Cranky, my point was I don’t understand why there has been four pages of blather.
I give an example of a typical car / SUV disparity from 60-0 as being “dozens of feet.” I note the difference between a near miss and passanger compartment intrusion. Then you come along and cite a stopping disparity of 11 feet (from 60, rising dramatically as speeds go up, if you know anything about cars) and say “so the problem is?”
Your causing another person’s death is the problem. I forgot, other drivers are expendible, collateral damage if you will.
Now for the panel of experts:
OK, GREAT. NOW EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK ALL ACCIDENTS ARE REAR END COLLISIONS.
coosa comes in here all high and mighty with her driving lectures. Hello, you put someone in intensive fucking care on page one of this thread. Crap, if I had time to say “oh, fuck” there is no way I am hitting anybody. Of course, I can drive. I’ve never been involved in an accident with injuries after over 300,000 miles of city driving.
“logging roads” If your SUV even touches a non paved surface that puts you outside the norm. I’m not against SUVs. I am against the moronic arguments (safety) people have raised to defend them.
SUVs have mediocre occupant protection stats. by the way. Yes, when they plow into the sides of economy cars the results can be spectacular - what a wonderful selling point.
Beeblebrox:
- visibility issues
- safety issues
Saving-the-planet issues have only come up in rebuttal of Scylla’s claim that SUVs are as environmentally friendly as regular cars. But that doesn’t seem to figure in much in this group of posters’ complaints about SUVs.
For me, personally, the answer is visibility. If they weren’t blocking my view of the road ahead so frequently, I wouldn’t have a beef with them. End of story.
coosa:
Someone else did make that point about some unnamed stretch of I-95. Surprise: whatever stretch of I-95 s/he was referring to, the posters in this thread spend very little time on it, apparently.
And I don’t really care that there’s no law requiring me to see what’s happening 3-4 cars ahead of me. I want do it because it is safer to do so.
Flip this around for a second: Scylla drives an SUV, not out of any legal requirement, but because it’s safer. By the same logic that it’s OK for people to take my ability to see ahead without asking, is it OK for us folks who dislike SUVs to take away his freedom to buy an SUV without asking?
Excuse me, but there’s nothing commonsensical (My bolding, btw) about that, unless you make the bad assumption that lawmaking bodies are commonsensical, proactive, and efficient. Legislatures tend to be reactive rather than proactive: twenty years ago, there was no need for such a law, so nobody would have thought of passing one. As regards today, the one thing legislators can always do well is count votes, and they know there’s a lot of SUV drivers out there.
By the same token, I’m getting the impression that some posters are getting their brains out of cereal boxes, if you want to play that way. Feel free to ride along with me some rush hour, and you’ll find out what happens to ‘safe following distance’ as defined by the manuals. If you try to follow at that distance, the space quickly gets filled up by other cars, that’s what happens to ‘safe following distance’. Sheesh.
I’m aware of the law. But legislating pi to be equal to 3 will not make it so.
In crowded driving conditions, one driver cannot choose to maintain a safe following distance, and that was true before the automakers started churning out SUVs. Adding sight-blocking vehicles to the equation didn’t magically make more room appear on the highways.
Yeah, and I’m amused at your equally wild assumptions. I know the laws, and won’t try to pretend they don’t apply to me, here or in court. But that doesn’t define whether or not I have a valid reason to bitch.
I’m pretty much sticking to the visibility issue, because that’s the one that matters to me. But I couldn’t help noticing:
Yeah, that’s right - anytime I see a car parked illegally, I should try to find a legal parking space (which the other driver probably tried to do, but failed, so it should be a cinch for me :rolleyes:), hunt down a pay phone (which is getting to be a challenge these days), call 411 for the non-emergency number for the local police, and finally report an illegally parked car. Then return to my car and resume what I was doing.
Meanwhile, the cops (who have so little to do, they’re just hanging around the station house, waiting for someone to report a minor incident such as an illegally parked car) will jump right out and ticket it.
