the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
Well, according to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher's new book, "High and Mighty," the connection between the two isn't a coincidence. Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation's most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
According to market research conducted by the country's leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be "insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others."
He says, too, that SUV drivers generally don't care about anyone else's kids but their own, are very concerned with how other people see them rather than with what's practical, and they tend to want to control or have control over the people around them. David Bostwick, Chrysler's market research director, tells Bradsher, "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."
Armed with such research, automakers have, over the past decade, ramped up their SUV designs to appeal even more to the "reptilian" instincts of the many Americans who are attracted to SUVs not because of their perceived safety, but for their obvious aggressiveness. Automakers have intentionally designed the latest models to resemble ferocious animals. The Dodge Durango, for instance, was built to resemble a savage jungle cat, with vertical bars across the grille to represent teeth and big jaw-like fenders. Bradsher quotes a former Ford market researcher who says the SUV craze is "about not letting anything get in your way, and at the extreme, about intimidating others to get out of your way."
Not surprisingly, most SUV customers over the past decade hail from a group that is the embodiment of American narcissism: baby boomers. Affluent and often socially liberal, baby boomers have embraced the four-wheel-drive SUV as a symbol of their ability to defy the conventions of old age, of their independence and "outdoorsiness," making the off-road vehicle a force to be reckoned with on the American blacktop.
But as Bradsher declares in his title, this baby boomer fetish is considerably more harmful than the mere annoyance of yet another Rolling Stones tour or the endless commercials for Propecia. In their attempt to appear youthful and hip, SUV owners have filled the American highways with vehicles that exact a distinctly human cost, frequently killing innocent drivers who would have survived a collision with a lesser vehicle. Bradsher quotes auto execs who concede that the self-centered lifestyle of SUV buyers is apparent in "their willingness to endanger other motorists so as to achieve small improvements in their personal safety."
After covering the auto industry for six years, Bradsher is an unabashed critic of sport-utility vehicles and the automakers that continue to churn them out knowing full well the dangers they pose. He doesn't equivocate in his feeling that driving an SUV is a deeply immoral act that places the driver's own ego above the health and safety of those around him, not to mention the health of the environment. Ironically, and though most supposedly safety-conscious owners don't realize it, SUVs even imperil those who drive them.
Road Rodeo
Ask a typical SUV driver why he drives such a formidable vehicle, and he'll invariably insist that it's for safety reasons – the kids, you know – not because he's too vain to get behind the wheel of a sissy Ford Windstar. Automakers themselves know otherwise – their own market research tells them so.
But Bradsher makes painfully clear that the belief in SUV safety is a delusion. For decades, automakers seeking to avoid tougher fuel economy standards have invoked the fiction that the bigger the car, the safer the passenger. As a result, most Americans take it on faith that the only way to be safe on the highway is to be driving a tank (or the next best thing, a Hummer). Bradsher shatters this myth and highlights the strange disconnect between the perception and the reality of SUVs.
The occupant death rate in SUVs is 6 percent higher than it is for cars – 8 percent higher in the largest SUVs. The main reason is that SUVs carry a high risk of rollover; 62 percent of SUV deaths in 2000 occurred in rollover accidents. SUVs don't handle well, so drivers can't respond quickly when the car hits a stretch of uneven pavement or "trips" by scraping a guardrail. Even a small bump in the road is enough to flip an SUV traveling at high speed. On top of that, SUV roofs are not reinforced to protect the occupants against rollover; nor does the government require them to be.
Because of their vehicles' size and four-wheel drive, SUV drivers tend to overestimate their own security, which prompts many to drive like maniacs, particularly in inclement weather. And SUV drivers – ever image-conscious and overconfident – seem to hate seat belts as much as they love talking on their cell phones while driving. Bradsher reports that four-fifths of those killed in roll-overs were not belted in, even though 75 percent of the general driving population now buckles up regularly.
While failing to protect their occupants, SUVs have also made the roads more dangerous for others. The "kill rate," as Bradsher calls it, for SUVs is simply jaw-dropping. For every one life saved by driving an SUV, five others will be taken. Government researchers have found that a behemoth like the four-ton Chevy Tahoe kills 122 people for every 1 million models on the road; by comparison, the Honda Accord only kills 21. Injuries in SUV-related accidents are likewise more severe.
