I just want to make a comment on ‘Jap Junk’ (other than a comment on the racial slur)…
The Toyota Land Cruiser has always been one of the best off-road vehicles on the planet.
The Willys (“Jeep”) CJ-2A (the “CJ” meant “civilian Jeep”) came out in model-year 1946. I used to have a '48. Maxed out at 60mph (with the windscreen down, and me hunched over), but it was great off-road.
I agree. I’d like to have a (c.1976) Toyota FJ-40 Land Cruiser. But I’m saving up for a helicopter. (Now there’s and off-road vehicle!)
My '99 Jeep Cherokee does! 
It’s swell for camping too.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
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Quicky: "The truth of the matter is, a great majority of SUV’s on the road never go off road - a duty for which they are primarily designed. " Actually if you’ll look into it, a lot of SUV’s couldn’t go off-road if they wanted to. Ignoring the fact that they’re too damn heavy, many are waaay to close to the ground and not any higher than a standard sedan.
HMMV’s are all about utility (at least the military version is.) I used to drive one every day when I was in the Army and that thing can do everything short of flying. If you’ve got a snorkel kit (and some SCUBA equipment) you can drive it completely submerged. Is that cool or what?
Something else about SUV’s, it’s a married chicks car. As a general rule, I just don’t see married, yuppie chicks roughing it out in the woods. I was looking at this very subject last week and during my own informal inquiry I noticed that only 1 in 8 SUV drivers were male. How do I know they were married? They just are.
About that article, it only addressed the desperate situation an impacted vehicle would be in if hit by an SUV. It stated that the larger the impacted vehicle was, the less likely it would be that the passengers would be killed. It did not even allude to making the impactor smaller. I hope it’s obvious that if a small car is hit by another small car (my Honda civic weighed in at 1800 lbs.) rather than a 4,000 lb. SUV the passenger of the car that was hit will also have a much greater chance of surviving. The article was talking about a difference of 100 lbs. What about a 1200 lb. difference? The article in total left me with a feeling that the author had an agenda, but I went into it not liking SUV’s so maybe I’m biased. Did anyone else get that feeling? Does anyone have any info on how much an SUV actually weighs?
Actually I’m very pleased about the high price of gas. I hope it goes on for a few more months, long enough for people to start worrying about what kind of mileage their new car or truck will get. This will give the public incentive to purchase the new 60 & 70 MPG cars. I’ve said it before, I wish Ross Perot had gotten to institute his gas tax of $.40/gal.
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Most of those SUVs that I see have one person in them, yet they seat 9 to 10 people.
Pickups usually seat two. So not so much wasted space.
SUVs are social power, they give the impression you can run right on top of the driver in front of you. As a matter of fact, until the redesign them, that’s just what they can do.
Lagged2Death wrote:
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It is not “bunk.”
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It’s not just the auto companies that claim the fault lies with the smaller tinfoil cars.
Again, see this 2-year-old Wall Street Journal article: http://www.junkscience.com/news/kazman.htm
Handy: Unless the bed of the pickup is empty. Then there’s no difference. (-:
Yes, a very good vehicle. The first ones were built, I believe, using surplus Jeep parts. They may have used British Leyland. The engine of the LC, is a copy of the Chevy 6 cylinder, the rear axle, the Ford 9 inch, I’m sure if I researched it, they copied more than that in parts from America. But I also disagree about the Broncos/Blazers being used
as commuter vehicles. The first ones, 66-80?,
were still used, for the most part, by hunters/fishermen/contractors. After the smaller Cherokees/S10-Blazer/Bronco II came out, the big vehicles became more popular. Also, the only SUVs that seat 9 (max) are the
Suburban and the Expedition. The Dodge Durango ‘can’ seat 9, but I wouldn’t want to be in the back seat.
And I agree that part of the problem of accidents is making the new vehicles too light. It even affects new trucks. I have a 79 Jeep J20 pickup at home, take a bat, swing it, and it’ll bounce off. Go try that with a new truck. Nice trip to the body shop.