And in this alternate universe, when the work day is over, I can click my heels together three times, say “there’s no place like home,” and ::poof!:: I’ll be home, with no need to bitch about SUVs. (Wonder what I say to get to work in the mornings? :))
As usual any blanket statement about statistics is wrong. My last comment about occupant protection is more true for frontal impacts than side impacts.
If you look at the last few model years only, SUVs have improved somewhat in frontal impacts. Ironically, the Durango is one of the worst.
For example, the 2000 model year.
Dude, what brand of crack are you smoking?
**
Nothing like a big fat strawman to cap off a brilliant post.
Beagle:
11 is not “dozens.” It is not even a dozen. Do you have a cite to show where the disparity increases dramatically at higher speeds? I would imagine it would increase proportionately, and at any event if you are going faster than 70 you’re problem isn’t the SUV, it’s your speed, so in any event you’re argument is a sieve.
When you equate my wife’s choice of vehicle with murder, I find it contemptible.
RTF:
Safety is just one reason. My life just plain likes the car, it can tow, and it has a large cargo capacity.
Isn’t that just another way of saying the same thing? 
[sub]Sorry, couldn’t resist. I know you meant ‘wife’.[/sub]
Not murder, that requires intent. Just a reckless disregard for everyone else. “contemptible” OK, I can live with that. If I can save just one life. :violin music: :cut to weeping compact car widow:
I’m not Google man. Consult Car and Driver, Road and Track, Edmunds, Skip Barber’s Driving School, any driving school, your choice. The disparity in stopping distance goes up, what did I say?, “dramatically.” I’ll go with definition #4: “striking.” Cuz’ that’s what you’re gonna do if you don’t allow for your road whale’s requisite extra stopping distance. Of course, often one cannot allow for what one is unaware of.
This gets back to my game theory objection. What do you do when everyone else on your street makes the same decision and buys a taller and heavier Ford Excessive in order to outmass your Durango? Do you go back to the car dealer?
In general, people do best in game theoretic situations when they cooperate, compromise, and take one for the team. The “I’ll do what’s best for me” tone that has characterized this thread usually ends up with the two mopes in the Prisoner’s Dilemma rotting in their cells.
This Popular Mechanics article sums up everything I wanted to say quite neatly. Wrapped in a bow for everyone. There is more to safety than winning the collision. Accident avoidance is ‘somewhat’ important also.
Finagle has summarized my other objection quite well. [superhero voice] My work is done here.
Well, one concession. In the last four or so years the car industry has done one hell of a job turning an inferior product (the SUV) into a far less inferior product. They stop better and handle better than any truck based, high COG, body on frame design should. They are much safer than they were the last time I seriously shopped cars. (Hint: Scylla the preceding was directed at you.) And, they still suck. Sorry, this is a concession, don’t want to fuck it up.
In case anyone is wondering, I’m trying to work through the whiny, bratty, self-centered, lazy, ignorant crap first, so we can hopefully get it out of the way and talk about the complicated issues that don’t have easy answers.
Okay, safety. To listen to many of you talk, and according to the media’s hysterical shit-stirring machine, SUVs are nothing but rolling death traps, sure to begin tumbling all over the highway, smashing smaller cars left and right, just as soon as the driver swerves or hits his brakes. For shame. You are Dopers - you should know better than to a) swallow media hype whole, and b) accept statistics without placing them in the proper frame of reference.
What’s closer to reality is this: SUVs are popular, a lot of people are buying them, so more of them are on the road. The more SUVs on the road, the more SUVs in accidents. As the proportional percentage of SUVs on the road increases, so does the percentage of accidents involving SUVs. Pickup trucks have always been prone to rollovers, and when trucks suddenly became ‘hot’ a few years ago, the percentages of trucks involved in accidents, the percentage of accidents involving rollovers, and the percentage of those rollovers that involved trucks increased as the percentage of trucks in relation to passenger cars on the road increased.