Part of the reason for the high kill rate is that cars offer very little protection against an SUV hitting them from the side – not because of the weight, but because of the design. When a car is hit from the side by another car, the victim is 6.6 times as likely to die as the aggressor. But if the aggressor is an SUV, the car driver's relative chance of dying rises to 30 to 1, because the hood of an SUV is so high off the ground. Rather than hitting the reinforced doors of a car with its bumper, an SUV will slam into more vulnerable areas and strike a car driver in the head or chest, where injuries are more life-threatening.
But before you get an SUV just for defensive purposes, think again. Any safety gains that might accrue are cancelled out by the high risk of rollover deaths, which usually don't involve other cars.
Ironically, SUVs are particularly dangerous for children, whose safety is often the rationale for buying them in the first place. Because these beasts are so big and hard to see around (and often equipped with dark-tinted glass that's illegal in cars), SUV drivers have a troubling tendency to run over their own kids. Just recently, in October, a wealthy Long Island doctor made headlines after he ran over and killed his 2-year-old in the driveway with his BMW X5. He told police he thought he'd hit the curb.
To illustrate the kind of selfishness that marks some SUV drivers, Bradsher finds people who rave about how they've survived accidents with barely a scratch, yet neglected to mention that the people in the other car were all killed. (One such woman confesses rather chillingly to Bradsher that her first response after killing another driver was to go out and get an even bigger SUV.)
The tragedy of SUVs is that highway fatalities were actually in decline before SUVs came into vogue, even though Americans were driving farther. This is true largely for one simple reason: the seatbelt. Seatbelt usage rose from 14 percent in 1984 to 73 percent in 2001. But seatbelts aren't much help if you're sideswiped by an Escalade, a prospect that looms yet more ominously as SUVs enter the used-car market. Not surprisingly, last year, for the first time in a decade, the number of highway deaths actually rose.
No Roads Scholars Here
Bradsher blames government for failing to adequately regulate SUVs, but doesn't fully acknowledge the degree to which it has encouraged SUV production by becoming a major consumer of them. Law enforcement and public safety agencies in particular seem enamored of the menacing vehicles, a fact on proud display when officers finally apprehended the alleged snipers in the Washington, D.C., area and transported them to the federal courthouse in a parade of black Ford Explorers and Expeditions.
Judging from the number of official SUVs on the road today, law enforcement officials – those most likely to know firsthand the grisly effects of a rollover – are enthusiastic customers. Like the rest of America, police departments seem to believe that replacing safe, sturdy cars with SUVs is a good idea, though it's hard to imagine a more dangerous vehicle for an officer conducting a high-speed chase.
Government's taste for SUVs isn't limited to cops and firemen. There's hardly a city in America where the mayor's chauffeured Lincoln Town Car hasn't been replaced by an SUV. In Virginia, where state officials recently discovered that SUVs were wrecking their efforts to meet clean-air regulations, a few noted sheepishly that perhaps local governments should sell their own fleets, which had ballooned to 250 in Fairfax County alone. (A Fairfax County official told The Washington Post that public safety officials needed four-wheel drive and large cargo spaces to transport extra people and emergency equipment through snow or heavy rain – proof that even law enforcement officials misunderstand SUV safety records.)
As Bradsher details, because of their weight, shoddy brakes, and off-road tires, SUVs handle poorly in bad weather and have trouble stopping on slick roads. What's more, they're generally so poorly designed as not to be capable of carrying much cargo, despite the space. A contributing factor in the Ford Explorer-Firestone tire debacle was that drivers weren't told that their Explorers shouldn't carry any more weight than a Ford Taurus. The extra weight routinely piled in these big cars stressed the tires in a way that made them fall apart faster and contributed to the spate of rollover deaths.
I have a hunch that government officials' justification for buying SUVs is mostly a ruse for their real motivation, which is the same as any other SUV owner's: image. Officials can safely load up their fleets with leather-seated SUVs, whereas using taxpayer dollars to buy themselves, say, a fleet of BMW coupes would get them crucified (even though Detroit considers SUVs luxury vehicles and designs them accordingly). Police departments may claim that they need an SUV to accommodate SWAT teams or canine units, but there is no reason that Sparky the drug dog wouldn't be just as comfortable in the back of a nice safe Chevy Astrovan.
