Eh? What’s this argument for? If you’re suggesting that one could live on the 2 pair of shoes and 8 sets of clothes, why didn’t you go whole-hog and suggest we could live with one pair of shoes and one set of clothes?
Alternatively, if you’re suggesting we need an SUV to haul all our Stuff, two years ago I moved lock, stock and barrel to California–TV, computer, clothes, books and assorted junk–in a Honda Civic. Why, the Civic is at least as spacious as some mid-size SUVs…
On preview there is one thing I’d agree with tdn concerning the headlights on SUVs. Since they’re relatively higher up, if an SUV is behind you at a light and you’re in a car the beam reflects off your side mirrors directly into your face. Very dangerous at unlighted intersections. I realize the same is true of many pickups (although IME pickups don’t seem to have such high-intensity beams), but it’s a real safety hazard, especially to those of us who are night-blind.
While we’re talking about ‘Bad Drivers’, I could have sworn I read in a prior post that SUV drivers were bad drivers because of statistical data on stopping distance and rear-end accidents.
Now, lets assume there are 2 cars on a two lane highway and only one of them is observing one car length of distance for every 10 miles per hour between them and the car in front. Picture it in your mind…they’re both going 55mph. Now, picture that the one car that isn’t observing these distances, and sensing an advantage of one whole car length, cuts in front of the car, which is observing the proper stopping distances. You can almost see it, can’t you? I know that I can see it. I just have to wait til 5:05pm.
Now lets change that…lets say that the person observing the longer stopping distances is the SUV. Lets also assume that the smaller cars, with penises to match, are all driving like Vin Diesel, passing on the left, passing on the right, and generally moving as erratically as a wasp over a picnic table. (Now, of course we know that this is a rigged example as all SUV drivers are bad bad drivers and absolutely none of the smaller cars drive like Kamikazi pilots on crack.)
So lets see…we have an SUV observing 8 car lengths at 55…and <zip> there goes a piece of crap tin can cutting in front of it to get ahead in traffic. And <zip> there goes another. And another. And another. And so on. and so on (hey, anybody else smell shampoo?)
So no matter how hard the SUV tries to keep the proper stopping distance, people in smaller cars who are blissfully unaware of the danger they are putting themselves in keep cutting it off and reducing the distance between it and a rear bumper to a less than safe distance.
Now I want you to picture that the Altima and the Camry way up ahead in our little mock scenario have a little road rage rampage. Lets say the Camry was tailgating, the Altima started using its windshield washer fluid, they both start throwing change at each others cars until they both pull out their Glocks and blow each other away. (Stop smiling, this is an example)
After the gunplay, imagine that all traffic suddenly jams to a halt in the SUV’s lane of the highway. Everybody jams on their breaks. And the last stupid fucker’s car who cut off the SUV? Oh, I’m so sorry, you’re a broken can of Contadina tomato paste, pick up your consolation harp on your way out, Buh-Bye!
And the story that runs in the papers the next day? “Another SUV related death…details page 5”. And the person reading it in the office next to you quips, “Wow. You know, they oughtta teach those SUV owners how to drive.”
Then perhaps some of the standards for light trucks ought to be revised. They were probably OK back when there weren’t too many of them, but now it’s pretty out of control.
Ah but the unwieldliness is part of its beauty! 
Seriously, so many complaints are that people don’t know how to drive them properly. I don’t see the harm in educating drivers to properly operate their trucks.
Excellent, Smithers!
It is, but it is exacerbated by the height of light trucks. So I would propose to a) ban hallogen, and b) standardize light height.
The lights you refer to are NOT halogens. Halogens are the standard sealed-beam type of headlights used up until the late 80’s and early 90’s. Then came Xenon bulbs. A HUGE step in the right direction for night sight.
What you are whinging on about are HID bulbs/systems. They are a high-voltage metal-halide light system that puts out a very bright mostly blue light. Even I will agree with you that they need to be taken off of the road.
Please note: most cars with HID lighting are high-end LUXURY CARS, not SUVs. They still use Halogen or Xenon lighting systems.
Sam
Huh? What generalizations did I make? Well, other than the ones you read into my posts so you could make some obtuse comment and then tell me to blow.