The difference now is that ‘enclosed pickup trucks’ - SUVs - are starting to make up a larger and larger percentage of the ‘trucks’ on the road. They are more prone to certain kinds of accidents, just as ordinary trucks are, but to claim they should be banned because they are ‘inherently unsafe’ is ridiculous; motorcycles are also ‘inherently unsafe’ - heck, they won’t even stand up by themselves without a prop; forget to use the kickstand and they just fall over on the ground. And talk about prone to rollovers! The least little thing will make them fall down on their sides and slide along the pavement. The driver and passenger have no protection, other than tough clothing (if they’re smart) and a helmet. Forget seat belts and air bags - driver/passenger and motorcycle are usually going to separate in any crash, and often that’s the safest result, since after a tumbling crash you can usually carry the 'cycle home in a bag.
Of course, by now a bunch of you are just dying to scream “But a motorcycle isn’t going to smash my car to pieces if it hits me!” (As a matter of fact, someone already said that earlier and I nearly choked when I saw it.) Have you given a thought to just how selfish you sound (and are)? You pose a greater threat to the motorcycle than my SUV does to your car.
And I haven’t forgotten the rest of you who are screaming “But there aren’t that many motorcycles on the road!” So what? Isn’t their safety just as important as yours? Oh, silly me, of course it isn’t - after all, my safety isn’t as important as your’s either. The issue is not, after all, safety for everyone on the highway, just for you. Oh, I know you’re going to claim that you deserve more consideration than me because your vehicle is more fuel efficient, less polluting, and takes up less space, but guess what? Motorcycles have your little car beat all over the place on all three counts. If you really, really, really care so much about that stuff, why don’t you ride a motorcycle instead of driving a dangerous gas hog, air poisoning, space wasting car?
Back to SUVs! Okay, SUVs are prone to rollovers just like trucks are prone to rollovers, but SUVs are starting to become popular with city folks and women with children, who don’t realize that they can’t be driven like a Honda Accord. (Hey, most rural and/or small town folks have driven, or at least been a passenger in, a truck on more than one occasion, and they certainly have a friend or relative that drives one.) This is certainly going to contribute to some accidents, at least until more people realize that they need to drive them differently. But I promised some links and some statistics, so I guess I better start going there.
First of all, for those who want to scream and point fingers at someone, I’m going to invite you to visit this rather anti-SUV site - Frontline: Hidden History of SUVs - so you can at least start screaming at the right people. Hope you’re not a Reagan fan, because he bears a lot of responsibility for the current situation in regard to SUVs. And if you think that claiming that SUVs are dangerous is going to damage their popularity and discourage people from buying them, think again. From the linked page: (bolding mine)
Obviously, either safety is not a huge concern of many buyers, or the risk of a rollover is felt to be acceptable. It didn’t discourage buyers in 1980, and, despite the ‘hype’, it doesn’t seem to be discouraging many people now. Maybe because rollover is felt to be a controllable risk? You do actually have to do something to make them roll, unlike vehicles who catch on fire because the wiring harness is defective, or go kaboom! if rear-ended, or whose brakes fail suddenly and with no warning due to a manufacturer’s defect, or the seats break loose during a crash and fly through the windshield . . .
I highly recommend visiting this page - you might be suprised at how many “safety issues” there are that are much, much scarier and much, much more of a risk than possible SUV crashes, even rollovers. Take a good, long look at the entire page, because you just might find your, or a loved one’s, vehicle there. Do you think it’s possible that the auto makers aren’t displeased by all of the attention focused on the SUVs? 'Cause as long as everyone is looking in that direction, they won’t bother to look in this direction. And the ‘bad publicity’ doesn’t seem to be hurting SUV sales any.
A few little teasers from reports linked on that site:
Heaven help you if you own a Ford:Ford Crown Victoria Fires, Ford Fuel Fires/Crash,Ford Ignition Switch Fires,Ford Sudden Acceleration/Throttle Sticking “. . . almost no Ford vehicle is exempt, and failures have been reported in such popular models as the Taurus, Explorer, Mercury Marquis, Crown Victoria, Lincoln Continental and F-Series pickup trucks”,
and, last but not least, the hottest new car on the market, the Ford Focus, which has had to be recalled no less than 9 times since it’s introduction in 2000, and is currently under investigation for 6 more safety defects. (The rear wheels fall off?!)