The same is true for nearly everyone who drives an SUV today. Of course, not every SUV owner is gripped by insecurity and a death wish – plenty of otherwise reasonable people seem to get seduced by power and size (see sidebar).
But if soccer moms and office-park dads really need to ferry a lot of people around, they could simply get a large car or a minivan, which Bradsher hails as a great innovation for its fuel efficiency, safety, and lower pollution. (And minivans don't have a disproportionately high kill rate for motorists or pedestrians when they get into accidents.) According to industry market research, minivan drivers also tend to be very nice people. Minivans are favored by senior citizens and others (male and female, equally) who volunteer for their churches and carpool with other people's kids. But that's the problem. SUV owners buy them precisely because they don't want the "soccer mom" stigma associated with minivans.
While Bradsher does a magnificent job of shattering the myths about SUVs, he has a difficult time proposing a solution. Sport utility vehicles have become like guns: Everyone knows they're dangerous, but you can't exactly force millions of Americans to give them up overnight. And because the SUV is single-handedly responsible for revitalizing the once-depressed American auto industry, the economy is now so dependent on their production that it would be nearly impossible to get them off the road.
Bradsher suggests regulating SUVs like cars rather than as light trucks, so that they would be forced to comply with fuel-efficiency standards and safety regulations. He also proposes that the insurance industry stop shifting the high costs of the SUV dangers onto car owners by raising premium prices for SUVs to reflect the amount of damage they cause. But these ideas, commendable though they are, fall short of a perfect answer.
Clearly, the best solution would be for Americans to realize the danger of SUVs and simply stop buying them. Social pressure can be a powerful determinant on car choices, as seen in Japan, the one country where SUVs have not caught on because of cultural checks that emphasize the good of the community over that of the individual. There are signs that perhaps public sentiment is beginning to shift against SUV drivers here, too, as activists have begun to leave nasty flyers on SUV windshields berating drivers for fouling the environment and other offenses.
But for a true reckoning to take place, image-obsessed Americans will need to fully understand the SUV's true dangers – including to themselves – before they will willingly abandon it to the junkyard. Spreading that message against the nation's biggest advertiser – the auto industry – will be tough work. Drivers can only hope that Bradsher's book will cut through the chatter.
Stephanie Mencimer is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly.
Black people: Are all unemployed criminals
Mexicans: Are all illegal immigrants who become gardners
Asians: Are all horrible drivers
Jews: Will screw you out of every last dime
Whites: Can't dance/jump/etc...
Why? Because stereotypes are wrong and do more to divide people then bring them together. If you want to be divisive in stereotyping one group of people (even if they AREN'T a race) you tacitly approve of the stereotyping of others....
YOu choose, You are driving a civic or an expedition and about to be hit by a van, who is going to be in better shape.
Oh you can't pull a boat with a subaru. Great car but some people actually use those things for something.
but nobody's really that bad
cause we're all goin to hell
in our styling S U Vs
the world it is to you and me
what no one else will ever see
cause they don't get their MTV
yeah! thats what they need
what used to be plentiful
was never really possible
but that's why they sent us all to school
to be good little tools
follow that latest fad
no matter how pathetic or sad
cause we're all goin to hell
in our styling S U Vs
shop all weekend long
work all the week strong
and there'll be nothing wrong
when we hit the bong
cause we're all goin to hell
and we're doing it all quite well
we keep sleeping through the church bell
baby, can't you tell?
so cry, cry, be sad
but nobody's really that bad
cause we're all goin to hell
in our styling S U Vs
we just want to do the right thing
so long as we can drive our big mustang
your nation doesn't mean a god damned thing
next to my damn big mustang
sure we agree it's time
but we're too busy making a dime
to solve the problems we create
so don't get mad
just cry, cry, be sad
but nobody's really that bad
cause we're all goin to hell
in our styling S U Vs
If you're trying to smear people, you could at least do it honestly.
chris
but unfortunately, for every SUV and pickup out on the streets that gets used for absolutely legitimate reasons, there's probably at least 10 that are used for bullshit reasons. like guys showing off. like insecure people needing to feel powerful. a person does not need a 350 horsepower triton V-8 to fucking drive around to the mall with. that's a ridiculous waste of power and technolgy. if you're hauling lawn mowers, or sheet rock, or boats even, or horse trailers, fine. but how many times do i see these huge fucking vehicles absolutely spotless, no dirt, no evidence of ever going off road even once, without even a trailer hitch, hauling one person around to the fucking grocery store. that's bullshit.