Let me restate my position for the hard of thinking – SUVs are potentially dangerous, and we should have regulations to make them less so. Yes, so are some other vehicles. Same goes for them. In fact, most other vehicles already have such regulations.
Oh, and Sam – I accept your preemptive apology, where you insulted me, then admitted you were reading my mind incorrectly, then proceeded to read my mind incorrectly again, then insult me again.
Smooth.
We can say this about almost anything in life. That is, that our purchases/choices in life affect other people than the buyer.
You and a few others here seem to be making a huge leap of logic here that “purchase an SUV = not only blatent disregard for human life, but bordering on HUNT DOWN AND KILL SMALL CARS”.
That would be a factor of being a “bad” driver. That is, if you buy a new vehicle that is much larger and of different style, handling capabilities etc from your (collective you) old rice rocket, then it is STILL that you are not being a good, or skillful driver because you didn’t bother to learn about your vehicle, test both it and your abilities driving it and so on.
Like someone else mentioned, trucks are the same way, so are semis, you don’t think a semi driver would hop into his rig after a commute from home to the truck station (or whatever they call them) and then proceed to drive it like his transportation car do you? Well, neither should a person who’s been driving a Civic hop into an SUV and without any thought at all “assume” that it’s just like the tiny thing he just traded in. That’s beyond bad driving. That’s stupid. And not buying SUVs ain’t gonna fix “stupid”.
Anyway, this STILL (except for the, I think, uncontested fact that they are very susceptible to rollovers, they are known here in Alaska as “most likely to be found upside down in the ditch”) does not make the vehicle ITSELF a “bad” thing, other than the aforementioned ugly/lack of style and originality problem :D.
I’m thinking that it’s more along the lines of what I posted, and also what someone eloquently stated regarding SUVs attracting a certain type of driver.
Again, that “certain” type of driver will behave badly and in a potentially dangerous way, regardless of whether he is driving a subaru, or a landcruiser. And really, I don’t know about your hometown, but the majority of the cars I see weaving in and out of traffic and playing “macho man” on the highway, aren’t the SUVs but the little bitty “bitch cars” (as my boyfriend calls them).
And again. The little cars are more likely to be deathtraps regardless of what they hit, or what they are hit by. Even if it’s another car their size. I’ve seen it too many times.
tdn, your entire post is a list of assumption after assumption.
The assumption that to drive an SUV requires a special training class to be operated safely. The assumption that for some reason they require a reclassification to be safer. The assumption that SUVs are the problem vehicles where lighting is concerned(and excepting all other makes/models), Etc.
These aren’t “read in” to your post, they’re right out there in the open.
Bicycles are potentially dangerous. Let’s re-classify them in the vehicle code, and require special safety courses before you can operate them. Pencils are potentially dangerous too, but I don’t see a special permit for them. The list goes on and on where vehicles are concerned and their potential for danger. In fact, simply getting into ANY vehicle is potentially dangerous and should be approached with that in mind at all times.
I’m sorry you feel so insulted by being told to blow. I think your insult in inferring that anyone who drives something larger than a passenger car requires some sort of training class is a larger insult because it is a direct one.
Look, asshole drivers are a fact of life. As I said earlier(which was totally ignored), not a single type of vehicle is immune from them, nor do they stand out as worst offenders unless you have a specific bias-which ytou are clearly displaying.
There was nothing obtuse about my post and I wish you’d simply respond without whining.
Sam
CanvasShoes, you have a point, all of our purchasing decisions affect others somewhat, however it is the degree that is at issue. My buying a Sam Adams beer doesn’t make your Bud taste worse. If 50% of the beers bought were SA, maybe you’d feel bad about getting a Bud, or something, but the effect is pretty minor.
The heavy proliferation of SUVs on the other hand, has distinctly affected driving conditions in this country. The likelihood of me getting into an accident with an SUV (higher rate of injury) goes up in direct proportion to the number of SUVs on the road.
Nobody has to be a bad driver or stupid, or a jerk for that effect to happen, it’s completely based on the design of the vehicle and physics.
