA and driving a rental POS with no power. This thing weighed nothing and I felt like I needed to be aggressive to not get smashed up by other idiots on the road. When I moved out there and had my Volvo I didn’t feel I needed to be so aggressive.
The SUVs around here aren’t as bad as the pickup truck drivers. I was nearly hit THREE times buy a guy in a white (why are they ALWAYS white) F150 on Saturday.
County you tool, riddle me this. Who creates more pollution?
a) SUV owner who drives 100 miles a week
b) Compact owner who drives 500 miles a week
Answer -
Extrapolating how much pollution someone contributes to the environment from a 30 second observation of them whizzing by in a certain type of vehicle is the zenith of stupidity.
I asked another knee-jerk anti-SUV ranter this question once in another thread. The answer I got was something like, "Well, if the SUV owner who drives way less drove a compact car, it’d be lots better for the environment! :rolleyes:
Where the hell is the smack smiley when you need it?