but then to top that all off, apperently YOU STILL GET A TAX BREAK for owning one EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT FOR YOUR LIVELIHOOD. THAT's EVEN MORE BULLSHIT.
hell, why not buy a sixteen wheeler to drive around town in while you're doing errands? put your cute little package of cereal and beer and frozen food that weighs like 20 pounds in the huge trailer. climb up into in the cab, and fire up the 800 horsepower diesel engine to haul your 20 fucking pounds with. i mean, gimme a f*ckin' break...
we got pickups with 30-35mpg.&can Haul!!
we got hybrids and 4wd that get 40mpg
we got turbodiesel trucks&cars with great torque&mileage, and hondas, small others that are SO economical, that it pauses one to wonder...How the fuk does the SUV fit in??
it don't...and ya those assholes that use em to "gofrgroceries" are Fucked and neurotic...but we are in a world of extremeexcess or nearzilch...try figurin
I have an accord and a f250 diesel. If i'm going to crash one of them I prefer to be in the one that weighs 4 tons. I do drive the truck to the store because I can, it gets the same milage as a sports car so who cares.
By the way if you try to tow a 5500 pound boat with a 4 banger truck its going to make noises like a cat colliding with a baby and then the transmission is going to fall off.
Sure, let's murder hundreds of thousands of people to accelerate faster by a few seconds!
But it was funny that they had that on right after the ads came out, which made him look even more idiotic.
I've got an lev but I chose to buy it. The socialist goverment did not mandate that I drive a type of car.
If I want a car with 400 horsepower I should, and can, be able to buy it..
Choices are good.
but if i'm NOT a building contractor, and i do not use my Z-71 to haul plywood sheathing and tool buckets around as part of my livelihood, WHY SHOULD I GET A TAX BREAK FOR BUYING ONE?
if i'm not willing to do service as a soldier, why should the military pay for my college education?
But being able to run a small business or farm and use vehicles for that business is legit. YOu still have to pay for it though. A tax break isn;t given at purchase.
You can buy a tracked vehicle, you just can't drive it on the roads.
We are not socialists no ones should have to drive what the central committe thinks they need. Choice is good.
I could go on finding easy targets for contempt and public ridicule but what is the point? If any of you were really concerned with safety you would realize that motorized vehicles are inherently dangerous and not make it so easy for everyone to drive. Nor to encourage people to drive at early ages. It is easier to get a drivers license than to establish lines of credit. And yet, which kills and maims?
Don't get me wrong..I live in an area where SUV's are very predominate, and I also see their behavior on the road. And while I may agree with some of the observations in the article I cannot see a reason to make it a centerpiece for any legitimate article for making roads safer.
"SUV drivers are assholes"..so what else is new. So are those self-centered bigots that feel it necessary to throw rocks at others they do not care for without addressing real issues directly affecting the root cause. We encourage and make it easy for everyone to drive when everyone is clearly not capable. Mass insanity is often ignored when it is considered popular thought.
Oh yeah, and they are by far the rudest vehicles on the road. Hells Angels have better manners.
today, at the Berkeley Bowl parking lot, which is a scene of lots of SUVs and traffic frustrations as people often get into screaming matches over the parking spots, I tried comparing the space attributes of these SUVs.
I came to the conclusion that lots of medium large hatchbacks (not a Geo but a regular hatchback), or station wagons (there are still a lot of station wagon models around), have equal or more space than SUVs that are in the size category smaller than the huge Yukons that weigh 6000 pounds.
Try this yourself. Take a look at a Volkswagen Golf hatchback, and the next boxy Volvo station wagon that you see. There are 3-4 feet of space in the luggage compartment where you can stuff all sorts of groceries and st bernards or whatever. Fold down the back seat and you can carry a livingroom full of ikea furniture.
Then look at an SUV such as a Rav4 or a jeep cherokee. These seem to only have space for 4 passengers - only two in the back - so the soccer team argument goes out the window. A mini van could probably take up to six, yet a regular car with a trunk often can take 5 comfortably. But the square feet of the trunk ground space it will be equal or even smaller than a volvo. There was one kind of new breed of Chevrolet SUV that has a front grille like a pickup truck, but had just 1-2 feet in the trunk area, and there was an isuzu like this too. I've seen a ford explorer flip over, and these isuzus, and Monteros are much more likely to roll over than that.