I’m respondint to those that use the argument of “You don’t need an SUV. You can accomplish the same things with these other vehicles…”. I’m responding that yes, you can, but some people just want things they don’t need. Just like you don’t need a tv. Or a computer. Or more than the necessary amount of clothes to get through your work week and weekend with a pair of clothes to wear while doing laundry. I’m sure you would be chastized if you wore the same thing to work all week and stood in the laundymat naked washing your pants. :).
I’m glad you can move acrodd country in a Civic. It took me a 25 foot truck and 3 trips in a pickup to move across town. 
GaWd, I see you’ve taken the advanced course in creative reading. Let’s pull this apart.
And yet people continue to operate them unsafely. If there is another way to educate them, I’m all ears. And please, constructive comments only. No more of your baseless accusations.
I never said that (now who’s assuming?). I said that it might be a good idea if they were reclassified so that they can be more easily regulated.
I clarified this earlier. Reread, please.
Huh? I also believe that people require training to operate any vehicle. Am I insulting them as well? Keep in mind that 50 states happen to agree with me, BTW.
What bias? And why is it that when anyone complains about SUVs, it is due to some sort of shortcoming on the part of the complainer? That’s getting really old, really fast. Knock it off.
I did not whine once. This must be your creative reading coming in to play once again.
Safety is not so black-and-white. There are so many kinds of accidents. SUVs are great once you give up and just assume you cannot do anything to avoid hitting other people. It’s like insurance compared to not setting your house on fire.
If you get a motorcycle, at one extreme end, you have the ultimate in escapability - like the Roadrunner. At the other end you have the ultimate in armor and protection: the giant SUV. It, like the giant ground sloths before it, requiring a great deal of sustinence to survive. Moreover, it cannot escape: don’t let the name fool you.
Point being, finding a happy medium between escapability and protection is the best bet usually. The boring old sedan or minivan is probably your best bet unless you buy a car ute.
Here’s one of many possible problems: you are driving down the road at 65…
MOOSE!, dead ahead at 200 ft. Some people would choose the giant SUV and have casserole for dinner. I’ll take something that can handle or stop and try to go around, thanks. Make it a bridge abutment, my favorite example, and the choice is simple.
Sam
Because I only needed to concede it once. Maybe you should read my posts before you tear into them.
So you assumed. Gotcha ya.
I’m having trouble parsing that last sentence. If SUVs are reclassified, why would pickups need to be changed at all? The two would be in seperate classifications.
You make a good point about them changing into their own breed. Hence reclassification. They are no longer the light trucks they used to be.
Not at all. We require drivers of semis to have special training. We require city bus drivers to have special training. Why not for a vehicle 3 times as likely to cause fatalities? (Assuming previously posted statistics are correct.) Maybe it doesn’t need to be a huge amount of training. It may only amount to 3 extra pages in a training manual and four extra questions on the written exam.
It’s really not that fantastical of a concept.
Please quote where I was whining. I’m truly curious about this.
tdn, I’ve reviewed each and every word in response to my points. I see no concession that every vehicle is dangerous, can be used incorrectly or are misused.
I don’t believe the leap from passenger cars to light trucks/SUVs is so great that it requires extra training. Maybe not fantastical, but not necessary, either. The leap from light truck/SUV to semis is a HUGE leap in build, weight, size, stopping, speed, HP, etc. There SHOULD be a different classification and license.
Although SUVs are becoming their own breed, at the nuts and bolts level, they are still mostly light trucks with shells. There are some newer SUVs that are more car-like, and some that are incorporating new technology into the chassis. Until there is sufficient difference there is no need for a reclassification.
Then let’s try it again. I said:
Meaning that since they are still classed as pickups and light trucks, still mostly based on truck chassis with truck running gear, then the problems inherent in SUV design are also inherent in pickups. So load a pickup the same way an SUV is loaded, over inflate or underinflate the tires the same as most single car rollover accidents in SUVs occur and see what the results are.
At least that’s my thinking.
Apparently, whining is relative.
Sam
1.) Funny thing is, I really don’t like SUVs
2.) Bud, eeeuuuuuuuwww (shudders, I HATE beer :D)
3.) quit being so darn nice and reasonable, we’re gonna ruin the neighborhood.
