Because we don’t see 1977 Land-Yachts everywhere. It’s not like anyone’s defending them here, they just aren’t mentioned much, for the same reason we don’t complain about 1907 Stanley Steames.
That’s only because there was a damn SUV between them.
My apologies to you and epinla both, then. I misread the posts about the cooling effect of the tint as involving a choice on the owner’s part. (Fuck the automakers, in Detroit and Japan, instead. :))
Since there are only a handful of makes of car that I recognize, I’ll take your word that the Caravan is one of the behemoths. But as has been mentioned, SUVs and minivans both come in various sizes, and I’d guess half or more of them are low enough that I could at least see the roof of the car in front of them if they didn’t tint the windows.
Of course, my 2000 Accord is a standard-size sedan, not a subcompact like our ancient '86 Accord that we don’t drive much anymore. Not exactly a skateboard, which helps too.
I have no idea what the house’s central A/C runs on. But the new Accord is post-Freon phaseout, and the old Accord got its last dose of Freon many years ago. And the '87 Ram 50 pickup (kinda at the large end of the small-size pickups) never had A/C to begin with. (For many years, it was my primary car. So there. ;))
Feel free to read the thread; many people have spoken to this. For me, it’s the visibility issue, all the visibility issue, and nothing but the visibility issue, at least from an emotional-involvement perspective.
I recognize that there are resource-conservation issues, and greenhouse-gas issues, and these need to be taken seriously too, but when it comes to SUVs, I kinda go naaaaah to all that. I’m one of those people who actually likes driving, even under fairly crowded conditions. But not being able to see is not only a lot less safe, IMHO, but it also makes it a lot less fun and a lot more work when I spend seemingly half my time on the road trying to get around some damned SUV or minivan so I can see again.
Depends on where on I-95, I guess. The only stretch I really spend any time on, these days, is between the Baltimore beltway and the Susquehanna, when I head up to a Dopefest at Weirddave’s. And even that’s not very often. But when I’m on I-95, it certainly doesn’t feel like wall-to-wall 18-wheelers; they’re there, of course, but it’s mostly the usual mix of passenger cars of all types.
My main on-the-road time, of course, is my daily commute, which is mostly on Maryland state Route 4, and the Suitland Parkway, both 4-lane divided, mostly-limited-access, roads. (There’s also a few miles of local 2-lane involved, closer to home.) No big rigs are allowed on the S.P., and there are few of them on Rt. 4 during rush hour. The visibility-obstructing vehicles are mostly the SUVs and minivans.
I’m not sure what’s strawmannish about this. Honestly, there are very few actual jerks on my commute route, in any sort of vehicle. The worst semi-routine behavior is by the oblivious folks who cruise in the left lane without passing, damming traffic up behind them. But there hasn’t even been that much of that lately.
So the people in sedans don’t bother me much, and the people in the SUVs wouldn’t either, if SUVs were only transparent. I’m not jealous of them, as I’ve said before; if the wife and I wanted one, we could run down and buy one, but we don’t.
As I guess you’ve figured out by now, it’s because it’s not about the pollution; it’s about the visibility.
Besides, having two 15+ year old vehicles myself, both of which are near the end of their useful lives, I figure that the Land-Yacht probably doesn’t have that many miles left in it anyway. It will soon go to the Great Junkyard In The Sky, and stop polluting the air.
[sub]And peeking ahead a bit, I’ll let you drink Bud, but I’m gonna drink Bass or Beck’s or Yeungling, since I just don’t drink beer in quantity anymore, so the monetary difference between drinking cheap beer and drinking good beer, buying by the 12-pack as I do, is probably less than $50/year, but the difference in taste is considerable. At least for me; YMMV. :)[/sub]
stofsky, I’d place myself in more or less the same area as you, politically/ideologically.
But in terms of who needs an SUV and who’s driving one out of vanity, my statistician side takes over. And we statistical types can’t tell you about a particular individual, but we can tell you a lot about large piles of data.
I don’t have any rigorous statistical arguments here, but all one has to do is compare the vehicles on the road now, with those there 20 years ago. Since we were able to do without SUVs just fine back then, the rebuttable presumption has to be that the vast majority of people who are driving them now could do perfectly well without them.
So I don’t know which SUV drivers are the vanity cases, but I know there’s a bunch of 'em out there. Since I’m not giving the finger to any individual SUV drivers just for driving SUVs, that’s all I need to know.