Let’s not let GM slide, now, because despite the “focus” (ha! I made a funny) on those bad old SUVs, they produce the deadliest cars in the world.
And, lest you feel more secure because you have an import, Toyota Vans occupy a special niche: "In NHTSA’s technical assessment paper “Relationship Between Rollover and Vehicle Factors” the Toyota Van was tested in a tilt-table, the results of which NHTSA says correlate to rollover accidents. The figure for the Toyota Van is worse than that of the Suzuki Samurai, a vehicle which Consumer Reports (July 1988) suggested should be removed from the road because of it’s stability problems." Gee, worse than the “worst” SUV? Why don’t we hear more about this?
***BTW, you might notice there is a link there for a page about rollovers, and wonder why I don’t mention it. The reason is that the information quoted there is from 1991, and I can do better.
I do want to point out the roof crush page because it has some truly horrifying pictures of what can happen to a vehicle in a rollover - and none of the 5 vehicles pictured is an SUV. Because SUVs aren’t the only vehicles that do rollovers.
sigh Well, crapola - I’ve been trying to get into the Fatal Accident Reporting System website all morning, as they have these wonderful charts of statistics for fatal crashes, broken down my vehicle type, where, when, and how, cause, etc., and apparently the server is down. I can get the home page for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to come up, but that’s the only one - I can’t get anything from the rest of the website. And I have links to two very interesting NHTSA reports - one on possible SUV/passenger car incompatibility, one on whether stiffness/“aggressiveness” in SUVs, and one about SUVs and rollovers - and can’t get any of them either.
Guess I’ll have to stop here until the governments websites start working again.
Active and passive safety tends to be a straight trade-off. A motorcycle for example has very high active safety, and basically zero passive safety. You are the fenders on a motorcycle.
I have a problem with people me that the car my wife drives makes her unsafe, uncourteous, or a danger to everyone else on the road. An intelligent driver, drives his vehicle at its abilities.
When I road a motorcycle, I drove it differently than when I’m hauling our horse trailer with my wife’s Durango. I drive differently when I’m not hauling.
The Durango does not have the manuevering or braking ability of my Sebring, but it has more better visibility due to sitting up higher. I drive them both differently because of their different characteristics. Frankly, I think I’m a little safer in the Durango, as the biggest danger I fear in driving is getting slammed from out of the blue by an idiot.
I’m not really impressed by the lagging performance of the SUV, because by that argument a motorcycle would be the safest vehicle.
Finagle:
What you say may be true, and game theory may suggest a better answer. But, and I don’t mean this sarcastically, I’m not playing a game.
And if you DO allow for the extra stopping distance, because you KNOW HOW TO DRIVE YOUR OWN FUCKING CAR and you’re not a complete and utter imbecile, then what the fuck is your problem?
with appologies to Cranky who opened a thread complaining about correction posts,
I’ve tried diagramming, translating, bablefishing, closing one eye, and cryptography, and still am not sure what you’re trying to say here. A little clarification please?
Insert the word “telling” between “people” and “me” and all will become clear.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Beagle *
**
OK, GREAT. NOW EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK ALL ACCIDENTS ARE REAR END COLLISIONS.*
[quote]
Well, certainly all accidents are not rear-end collisions, but you might consider this:
Holden, Massachusetts PD
Oh, and FWIW, although I can’t pull up the site right now, I believe that most accidents involving fatalities are front-end collisions.
I hope you realize that obviously ridiculous statements like this seriously damage the credibility of any other statements you might make in regard to - well, to pretty much anything else, since this is so outrageously fantastic. It seems that 20+ witnesses and the investigating police officers disagree with you. I guess you must be psychic or something, since you seem to know how much stopping distance I had and what my maneuvering options/time span were without even being there, or even ever having seen that intersection in your life. Amazing! You really ought to call Art Bell or somebody with this incredible talent of yours.
Well, you’ve certainly created doubt in my mind - the only people I know who would claim what you did above are teenagers who are just learning how to drive. Of course, those miraculous driving skills of yours must have kept you from having any serious accidents while simultaneously making you some kind of expert.
