SUV haters

The BBQ Pit
241

I realize that your comments are directed at someone else, but I’ll throw my two cents in: For what it’s worth, I think that under certain circumstances, driving a car with poor braking performance is offensive, and possibly immoral.

If you are someone who could easily afford a car with great brakes, but you get a car with lousy brakes to satisfy your vanity, you have done something that’s very troubling IMHO.

Actually, about a year ago, I was driving through Harlem at 8:00 AM in my 2000 Honda Accord, at around the speed limit, when a 6 year old girl ran out into traffic right in front of me (even though she didn’t have the light). I slammed on my brakes and stopped about 10-20 feet from her. Now, my Honda has excellent brakes. If I’d been driving a car or SUV with worse brakes, that little girl might very well have died that morning. No, I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble for it, since it was clearly the little girl’s fault. But, in effect, if I’d been driving a big SUV, that little girl might have paid for my vanity (and for the foolish mistakes of her youth) with her life.

242

Sam, did you somehow miss Beagle’s comment above?

  • Beagle * **I would like to re-re-re-remind everyone my objection is to behemoutes - not small to midsize SUVs. Some of the smaller ones handle like regular cars. Again, some people need a 6000 pound SUV to haul big stuff. This not a religion to me or anything. **

    People ** don’t **, in general, have serious objections to the class of SUV you’ve mentioned here. It’s the freaking cruise ships – the Ford Expeditions, the Toyota Sequoias (possibly the most ironic name ever given a vehicle) and the big Lexus SUVs with the tinted rear windows – that really hack people off. Beagle is listing the worst of the SUVs because that’s what they are – the worst of the SUVs – a design taken to excess.

243

Serious question for the SUV owners, Mr. Myth, Scylla, and whomever else cares to respond.

We’ve been talking about a transfered sacrifice to decrease your fatalities by 20%. Can we agree that painting your car a neon lime green would increase your visibility and decrease your fatalities? I believe this to be an equivalent safety factor of 20%.

If, as you say, the SUV is owned for reasons of personal and familial safety why are there not more SUV’s painted neon lime green?

244

Ace:

No. I wouldn’t agree that that would make it safer.

My wife’s Durango is silver, and pretty visible. Increased safety is just one of the reasons that we own it.

The primary reason is that my wife likes it and it fits our lifestyle.

But, assuming for the moment that your statement was true, I’d imagine that neon lime green is unpopular with SUVs for the same reason it’s unpopular with all vehicles.

If lime green increased vehicle safety by 20% why would you focus on SUVs? WOuldn’t you want all vehicles to be this color?

Beagle:

You have good cites and data. I’ve responded a couple of times with an argument that I don’t think you’ve addressed.

That would be that all vehicles have different strengths and weaknesses and handling characteristics and that safety is in large part a function in driving them according to those characteristics.

For example, SUVs generally place the driver higher and give him a better view. Wouldn’t you think that this vantage at least partially ameliorates the braking penalty?

I don’t have the 70-0 braking data for the Durango, or its skid plate results, but on the 60-0 it seems to compare pretty favorably to many cars out there. Edmunds thinks well of its braking and manueverability.

Certainly it’s not as brakable or manueverable as an s2000, but you sit higher, and are more armored in a collision.

Would you argue that an s2000 is an inherently safer car?

Or, if you prefer, would you consider the Mustang GT inherently safer?

How about we compare those two?

Do you have the data?

Do you consider a Durango, a Behemoth?

245

This particular argument reminds me of an old Bloom County cartoon with Opus and some other character having a political debate. Allow me to paraphrase:

Opus: I support lowering the interstate speed limit from 70mph to 60pmh. Saves 10,000 lives a year.

Some other character: What about lowering it to 50mph. Save another 10,000 people.

O: I dunno. Have to think about it.

SOC: How about 40mph? 30mph?

O: Geez, 30mph is pretty slow…

SOC: So, you’d sooner send 30,000 people to fiery deaths than be a few minutes late to your manicurist appoint!?!

Opus: I DON’T EVEN HAVE A MANICURIST!!!

SOC: I’m sure you don’t. Most mass murderers don’t. Hitler didn’t.
Driving is all about calulated risks. They could design a car that can hit a wall at 180 mph and the occupant survive (think Jason Priestly). Trouble is it’s too expensive and has other undesirable tradeoffs.

