Feh right back at you. To assume that those who hold contrary opinions are doing so just to be contrary shows the kind of ignorance, selfishness, and lack of empathy that I’d rather not see behind the wheel of a large vehicle.
The concerns expressed are very real. People don’t hate and fear SUVs because of envy (and accusing them of such shows where the accusers’ priorities lie), it is because they perceive SUVs as a true menace on the road. They decrease visibility, handle poorly, decrease stopping distance, and vastly increase risk of serious injury. How can these not be serious concerns?
One issue not yet addressed is how an SUV might change a driver’s attitude. I believe (without anything other than anecdote) that when drivers are “taller”, and perceive themselves to be safer, they will engage in riskier behavior. Does this sound reasonable?
Right-o, which is why I want my wife in the SUV instead of the passenger car.
Well I can’t speak for Pilot, but you’re right on for me. You and I have vastly different perspectives on this, so maybe I can explain why I feel like I do.
First, though, let me just repeat that I truly truly 100% without any sarcasm or element of “taking a weird position on a message board to get my rocks off” DO in fact believe that:
(1) My wife’s safety is more important than either (a) your convenience or (b) your safety, and
I don’t understand how anyone could quibble with me wanting my wife to be as safe as reasonably possible. Answer this for me, anti-SUV people: how should my thought pattern work? Should I say “well, my wife will be safer in an SUV, but she will use more gas and emit more pollutants, so she should drive a Ford Focus instead. If she gets hit by a Suburban and squished, at least she’ll meet her maker with a clean conscience” That sounds nutso crazy to me.
Here’s how my thought patterns work: “I want my wife to be as safe as possible when she’s on the road. She wants to drive an SUV so that she can sit up higher than when she drove a Civic, and I believe she will be safer driving the SUV than she is now driving the Civic. Let’s buy her an SUV.”
Anti-SUV folks, please bring it down to this level for me. You and I have vastly different perspectives, so when you start talking about polar ice caps and your inconvenience, I guess I just sort of tune out. Tell me how you would have had me think when it came time to buy my wife a new car.
Also, Lynn, I really wish you’d explain what you said ealier about SUV’s being “taxed differently” than cars. If you don’t know what you meant or were mistaken or something, then just say that.
Taxguy, did you read my posts at all? There’s a huge amount of cites in there about SUVs being safer than regular sedans, most of which is deliberately picked from non-partisan sites. There are more risks to driving an SUV beyond the rollover risk.
I think that I can break this down for you. Basically, anti-SUV folks have contempt for the urban SUV driver for several reasons.
[ul]
[li]At very best, the jury seems to still be out about weather or not an SUV increases the safety for the SUV driver.[/li][li]Even if we assume that it increases the safety (ignoring the rollover issue) of the driver, the reason that this is an issue is because so many other fools are driving SUVs irresponsibly.[/li][li]Given the above statements, it seems that basically a bunch of people have been duped by marketing in to purchasing vehicles that not only don’t really serve a useful purpose for the most part, but actively make the lives of the non-duped at best more inconvenient (parking, paint-peeling halogen lights shining directly in our windows) and at worst more dangerous. [/li][/ul]
So, having said all of that. Don’t get the idea that I can’t understand your desire to make your wife safer. Human life, sadly, is relative and as a married man I can state that I consider my wife’s life more “valuable” that some abstract stranger. There you go.
The thing is, when it comes to you making choices that make things more dangerous for me and mine, I will start to have a problem. If there are thousands of people like you making things systemically more dangerous and inconvenient for thousands of people like me I would say that there is a real problem with the whole set up.
Finally, we have the issue of the vehicular arms race. It simply is not OK for folks to be forced to buy bigger and bigger cars because there are bigger and bigger cars out there. Shit, if we want to go there I have an idea; I want a set of armor piercing spikes attached to my compact. It would be safer because people would try to avoid hitting me, and if some dumb fuck that can’t drive hits me in his Ford Subdivision I will take him with me.
Legally redefine SUVs as “automobiles” and make them subject to the same restrictions and standards, since that is how they are used. They are not cargo vehicles. It would also be a good idea to make some of those luxury pickups adhere to those standards.
You want a cargo vehicle? Go get a pickup that DOES NOT have all the luxury amenities.
Here is my perspective. You, like many SUV owners, are being willfully ignorant regarding the safety of your wife as a driver of an SUV. You perceive that she is safer because she ‘sits up higher and can see better’, her car is larger, and that she is not at risk of a rollover because she may (to you) take turns at a modest speed.