You know, I’m sure there are many, many thousands of people in the US who have driven more miles than I have, but you ain’t one of them. :rolleyes: And I can’t imagine why you say ‘city miles’ as though it were something to brag about. All your driving has been in cities? Kind of a limited experience, don’t you think?
Well, I don’t mean this sarcastically either, but you are playing the game. Ask yourself which you’d rather have slamming your Durango out of the blue, a Toyota Celica or a tricked out Ford Expedition with bull bars.
Game theory does suggest remedies, one of which is enforcing cooperation when people refuse to act rationally (“rationally” in the game theoretic sense of people optimizing the benefits for all players in the game). This could take the form of adding additional penalties to “players” who don’t cooperate (e.g. sin taxes). Another approach is educating people so they can evaluate the payoffs more rationally (in some sense, the SUV backlash is a form of this). Hopefully this will cause buyers to evaluate their potential SUV choice in terms of how they affect others as well, e.g the height of their boot profile (height to the rear window), tendency of tinted windows to obscure the view, and height and will select vehicles that minimize the effect on others while satisfying their requirements.
I don’t know how people drive with tinted rear windows. My Cavalier came with a full tint job, and I spent two full weekends scraping the tint off the rear window with a straight razor because it obstructed MY vision, besides others’. My Jeep has tint on the side windows, but not the rear window, and good thing. How do those of you with rear window tint see?
Not all SUVs are tricked-out gargantuan laser-eyed full-tinted pieces of shit with bull bars. I hope the rabid haters realize this, because EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE of negative behavior or results of an SUV in this thread seems to have the “gigantic” and “bull-bars” things tossed in. I don’t know about y’all, but the most prevalent SUV in my area is exactly what I have - Jeep Cherokees, and a few Grands. Following those in popularity are Isuzu Rodeos, Jimmies and Explorers, none of which are all that big - the Jimmies and Explorers are taller than the Cherokees and longer than the Rodeos, but also less prevalent, so… Well, the new Explorers are craptastically huge, but I’ve only seen one of them actually on the road. The huge lineup of them at Orange Ford in Albany doesn’t seem to be moving at all.
Now that I think about it, I’ve only seen a couple of trucks with cowcatchers on the front end in the past week or so, and they were all driven by teenage boys. This makes them more dangerous, I suppose, but I have to admit that I’m more cautious when I’m driving around teenage boys in tricked-out, slammed-to-the-ground, rear-wing-spoilers-taller-than-my-truck imported shit than anything else. I almost got rear-ended yesterday by a guy in one of those, because he was apparently too stupid to realize that engaged brake-lights and a lack of motion in the vehicle in front of him meant that he ought to stop. If I’d been rear-ended because he was stupid, and he’d died - which he probably would have, as fast as he was going (I actually pulled off the road onto somebody’s lawn and he stopped with his engine compartment taking up the space previously inhabited by my rear end) - would it have been my fault for driving an Evil SUV?
I don’t see how the height of a truck matters that much. Any vehicle taller than a Taurus is impossible to see over from any other vehicle shorter than a truck anyway, so why would you care whether my Jeep is 60 inches or six feet? The Cherokee is about six inches shorter than my mother’s Chrysler minivan. It’s also a little bit narrower and a large bit shorter - Chero’s rear end is over Van’s rear wheel. Mom’s minivan has a tinted rear window, the Jeep, as I’ve mentioned, does not. The van usually has a load of kids, my car usually has a load of trash on its way to the dump. Why is my car evil and Mom’s just fine?
I agree, about the size and the bull bars, at least. But they just about all have tint. (Except yours - thanks! :))
I’ve made the point on a couple of occasions in this thread that at least half of SUVs I see are low enough that I could see through them, if only they didn’t have the heavy tint job that apparently is standard from the factory.
I see bull bars on only the occasional SUV - around here I’d say well under 5% of them have the damned things. I would be for banning them except for off-road use, before they get too popular (and dangerous).
Wring:
Hadn’t had my coffee yet. The missing worrd is “telling’” as subsequent posters guesssed.
Sorry to be posting anagrams.