246

This particular argument reminds me of an old Bloom County cartoon with Opus and some other character having a political debate. Allow me to paraphrase:

Opus: I support lowering the interstate speed limit from 70mph to 60pmh. Saves 10,000 lives a year.

Some other character: What about lowering it to 50mph. Save another 10,000 people.

O: I dunno. Have to think about it.

SOC: How about 40mph? 30mph?

O: Geez, 30mph is pretty slow…

SOC: So, you’d sooner send 30,000 people to fiery deaths than be a few minutes late to your manicurist appoint!?!

Opus: I DON’T EVEN HAVE A MANICURIST!!!

SOC: I’m sure you don’t. Most mass murderers don’t. Hitler didn’t.
Driving is all about calulated risks. They could design a car that can hit a wall at 180 mph and the occupant survive (think Jason Priestly). Trouble is it’s too expensive and has other undesirable tradeoffs.

247

Agree. And IMHO, for most SUV drivers, the extra risk and inconvenience they impose on others is excessive compared to the benefits they realize.

248

Nope. It’s my family. Driving involves the sharing and tranferring of risks to others. We can sit here and debate theoreticals 'till the cows come home. Last Thursday when I was in the Ford dealership, I was thinking about my family, not yours. Anybody that tells me that is an immoral, selfish way to act is smoking dope. One unfortunate outcome of operating a 3000lb vehicle on the public road is that there’s gonna be a 4000lb vehicle there right behind you. By my driving a bigger vehicle than you, I am passing on some level of risk from my family to you and your family. Sucks for you. Sucks for me, too, when there’s a guy in an Excursion behind me, dwarfing my Explorer, passing on some of his risk to me. Sucks for him when there’s an 18 wheeler behind him. In addition to passing along some of my risk to you, I’m negating some of the Excursion driver’s risk that he passed along to me. Lots of people die every year from Physics. I think it should not be taught in public schools.

249

Macro Man, the discussion we’re having is just that which you ask for, to find what you and Scylla consider an acceptable tradeoff. So far we have Tradeoff A, back on page 3, Scylla responded that he was “Willing to kill 2400 people to save 1900 SUV drivers,” for an “increase in my families safety” of 20%, which was selfish but understandable.

We’ve just introduced Tradeoff B, “Would you drive an ugly car for the same increase of your families safety of 20%?” Scylla’s response, which I read as no, was in this third SUV-owning rationale, the first two not being sufficiently damning:

Holy shit! Let me weep a bit for Syclla. This is such damn stunning arrogance and selfishness, that I’m worried that owning a SUV is evidence of sociopathic tendencies. Scylla chooses his wife’s and his happiness with the color, over safety, in Tradeoff B, thus revealing that safety is not his ultimate priority, despite his statements to the contrary. And in Tradeoff A, he’s already put 2400 non-SUV drivers as a lesser priority than his family’s safety.

Therefore it follows that he’d rather sacrifice 2400 non-SUV drivers a year than drive an ugly car.

That’s about what I figured. Forgive me if I feel you’ve nailed the SUV side of this debate, and if I categorize SUV owners as “Selfish Fucking Jackasses,” using this thread as my cite.

250

As I mentioned before, safety is not anyone’s only or ultimate priority. If it were, we’d all be driving tanks, literally. Actual combat tanks. I look for a good combination of safety, style, affordability, durability, and versitility in a new vehicle. I personally found that in the 2002 Explorer. Yo umay have found that in an Accord or an Excursion. It’s difficult to quantify how much safety I’d give up in pursuit of style. Nobody’s asked me to metre out exact measurements of each, and then they’ll build me a vehicle to my specs.

This has got to be the silliest fucking thread I’ve seen in some time. We should all be very proud of ourselves (myself included).

251

Ace:

I can only assume that you have deliberately misconstrued my previous post.

Please reread it, and reconsider what you have posted.

252

As I said, my read on your response is, “How ridiculous to focus on making SUV’s safer by painting them lime green, when therefore all cars should be lime green,” then tie that in with “My wife likes it and it fits our lifestyle,” I read that as “My wife likes it the way it is, and safety is secondary to the look of the car.”