And about the price of gas, I can afford it.
If it goes up to $2.00/gallon, I can afford it. I won’t sell my 4x4s because of the price of fuel. And the only ‘econo-box’ I plan on getting is another Dodge Omni GLH Turbo. Off the factory floor, will beat most of the ‘high-tech’ Jap cars, and get 30 mpg.
I pity the fool that brings a knife to a gun fight.
I hate SUVs basically because of the headlights at night! I drive a sportscar, so I’m pretty low to begin with; but these monsters have ultraBRIGHT headlights, and are at such a height that they literally burn my eyes at night!Plus, I hate to think that American kids (in DESERT STORM) had to lose their lives so that some rich yuppie can drive these monsters!
At this point, I think the SUV frenzy has become a kind of suburban arms race (forgive the pun).
Perhaps the first owners were looking for things like off-road capability, extra space and towing power. Lately, however, more and more buyers are looking for height (“I want to be able to see the traffic light overtop the Ford Explosion ahead of me”), and safety (“I don’t want to die when that Lincoln Terminator hits me”).
Myself, I prefer a nice fast sports sedan (ahh… GS400, beauty is thee…) with the handling and acceleration to avoid those lumbering deathmobiles.
I saw a story in the paper over the weekend.
Even with gas prices having been high, and projected to stay high or higher at least until summer, SUVs continue to post sales records every month.
Make what you will of that.
And by the way, it’s not just SUVs that are classed as “trucks” – minivans are, as well, so Detroit could have just as much creative accounting with them if that’s all that mattered.
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
egkelly wrote:
Did any Americans actually die in Operation Desert Storm? More than would normally die in, say, traffic accidents, that is?
This whole argument is so emotional that it seems to me a lot of the facts are mixed up and confused.
Lets say that we are interested in the safety issue. There are really four aspects to it. The first one is the probability of having an accident with another vehicle. The second one is the probablitiy of the accident involving a collision with a vehicle at a disproportionately difference in speed. The third one is the probability of the accident involving a collision with a vehicle of disproportionately different weight and characteristics. The fourth one is the probability of survival in the event of an accident.
The first is a non-issue. Generally, American roads are fairly well designed, and given the number of cars and miles driven, it is pretty safe for most of us every day.
The second issue is interesting because a high speed small vehicle hitting me will have the energy of a Mack Truck at a lower speed. A lot of fatal accidents occur due to excessive uncontrolled speed. Beyond a certain point, whether the high speed offender is a small vehicle, a truck, or an SUV is irrelevant, its going to be fatal.
The third issue may be of merit in this argument because the more SUVs there are in the whole population, the probability of an accident involving one will be greater, posing greater threats to smaller vehicles.
But the fourth issue is the trick. There WILL be trucks and buses on the road, or other large vehicles, besides SUVs. If I were buying a car, I will buy the one that will better protect me against the greatest hazard that I face, and not assume that I will always be hit only by small passenger cars. Since Mack Trucks are impractical, some SUVs are a good alternative. Besides, the “real” SUVs are truck based with solid axiles, chasis frames, etc that I consider will make the vehicle last much longer than “light” car-like SUVs with just the addition of 4X4. In any case, I consider many small vehicles to be death traps by design, with undersized tires and brakes, and delicately balanced unibodies that crush like a thin tin-can.
Just my two cents worth.
Yes, if you’re driving a small car, you’re worse off if you get hit by an SUV going 50 MPH than you are if you got hit by another small car going 50 MPH.
But by the same token, if you’re driving a motorcycle, you’re worse off if you get hit by a small car going 50 MPH than you are if you got hit by another motorcycle going 50 MPH.
It’s not fair that people in those cars should be safe when they jeopardize us motorcyclists so much. Plus, cars are gas-guzzlers compared to motorcycles. I say we ban those gas-guzzling cars and only allow people to drive motorcycles! Without all those big mean killer cars on the road, accident fatalities will surely go down, right? :rolleyes:
The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.