There’s 162 posts here. I read about 30 to get the drift but spank my hiney if I’ll wade through every last one…
Instead, let me just offer that anybody can buy whatever the frick they want buy to but must, and I emphasize the word “must”, they must be considerate of the wants of other non-SUV drivers?
I think this is where the problem arises… The average new SUV driver goes from considering the effects of his previously owned tiny car on surrounding commuters to all of a sudden confronting them with a mobile, enormous billboard. They undergo this transformation without any training. They undergo this transformation without any concept of what they’re doing to proximal drivers or, sadly, any training of it’s implications.
The don’t mean to eclips the fucking sun with their vehicle but, unknowingly, they do it nonetheless.
I realize they’re not trying to fuck with me but do they realize they’re doing so nonetheless?
I just want to get home, mkay? Don’t fucking bully your way into my albeit conservative little comfort zone.
OK, I have read this thread (yes i was THAT bored…not that the thread was boring just I don’t usually give a shit about cars…and i drive an 82 Mazda hatchback to prove it) I have figured out that an SUV is what we call a 4-wheel drive, but could someone pleeeeease tel me what SUV actually stands for. Super Urban Vechicle?, Suburban Utopia Vehicle?, Stopping-me-being-able-to-see-round-the-corner Usually Vechicle? See-I-am Upwardly-mobile Vechicle? Swell-kids Ultra-cool-mum Vechicle?Help!!
Excuse me for being NOT car savvy but i still wanna know
Oh and while I’m asking retarded questions…what is a tractor-trailer??? Cause tractors are common chugging round feilds I cant see why they have trailers and are common on the roads.
I’m not that thick I promise …it’s just a what-means-crisps-there-means-chips-here kinda thing. Cause both are chips here. That alone must excuse my confusion.
SUV = Sport Utility Vehicle
Tractor Trailer = Large truck with a separable trailer section. AKA 18 wheeler - picture
RTF:
Convenient, you say? Wow, I guess that shows us. :rolleyes:
Minty:
I would strongly disagree with the statement that most roads in the U.S. are perfectly straight and level. And, in order for your argument to carry weight, they would have to be just about perfectly straight and level to block your vision for an appreciable distance. You get some roads like this, but I’ve driven all over the US and I’d call them a serios minority.
If it is directly in your line of vision, an SUV, or any other object, for that matter, will block all objects in that line of the same size or smaller.
In practical driving, what happens is the road curves and changes elevation all the time. The cars drift from the right to the left sides of the lanes, and what this does is give you a cone in front of the object where your vision is blocked. The closer you are following the vehicle, the larger the cone. The further away you are, the smaller it is.
I drove two hours on I-81 yesterday, and I tried to purposefully observe this effect. I was driving the Sebring, and FYI, I-81 was loaded with tractor trailers.
Throughout my drive, I had no problem telling what was going on ahead of me, regardless of the trucks.
The exception was during construction where the road severely narrowed and got down to two tight lanes. As traffic slowed, I ended up getting closer to the truck in front of me, and had no vision of what lay ahead. I rode closer to the truck ahead of me, because if I didn’t jerks would pass me on the right and attempt to squeeze in.
IMO, when everybody is stuck going slow the true inconsiderate people are those that bob and weave between lanes cutting people off, desperately trying to pass, instead of waiting there turn in line with all the other struck drivers.
I did not see the vision problem as significant, at all, as when traffic is going slow, and it’s bumper to bumper, I have no reason for seeing far ahead. I can’t do anything about what is up there.
When traffic is fast, by maintaining a safe distance I am able to see what’s up ahead very well.
If you were a tailgater, trying to zip through traffic, then you would have an issue with SUV and trucks blocking your vision. If you are a safe and competant driver, than it’s not.
As for the tint. Again, yesterday, going both Northbound and Southbound on I-81, I tried to pay attention to this effect. It was about midday, and I found I was able to see through the tinting of both an SUV and a minivan, but just barely. At night, I doubt you would be able to at all.
Yes, it does, unless you’re qualified to judge when a convenience becomes justifiable.
Stofsky, If we put you in the back corner, it won’t be because of your ideology – it’ll be because you wildly dismissed the points brought to your attention.
The NYTimes had a Friday article about SUV Haters
Not where I live. In Texas, you can usually see for 30 miles in any direction. And if you stand on a tuna can, you can see for 60.
Bingo. Happens all the damn time, but it certainly doesn’t require construction zones. Just try driving around Dallas at rush hour and see how much following distance you can maintain behind the Behemobile without getting a Gigantobox and an Enormouclass pulling in front of you. Not to mention that the following distance to enable you to see anything in front of an SUV is significantly greater (I’d say by about 50%) than it is for a regular car.