4.) I see your point regarding that the amount of SUVs increases the likelihood that, if you get into an accident, it’s more likely than in the past to be with that type of vehicle.
But, that still doesn’t change that SUVs themselves aren’t necessarily the problem. I still maintain that it’s that there is a disproportionate number of bad, unskilled and/or aggressive drivers who choose SUVs, and that THAT is where the trouble lies.
Because, if you’re saying that, regardless of how good/bad the SUV driver is, if a small car driver hits his/her vehicle, they’re more likely to sustain serious injury, or death, I’d still have to disagree.
If a small car hits anything, (even if it’s single vehicle accident and say he/she clobbers a telephone pole), then, unless it’s a very low speed collision, the chances of injury/death are still pretty darn high, based on the smallness of the vehicle. So I’d say that it’s just as likely that in a serious collision, the occupants of two small cars would be seriously hurt as in large car on small car.
The only difference would be that, except in the case of a rollover, the SUV occupants would be safer just because of the sturdiness and size of the vehicle.
Interesting study by a group at Rutger’s University (Warning: largish PDF file…)
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv24n1/coate.pdf
They show that, statisticly speaking, states with more SUVs have fewer deaths. They show their work, too.
(This was published in the Cato Institute’s magazine, and I would presume was paid for them. According to their web site,
so they may have some bias to consumer freedom.)
As they do every type of vehicle on the road. If we’re to do this “Special” SUV training, then we also need to have “special” tiny rice rocket training, to teach people that they can’t just weave in and out of lanes during rush hour with no turn signals.
Drivers of sedans would have to have “‘special’ no blue hair drivers who leave their left turn signals on for 20 miles” training.
Minivan drivers would need special "no soccer moms who let kids rattle around the inside of the vehicle unrestrained by seatbelts training. And so on and so forth.
Along with GaWd and a few other posters in this thread, I also fail to see what’s SO incREDibly different and dangerous about these vehicles (and unlike the trucks, econolines and such of yesterday, that somebody else posted we’d all managed to get along with just fine before) that they would require such extensive “special” restrictions, training and so on and so forth.
I still maintain that if a person is that stupid that they don’t realize that their new 22 foot (or whatever, I’m bad at math) long SUV has a shorter stopping distance (or would it be longer?) than their previously owned Honda, and further if they don’t learn after driving it for a few days and testing out it’s capabilities, that this type of driver is going to be no safer after “special training” and that it’s THEM that’s the problem.
Not “cite?” like I’m trying to get you do do research for me. But, I honestly believe that the car based utes are as common as the truck based utes. I don’t know how to get those numbers without going from ute to ute. CRV: car? I’m almost certain, or purpose built SUV. FX45 and 35: car. Cayenne: purpose built SUV, never a truck – same with the BMW. So on, and so forth. Then, you get into what constitutes a “chassis,” or “platform” which is not really that standardized. The engineering probably focuses as much on the SUV as the truck, if not more. It’s just a loophole for manufacturers to get around CAFE.
In the US models I guess there are many shared parts, let’s say, with trucks. The GM line has a lot of truck-SUV connections, for example. I’m not sure if the Explorer shares its engineering with a truck or not. I think it is purpose built now also. I’m just not quite interested enough to check every SUV’s engineering specs.
Beagle has a good point here:
For those who did not pay much attention in physics class: SUVs produce much more kinetic energy (due to their mass) when driving speeds similar to smaller vehicles: KE = 1/2MV^2. The SUV, upon stopping abruptly, will tranfer that KE force to its occupants. All cars will do this, and are designed to minimize this, but you can only minimize so much…
This argument is seen here for smaller SUVs
and here for mid-size SUVs
Compared to these mid-size cars
I could go on (you may search through all categories under ‘vehicle ratings’) but it seems apparent that (with few exceptions) the larger the vehicle the worse off the occupants. SUVs simply can not as safely divert the energy, created from the extra mass, in a collision compared to nearly any smaller automobile.
This is probably redundant but I have yet another site which explains the whole physics of the rollover thing very well.