Call me a jerk if you will, but I really don’t mind inconveniencing others so that my wife can drive a safer automobile. I care for my wife’s safety more than for your convenience.
Oh, please. I drive a very small car, and I’d be hard-pressed to say that SUV’s are much of an actual “inconvenience” to me. I often wish I could see farther in front of me, and that’s mildly annoying, but to suggest that it’s actually a problem is exaggeration for the sake of demonizing the SUV drivers. It’s about as much of an inconvenience as people with tinted windows in front of me.
TaxGuy, do you have a cite for that “increased safety” claim? I always thought the increased risk of rollover offset any extra safety in a collision with a car.
So, you hold the safety of others above the safety of your wife? So it’s ok if your wife is safe, but too bad about that mother and child in that Civic she just slammed eh?
http://poseur.4x4.org/reasons2.html#Safe
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200301/lol6.asp
http://www.detroitproject.com/readmore/myths.htm
http://www.earthonempty.com/myths.html
:dubious:
This is the article I was looking for. (warning .pdf file) In a nutshell it says that SUVs are statistically no safer (or less safe) than the average car, overall. This is due to the relatively high rate of rollover death. Of course, when you’re looking only at a car-car collison, SUVs come out well, with the unfortunate consequence of dealing out death at a much higher rate than cars.
The reality is that your wife is likely not any safer than the person driving an Accord, but will more likely hurt that person in an accident.
I smell envy.
Yeah, I always figured the drivers of SUV’s and huge trucks were over-compensating for something too.
“Bitch” Radio (fka “Talk” Radio) has a burr in their collective paw about this. Locally, a dipshit named Kim Peterson (a male) continually rants about “How come they never say a Monte Carlo hit a child? Or a Geo Metro hit a child? It’s always an SUV hit a child. Just more liberal bias in the media!” and on…and on.
I guess it hasn’t occurred to this troglodyte that the comparison is apples and oranges. If the reports said a Cadillac Escalade hit a child, then he may have a point. They don’t. They either say a car or a bus or a minivan or a cement truck (or an SUV) hit a child.
Why do some people have this martyrdom complex? Let me guess: Christian conservative white males males who drive SUV’s are the most put-upon minority in the nation, right?
Sorry. Sneaky inconsistency keeps me up at night.
If your wife’s safety is paramount, then why not get her a Volvo?
Intentionally driving a veihcle that gets lousy mileage, in this day and age, doesn’t make much sense. Even I am looking at replacing my SUV with a car, (a damned nice car granted, but even a full-size Cadillac (yuck) gets better mileage than my Trailblazer)
Remove our reliance on Middle Eastern oil, and watch a massive chunk of our problems in the world go away. Not to mention, funding for terrorism would take quite a hit.
If you actually need (or really want) a large SUV, get a diesel, and fill 'er up with made in America Biodiesel. A bit more expensive than regular diesel, but the at least the money isn’t going to some two-faced Saudi oil baron.
I can explain this for heavy duty trucks and larger (older?) SUVs. Because heavy duty pickups are built to haul stuff, they’ve got stiff suspensions in them that can support a lot of weight. If you take an empty 1 ton pickup over a good size bump without slowing down, you run a very real risk of bouncing your head off the ceiling. The drop won’t hurt the truck any, but the driver might have a headache.
It’s a choice to buy an SUV. Needs have a little to do with it, but desires and resources are stronger factors than necessity. Nobody needs the vast majority of the things that they own. If you (a generic you - nobody specific) got rid of all your posessions and lived “simply,” I’d be a lot more inclined to take you seriously when you complain about my vehicle.
Envy smells like contempt. If someone is driving a 6,000 pound truck which skirts the CAFE regulations unfairly, is propelled to absurdly high speeds by the guzzling motor, and they aim that thing at my car – that’s not envy you’re smelling as I leave your behemoth ass sucking on my tailpipes just to get away.
Nope. It’s knowledge of intertia and stopping distances. SUV drivers tend to forget about mass, bad. They focus on mass, good.
SUVs are safer when it comes to someone slamming into my wife or my wife slamming into someone who jumps in front of her.
The fact that they have a higher risk of rollover really doesn’t affect my wife because she doesn’t take corners at unreasonable speeds (or at least I hope she doesn’t). The point is that they are safer for accidents that the driver cannot control, and the driver can control the aspect that makes them unsafe.
For me I can’t see buying something that I won’t fully use. I’m not going to buy a six room house with a huge yard because as a single guy, I can find better things to spend the money and time on.
Also, I don’t wan’t to give any more money than I have to, to the middle east. In fact I would love to opt out of this car domminated society altogether and rely on my legs and bicycle. Unfortunately, unlike SUVers, I really do not have a choice. Also with larger vehicles on the road, there are fewer places I can ride and feel safe.
Here’s the test: can’t pass this, no SUV for you.
I’m afraid ordering people not to have SUV’s over the internet isn’t exactly as effective as you may think it is.
Having unnecessary things per se is not a problem. Having unnecessary things that are a major inconvience to others is a problem, especially where less inconvenient substitutes are available.
So feel free to indulge your vanity all day long. But if you need to annoy and endanger others to satisfy your vanity, you’re being a jerk.
Just MHO of course.
I drive an enormous extended 1-ton van with a 7.3 liter diesel engine and oversized tires.
I take the bus during the week.
I got a ten. I drive a VW New Beetle. Yes. I have taken it offroad. Real offroad. Not very quickly. But with great precision and care. Yes, I have carried construction materials in it. Yes, I have carried six people in it. Yes, more than six inches of snow on unpaved and unplowed roads. That involves a censoredload of shoveling, driving on top of the snow, and random insanity.
I need a bigger car. Oh, god, do I. Right now, it looks like the Toyota Matrix XRS. I wish I could afford the Subaru WRX Wagon, the four wheel drive is a lifesaver.
I agree about the truck exemption for SUVs being a horribly wrong avatism. And I’m a car guy. Oh, well. At least they’re getting more and more efficient every year.
Well, something must be wrong with you, Lynn, because I faced this HORRIBLE SCENARIO OF DEATH just today and managed to survive, somehow. The tale was harrowing, of course. I barely survived BEING NEXT TO A CAR THAT WAS TALLER THAN MINE! It’s hard for me to maintain control knowing that I had to BACK OUT A LITTLE MORE SLOWLY THAN USUAL when leaving my parking spot!
Oh, woe, woe, that I survived this encounter at all! 'Twould have been better that I perished than live on with the horrible, horrible memories…!