Feel free to correct my interpretation, but rest assured it’s not a deliberate misconstrual.

253

Also, I note that trading one’s own safety for fashion or looks is not at all unusual, as Marco Man’s post underscores.

The ethical issue I’m highlighting, and this applies to not just Scylla, is when, we can infer transitively that you are trading your own fashion for someone else’s safety, which is an recurring point in this thread.

254

Ace:

I challenged your assumption that making it neon lime green would make it 20% safer seeing as it was already highly visible, being silver.

I found it odd that if it is your contention that neon lime green makes vehicles 20% safer, you would wish only SUVs owners to feel morally obligated to implement this feature.

Finally, I was clearing up what seems to be an ongoing misconception. I have stated several times that safety was only one issue that went into the purchase of my wife’s Durango. The primary reason we brought it was because she liked it best.

From this you have chosen to construe that I and my wife are contemptible in our disregard for others in both choosing a vehicle dangerous for other to people to collide with, and for not painting it lime green.

255

Ok, this thread was insightful, thought-provoking, and interesting and made me think about both sides, but this is just getting plain ridiculous. :rolleyes:

256

Here’s a pic of one that had an altercation with a Toyota.
Cool. The pic is a pop up window, BTW.
:slight_smile:

http://epaper.ardemgaz.com/Default/Scripting/FindView.asp?sQuery=toyota&BaseHref=ArDemocrat%2F2002%2F08%2F27&skin=ArkDaily&sLanguage=English&x=18&y=12#

257

No, I only asked which tradeoff was superior to you. I apologize if I misunderstood your oblique answer. Did I? The question really was “Would you drive an uglier car for the same 20% benefits?” I’m still hearing from you and Macro Man that the answer is no, and that you’re willing to sacrifice your safety, and by extension, others’ before sacrificing fashion.

I find people who sacrifice other people for their own fashion sense to be contemptible. Whether this includes you or any other poster on this thread is up to interpretation, but a mere glance at the posts here with regards to tinted windows shows that it applies, in general, to the class of SUV owners.

258

Would have posted this yesterday, but lightning knocked my phone out again.

Sorry, I didn’t explain that very well, so didn’t make my point (which you certainly may still disagree with). What I was trying to say was that you should complain - and complain, and complain - but to the correct people. If SUVs are causing problems because of where they are parked, enough complaints to the right people might result in parking restrictions. Of course you can’t expect the police to run out and check every parking violation that’s reported - but they are supposed to log the calls they receive. If SUVs are creating a unique traffic/parking hazard in your neighborhood/town/city, enough complaints from voters might inspire someone to at least investigate to see if there is a legitimate problem. Perhaps SUVs truly don’t belong in downtown areas or rush-hour traffic - local governments can pass ordinances restricting them. But they aren’t even going to consider it if they aren’t aware that people are unhappy with the situation, and they need something to back their decisions with, such as lots of complaining letters and phone calls, police records of the same and perhaps of increased accidents involving SUVs, etc.

But this arrogant hostility towards SUV drivers is non-productive and simply generates hostility in return. Instead of attacking SUV drivers for their choice of vehicle, and/or demanding that they all be banned from the roads, how about asking your Congressman/woman why the government has refused to put the same restrictions/requirements on SUVs that they have on passenger cars? Why did the US Congress vote down the requirement for increased fuel efficiency in SUVs? How about asking the NHTSA why they do not use a real rollover test that might actually produce some helpful ratings? As I pointed out, SUVs (among other types of light trucks) have been around for a long time, and the rollover problem was first brought to attention in 1980 - you would think that with their increasing popularity as family cars our elected representatives would be a little more interested in addressing these issues instead of ‘rolling over’ (sorry, couldn’t resist) like trained dogs for the automakers.

Well, let me know if it works - my husband has an 800 mile one-way commute and I know he’d appreciate the short-cut.

259

That’s a fair point. I meant to call last weekend, oy. If you feel this argument has swayed your opinion (Christ, I sound like a PBS pledge drive, don’t I?) there’s no point to beating up on each other. Let your democratically elected rep know at Congress.Org. You may still be hostile, but it’ll be a useful, civic-minded, hostility.

260

Sure, and presumably, it’s worth it to you to inconvenience and endanger others to satisfy your own vanity.

**

Well, pass the bong then.