So what does the SUV give you - they just have more vertical height. The space inside is one foot taller, and has a square rather than sloping back end like a hatchback might have. And they're 6" to 1' higher off the ground. That extra 1.5-2" will probably give you 5mpg less when driving on the freeway. They also tend to have stronger engines, that you don't really need unless you feel the urge to go over the mountain passes at 75mph instead of 50, which really shouldn't be done anyway because you're going to be mixed up with slower semis and normal cars on the mountain road.
Just try looking at this some time - cars really can fit nearly as many groceries or lumber as subaru frontiers.
You didn't know that?
Thanx cp. We need more procurers for freedom demanding that people have freedom as long as it's their "brand" of freedom.
Smart move. You probably wouldn't have gotten the difference back in sale or trade in.
If you drive a car, any car, you are at least partially responsible for their deaths. You drive. They die. How many innocent deaths you are responsible for depends on how good your mileage is. SUVs get very poor mileage. Therefore, SUV drivers kill more innocent babies than do any other drivers.
Driving an SUV is *worse* than eating babies. If you eat babies, at least their flesh does not go to waste. But SUV drivers, monsters that they are, just kill babies, and leave their corpses to rot. This is nothing less than heinous. In all nature, nothing else compares in depravity. Even hyenas don’t waste the flesh of their victims. SUV drivers resemble nothing more than they do some fiends from hell, slathering ghouls with the precious blood of innocents dripping from their hideous fangs. Eichmann was a nicer guy. At least he believed in something, evil though it was. What do SUV drivers believe in? Nothing but their own selfish, gluttonous greed.
And “cartalk,” moral cripple that (s)he is, thinks these baby killers should be allowed continue with their Holocaust, simply because they “want” to. There is a name for people like that. They are called “enablers.”
For shame, “cartalk,” for shame, for shame, for shame. Please have the common decency to die, and soon. You’re giving our species a bad name.
Before the emission exemption, family people drove station wagons. I bet if you held SUVs to the same standards as cars, people would go back to station wagons with more cargo/passenger room, no roll-over, and a performance boost from better aerodynamics.
But give SUVs an unfair advantage and of course people will choose them.
I'm a free market advocate. I don't want to outlaw SUVs. I just want them held to the same standards as all other passenger vehicles, then let the buying public decide.
Besides, SUV's don't waste fuel. For those who use them, they actually save fuel by allowing fewer trips to move the same amount of cargo. By that logic (?) buses waste fuel. They get fewer mpg's than SUV's and quite often they run around the city much more than half empty, sometimes with only 2 or 3 people on board. Bus riders kill Iraqis. So do motorcycle riders. That is if your not so stupid as to not obtain power of attorney and have an actual lawyer get up off his lazy butt and get your bike outta impound. Idiot.
"still here", I know a few people with a Yukon and they like them a lot. Know some with the Expedition and they like them too. Haven't heard much comment from owners of Range Rovers or Land Cruisers.
I learned early in life that the greater a person's sense of guilt, the greater his or her need to cast blame on others.
By the way, the percentage of petroleum that goes to the production of electricity is WAY higher than for automobiles.
PS Try living where you work jerks.... A economy car driven 50 miles one way to work daily is hardly conservation.
He thinks we don't know who he is.
I’m whoever and whatever I want to be at any given time. And I’ll do what I damn well please.
Do you suggest that I take a horse and buggy to and from work daily? Get a grip and come back to reality. Neither you nor I are killing anyone with our vehicles and their use of gas.
I am sad to say that as a veteran I defended the rights of people like yourself. You are a fanatic with a loose grip on sanity. Since you are so adament about world issues/hunger/death/war/injustice - I would really like to know what YOU are doing to help?!
I and many other service members protect and defend you and your family. I and many others defend your right to speak your mind - What have you done for anyone lately?????