Why stop there Tracer? You’ve only partly thought this out. Why not suggest we go back to ox drawn carts. You see, speed on motorcycles is the real killer.
Thanks for attempting to take this discussion from the sublime to the ridiculous… How are you enjoying your SUV? Given your extreme gift for exageration I take it you are the proud owner of at least one. Yes? …or perhaps you would merely like to be… Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Nope, I have no desire for an SUV. In fact, I prefer to ride my motorcycle (when it’s not raining).
The “gift” I was trying to apply here was one of pointing out a flawed argument. The argument that, since driving an SUV makes the road more dangerous for cars, SUVs are the problem, I feel is flawed. If two small cars collide, both of them have a better chance of killing their occupants than if two SUVs collide. To me, this means that small cars are the safety problem, not SUVs.
I’m also interested in knowing how overall traffic fatality statistics nowadays compare with those of, say, 40 years ago. I’ll bet American roads are safer now than they’ve ever been.
Agreed. Small cars are a danger to the occupants. A miata, fun as it is to drive, is to my mind a deathtrap. But we are talking averages here. The average car is neither a Miata nor a Hum-V. The average car, or should I say the median car is well in between these two extremes. Hence the small car is no danger to the average passenger vehicle, while the large SUV class is of considerable danger.
If people make a consious choice of foregoing safety for fun/performance/economy of small cars then they do so at their own risk. When people choose to buy very large SUV’s simply because they are widely available and popular they un-intentionaly put the median group of drivers in danger.
Keep in mind, I’m not blaming the cosumer (though they do share the responsibility) but questioning if the manufacturers acted responsibly by introducing such a huge disparity of passenger class vehicles without sufficient forethought to general safety.
I’m not drawing conclusions (though it’s tempting) I’m simply throwing out food for thought.
I too used to drive motorcycles when I was younger (Yamaha 350RZ was my crotch rocket of choice). I’d love to buy another bike but being a parent of two small kids and a husband I choose to avoid this kind of risk at this time. Trouble is, I don’t have very much choice in my neighbour’s decision to buy 3 large SUV’s for a family of two drivers and two kids under 10. Not that I feel I’m entitled to tell him what he can or cannot drive.
No mere 350 bike qualifies as a “crotch rocket”.
Unless, of course, the “350” in the Yamaha’s name refers to (A) the horsepower, (B) the displacement in cubic inches rather than cubic centimeters, or © the pounds of thrust the engine produces.
I’m with you, man. And sooner or later, we can take the next step–I mean, have you ever seen what happens to a bicyclist when they’re hit by a SUV/compact/motorcycle/lawn mower? It ain’t pretty. Pretty soon, there will be no gas guzzling, just the light huffing and puffing of pink lungs.
JunkScience.com, examine thyself. The author of that piece completely ignores the fact that since SUVs are classified as light trucks and not cars, they are not subject to the same stringent safety standards as cars are. Notice that he compares the “crashworthyness” of large cars vs. small cars and doesn’t give stats for SUVs as they wouldn’t support his argument. No one has claimed that a smaller cars are as safe or safer than larger cars, they’re saying that SUVs not only have poor safety records but also (by virtue of their size/weight) cause more damage to other cars (“the relative risk that the death will be in the car rather than the SUV is an apparently lopsided 27-to-1”). He talks about these “heavy cars” but does not define them- my guess is that they’re older model American cars that will be phased out of the market due to the increased fuel standards for cars.
I’m trying to find an article that discusses the fact that the metro DC area will lose transportation for not meeting pollution goals, a large part of that being due to the increasing # of SUVs on the road and their poor fuel standards. It’s been in the Wash. Post but I couldn’t find a recent article.
Ooooooh, I just hate SUVs.
And minivans.
And pickup trucks.
And all manner of oversized lumbering automobiles and fancy Eye-talian sports cars that get 8 mph.
But mainly SUVs. Why? There doesn’t have to be a logical reason. You say there should be some offensive characteristic that applies to them alone? Nah, who cares? I just hate 'em.
I say VW bugs for everyone.