All the while you ignore some pretty obvious facts about SUVs that completely remove the advantages above and in reality place her at a GREATER risk of injuring herself or others.
Her stopping distance is much shorter, and turn radius much wider, making it much more difficult for her to avoid accidents from the front. Her field of vision is much smaller in her vehicle than your perception, providing huge blind spots to her sides and rear, making side to side collisions and rear end collisions while backing up a much greater risk. And despite your protestations to the contrary, her risk of rollover has little to do with how she takes turns, and more to do with how she reacts to a collision, a sudden stop, or a loss of control of the vehicle due to hydroplaning or skid (which are also more likely due to the weight of the vehicle).
In short your ignorance is costing your wife her safety, and putting her at a statistically greater risk for an accident with an injury or death, and your willfull desregard for evidence and the concerns of others paints you (and many SUV drivers, though certainly not all, and maybe not even most, but as a cynic I tend to assume everyone is an ignorant moron and hope to be surprised) as an ignorant and self-important ass too closeminded to actually look at the big picture and see that just because your reasoning sounds good, doesn’t actually make your argument valid.
The fact that you persist to argue that you are okay with your wife killing another human being and in the same breath saying you love her just boggles the mind.
Drop the back seats, and 8-ft baseboards hang out the tailgate window. Ladder goes on the roof rack.
I have a 1997 Nissan Pathfinder, and I haven’t had any problem with seat comfort. I have, however, not been particularly pleased with how it handles, on- or off-road. I just test-drove a 2003 model, and it handles identically to mine, that is, poorly. I have been considering getting a new Toyota 4-Runner instead, mainly since Consumer Reports rated it the best off-road SUV. However, I’m not particularly pleased with the latest model’s recent size increase, and the smallest engine available is a 4.0-L V-6! (This model has just two engine options, a V-6 or a V-8.) My Pathfinder has plently of power with its 3.3-L V-6.
TaxGuy, you should know that rollover accidents do not always occur as a result of single-vehicle accidents. They can also occur as a result of a vehicle being broadsided or “T-boned” by another vehicle.
On Sunday when I was driving home I saw a horrific wreck on the 190/290 interchange–a Jeep and another unidentifiable vehicle knocked onto an embankment by a tractor-trailer. The force of the accident must have caused the Jeep to roll over several times. Although I did not see the accident happen, I read an article later that indicated that the Jeep and the other car were struck by the tractor-trailer.
No matter how good a driver you or anyone else is, you can’t prevent some other clown from hitting you. And I should know–I’ve been hit twice by out-of-control drivers.
tdn, you are a fool. Shut the fuck up, the adults are trying to have a discussion.
If I get some time later (it will be tomorrow night at the earliest) I may try to gather up as many statistics as I can find and try to present them here with as little obfuscation and spin as the statistics I find will allow me to do.
It’s almost car-buying time again for my wife, so though you may think I have a pro-SUV agenda, I will definitely by my wife a car if I determine that that would be safer. (OK, all married guys know that was a lie. What I meant was that I’ll try to convince my wife to buy a car and she’ll get what she wants.)
The thing that chaps my hide about the SUV debate is that it just seems like the same people that are against SUVs are also the ones that think “it’s the corporations, man” that are ruining everyone’s lives and shit. And those people just get under my skin.
Well, is it MY fault? How exactly would me driving a '95 Corolla help that family? If all you can afford to drive is an old Corolla, I feel for you. But my point was that you still DO have a choice here: if you are terrified of being hit by an SUV, buy a 1990 Olds Cutlass or something as substantial. Go pick up an AutoTrader sometime and look at the amazing variety of cars for sale for $2000 and less. Life is full of hard choices: balancing your eco-friendly desires and your anti-smush-by-SUV desires is one of them.
The problem I have is when people buy a small car (on purpose), and then get on their high horse and tell SUV owners that they are endangering them. The message: SUV owners should conform to the views held by ME, the superior small-car owner! Well, why not have the small-car owners buy an SUV instead?
My point was that we ALL have choices - and yes, freedom IS a great thing. But be prepared to live with your choices. Your priorities will change throughout your life, and so will your choice in vehicles. But don’t expect everyone else to conform to your outrage du jour.
And for aurelian: I said “old Cadillac”. You said “new Escalade”. Slightly different things, eh? I was thinking more along the lines of a '75 Coupe de Ville.
This is an example of how partisan style thinking can lead to bad choices. Just because the messenger comes from a demographic that annoys you doesn’t mean that he is always wrong (I have learned this about conservatives).