If your argument boils down to “Stay back, inferior car dweller!” your argument sucks precisely because I can’t stay back a hell of a lot of the time.
Shirley, you must be kidding. When traffic is stop-and-go, the brake lights and slowing cars in front of you tell you when there’s going to be another chain-reaction mass halt. Except when I’m behind an SUV, the only brake lights I can see are the ones on the SUV, which is also the only vehicle I can see.
Ah, a new spin on the “I don’t have to justify my purchase claim.” You’re right, you don’t. But it doesn’t make you immune from criticism, either. And I’m more than qualified to dish out criticism, as is anybody else on this board, youself included.
Thanks for the link. Amusingly enough, the article is punctuated by a huge Mercedes M-class ad.
Minty:
So why are you only focussing on the size of an SUV? It seems the larger problem is the fact that inconsiderate drives have a tendency to want to cut in front of you if you’re maintaining a safe distance, and therefore you have to ride closer to the car ahead of you than is prudent to avoid getting constantly cut off.
The primary inconsiderate scumbags here are the drivers who cut into traffic. To avoid them, you ride closer to the car ahead of you. It seems unfair that if that car ahead of you is an SUV, you blame the problem on its driver who may be driving very considerately.
And, I hate to point this out to you, but it’s not to easy to see through the car ahead of you’s rear window, windshield and then down to the brakelights of the car ahead of you. If it doesn’t have one of those third brakelights, it’s almost impossible. Really, under the very bes of circumstances, you are only going to see one car ahead in this manner.
What I tend to do, is jog my car out in the lane slightly. It’s best if I’m in the left lane when I do this. That way, I can see several cars’ ahead for braking purposes.
When this is not practical, the consolation is that a smaller car 'prolly has better braking characteristics than an SUV. If you can only see the SUV ahead of you’s lights, you are still safe, because you can break faster than he.
It doesn’t make it right, or justified.
What car you drive is only one variable in the equation of how you live your life, as I mentioned to Coldie on the previous page.
Only a fool judges an equation by a single variable, and only a fool judges the variable without the context of the equation.
I suppose you have the right to be foolish if you wish, but I do take issue when that foolishness is directed at me or my wife for a complex personal decision we have made, about which you nothing.
We don’t need the Durango any more than you need the air conditioning you have in your house. You’d probably do fine without it, wouldn’t you? People certainly have and continue to survive without air conditioned homes. Unless you have a medical condition it is a pure luxury, and a costly one.
But, I’ll bet, especially in Dallas, that it is very nice and very convenient to have air conditioning.
The environmental arguments against SUVs could just as easily be applied to the luxury of airconditioning large homes and buildings. Few need it. It uses tons of energy. You have leaks from environmentally hazardous chemicals.
I’m not going to fish for a site, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption that far more energy is used air conditioning buildings for people who don’t need it, than is wasted in gas by people driving SUVs who don’t need them.
I wouldn’t complain about your central air. Why do you take issue with my wife’s car? I’ll bet that even with the Durango, she uses less gas than you, if you’re a Dallas commuter.
(Now I know you’ve been arguing sightlines more than environment, but there’s several arguments going on here)
Well, this thread is rapidly becoming a blast of hot air. Time to wrap it up.
Lurkers:
If you feel, as I do, that the S.U.V. owners have been well and truly decimated in this debate – prolly where they didn’t answer if they were truly “willing to kill 2400 people to save 1900 SUV drivers,” – or where they posted selfish, wasteful arguments, please go and use these
If on the other hand, you are still a proud SUV owner, please go here
I could have sworn I addressed this issue.
I’ll do it again. Absolutely.
As long as my wife and kid are in the 1,900, there’s no question about it. No guilt, no hesitation, no question.
The car we choose to drive of course determines which group we may potentially fall in. Seeing as it’s an either/or proposition, I want them to have every advantage possible.
I choose for my wife and kid to survive and the other guys to die.
Ya know, you attempt to use this tactic in the gun control debates, too. It’s bullshit there and it’s bullshit here.
Don’t project, UncleBeer, the bullshit is, as always, yours.
Find your cite where I did such a thing – put up or shut up. You may have to search for a while, since you completely made this up. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Scylla, nice try, but no. Obviously, there’s NO guarantee your family is in that pool – that’s out of all SUV drivers per year. But the 2400 for 1900 WILL happen. Still ready to sacrifice us?