You’re blocking my view, guzzling gasoline at 3x the going rate, polluting the air at 4x the going rate (and being exempt from air-cleanliness laws to do so!), hogging the parking spaces, blinding me with your raised headlights, and putting me at greater risk of getting killed if I happen to be on the wrong side of the bumper the day you lose control of your Suburban Behemoth.
I trust you can understand why having my driving hampered, paying more for gasoline, and further endangering myself all because you can’t buy a Honda Accord tends to make me a bit irritated. Sure, if you’ve got a legitimate use for that overgrown truck, that’s fine, but I’ll wager that you don’t always need the extra size every time you take your SUV on the road.
Hey, you said you didn’t understand. Now you know that SUVs (especially the behemouths) make driving more difficult, annoying, and dangerous for the rest. You don’t have to empathize (because obviously people not in SUVs don’t mean something to you- though I hope you don’t drive like they don’t) but maybe you can understand their point of view? Would you enjoy driving with a lot of semi’s around? It’s kind of similar.
Even you’d have to admit that most people with SUVs don’t need them the way you do. For them it’s more of a status symbol or just cool looking. (I love seeing them looking for parking in Manhattan. Especially the tanks.)
One thing I don’t understand is when I see an SUV slow to a crawl (literally slower than a slow walk) to go over patched parts of a road, or a speed bump. There’s a road near here with a speed limit of 15mph with speed bumps. I’d keep it at about 15 in a little Nova and have no problem, but there were a few SUVs that would come to almost a complete stop and then inch over the bump like it would damage the undercarriage or something. :rolleyes:
Also, I don’t understand people buying SUVs for “family” cars. There are plenty of safer vehicles with lots of cargo room and good all weather & rough road traction. It just seems either stupid or they prefer the “coolness” factor to protecting the family.
Which is why I am buying a Bradley Armoured Fighting Vehicle the first chance I get. You wanna park across three spaces? I will carve my name in your car with a cannon! Then I will drive over your SUV! Then I will transport my friends in waterproof air-conditioned bulletproof safety! Eh heh heh heh!
I await evidence that the so called “common good” is anything more than an excuse for one group to try and push it’s adgenda down the throat of another. If someone wants to own an SUV, pay the extra money for the car, the gas, the insurance, etc… more power to them. Not the choice I’d make, but hey, who cares?
Actually a lot of people seem to care, aparently having nothing better to do with their time than complain about others. What a waste of time.
And yet, the entire reason a place like the Pit exists! Isn’t life great? We actually have a special place for people to go and bitch about other people coming here and bitching about other people. Circle of life, my friends.
Maybe, just maybe, people buy SUVs because they like them and can afford to have them?
Really, if someone wants to spend the money they earn on something they want and they will pay for, who the fuck are any of us to bitch at them because they won’t buy the car that somebody else thinks they should buy?
When it’s your goddamn money, buy what you want. Otherwise, leave me alone ot spend mine as I please.
I’d be very surprised if anyone really cares how someone else spends their money. That’s not the issue. The point (as I see it) is that the safety playing field has been seriously tilted and the environment has been negatively impacted by some people’s choice. If that’s what it takes to get an individual or family’s business done then I’ve got no problem with that. But a fair amount of the time it appears they’ve bought in gross excess of need. We’re being forced to inhale the additional exhaust used to lug that excess around. We’re at greater risk of dying because of the excess that comes head high to a car.
I’m not against all SUVs or pick-ups. It’s the ubiquitous behemoths that get my goat.
Someday I would love to have enough money to go to a town and tell the local power company that I will pay them 2 cents more per kwh NOT to send power to the other residents.
After all, it’s my money. Who’s to complain about how I spend it, if I can afford to?
Or maybe just buy up all the toilet paper or milk in the state for my own personal use or waste. Again, if I have the cash, who could complain?
Last time I checked, I didn’t have to demonstrate ‘need’ in order to pursue my happiness. If driving an SUV makes me happy, that’s what I’m gonna do. Maybe I might even take it to the woods during hunting season and kill a ‘bambi’ so I can eat it for dinner. And maybe when some politically correct yuppie bitches at me about that SUV, I’ll remind them of their landscaping crew that shows up with 3 gas powered lawn mowers, a gas powered leaf blower, a gas powered weed-eater, and a truch that belches more smoke than most power plants.
So, if you’re going to bitch about what vehicle I drive, expect that you will be soundly ignored.
And by the way, everybody’s at the same exact risk of dying. We’re all gonna do it. The only question is when. I guess some folks have their panties in a wad because an SUV reminds them that they’re not immortal.
Making assumptions doesn’t become any of you, nor is it a part of what this board is about.
I’m at a loss as to how you can draw conclusions about my shopping habits or how I live my life from the car I drive. But, hey, if doing so brings you some smug satisfaction, knock yourselves out.
Since everyone seems to be interested in me (which is so very flattering) I’ll let you see a part of what I do:
I recycle - plastic, paper, glass, oil, etc.
I never write checks in stores, I use a credit or debit card while the cashier is ringing up my purchases.
I grow a lot of my own food, using manure from our horses for fertilizer (I hope owning horses is in no way offensive to you. I would so hate that) and my hands for weed control.
I use the water from the stock tank that the geese swim in for watering the pasture.
That is a small part of my day. If this is not enough for all you insatiable people out there, please let me know. Maybe you can all come over for dinner and give me check lists of what I own that you approve of and don’t approve of.
Oh, I know. You can follow me around for a week and when the week is over, you can submit a comprehensive report to me on how I could better live my life to your satisfaction.
I don’t value this rant much at all. Good mechanics (B+), but tepid, uninspired subject material (solid D).
All of these complaint areas (danged SUVs and their owners, dog-in-the-car abuse mewling, and the taking of multiple parking spaces) are worn out - they’re on the hip-demagoguery shitpile of trendy topics.
But that “cheap Godder fish symbol” thing - now THERE’s sumfin’ ah kin saink muh teef inta! That’s thuh Devil’s werk.
Actually, I didn’t draw any conclusions based on your driving choices. SUV’s are not something I have a particular problem with.
What I based my comment on was the attitude displayed in your post; that your desires needs are paramount and that everyone else is beneath consideration.