So what is the answer, should government regulate which vehicles we can drive now? What about the consumption of livestaock, isn't that destroying the environment also? How about plastic bottles for our soft drinks, most of which can not be recycled in most areas. Shouldn't the govenrment regulate that also, I mean after all it is bad for humans, and the Earth. Oh and don't forget fatty food's, tobacco, alchohol (oh that's right they already tried that in the ealry part of the 21st century).
Guys this is beginning to remind of something, wasn't there another government that decided that they knew what was best for the populace and decided to micro-manage every thing in each citizens life?
How much food they were allowed to consume, how many clothes they would recieve each year, there is one out there now that has been known to kill your second child if you decide to have it without the governments consent. Great for the environmnet, and the Earth. Of course while you are saving said environment and Earth, all technological innovation slows to a stand still, why should I, living in an environment like that strive to create any thing that might revolutionze humanities existence, so that I can get a extra ration of potatoes?
If you guys are so against SUV's there is at least one country that I guarentee will not allow you or any other citizen to have one, China. And guess what, there are flights (in big nasty airplanes that consume up to a gallon of fuel per engine per second!, maybe we should make those illegal also!) leaving every hour from many major cities in the US. Why don't you move to your socialist utopia for a couple of years and see if you really do want the government to assume the role of saviior for every minute thing in life. I guarentee that most of you who sanction the idea that the government should be responsible for everything would move back to our evil, self centered (which always gets me considering how much money US citizens give to charities world wide) capitalist society and yes, BUY AN SUV!!!!
.
1. That accidents involving SUV's almost always end up killing the driver of the other vehicle and SUV drivers disproportionately survive.
AND
2. SUV's are somehow more dangerous to their owners than a little tin-can of a car.
YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS, SO WHICH IS IT?
in accidents in which an SUV rolls over, in which a car in the same situation is not likely to roll over, the SUV driver is not safer.
these are assumptions, obviously. but i can certainly say that these are two different cases.
don't compare apples to oranges.
so, in all accidents involving an SUV, are fatalities the result of SUV's rolling over, or are they the results of accident's involving smaller cars? i don't have access to that kind of crash data. but it will tell you what kills more drivers of SUV's.
keep in mind that if SUV's are safe for their drivers, they may not be safe for others on the road. so how do you measure safety? merely the safety of the driver? or the safety of ALL on the road, INCLUDING the driver AND others.
It will be powered nuclear and instantly manufacture needle sized weapons with parts of the waste.
Cherry red with hot pink racing stripes, sunroof model.
It must have video game consoles and televisions installed.
In fact, the windshield needs to be a tv. I want to be looking at the road in real time with cameras. They will broadcast my course, and plot it. I won't even be driving. I'll be watching infomercials and reversed motion bass fishing.
The screen will also be capable of projecting video on the otherside, facing on-coming traffic. I'll program continuous loops of B-movie horror action sequences for others to see. Periodically, I'll do a drive-by on someone(nonlethal; soft rubber golfball sized rounds filled with chicken feces). This will be meant to provoke others into a suicidal confrontation. When they back down, I'll console them with a bag of radioactive toenail clippings.
Occasionally, I'll blast pornographic audio from my system. Random snippets, uhhs and ohhhs, brief vulgarity and spoken degradations. Most people won't know what to think.
Also, whatever exhaust manages to escape will be extra toxic in the environment, killing all carbon based lifeforms in .0000009 seconds. Not just the usual old 100,000 year halflife, this will be around until the sun consumes Mars.
Verily, it needs those nudie girl mudflaps.
Trailer hitch, manual transmission, and tinted windows(mirror tint).
But the most important, defining feature will be the custom license plate..... 2BADD4U
Yes, that'll be my little deuce coupe.
those old vw busses clunking down the road spewing smoke and oil , with a conspicuously placed ecology now bumper sticker next to the tail pipe. can in deed be connected to an owner who is a burned out relic from the sixties, who's only thought in the last ten years was to get the band back together!
and for the newer vw's the little convertibles and wanna be sports cars and the re-invented "BuG"
are owned by empty headed twits, barby look alikes
with the iq of a soap dish.
YES FOLKS WE ALL CAN BE PSYCHO-ANALYZED BY THE CARS WE SELECT.
Want it, have it!!
WANT IT, HAVE IT!!!!!
Gimme! Gimme!! GIMME!!!!!
Gimme big car!
Gimme bigger car!!
GIMME biggest car!!!!
Gimme lower gas prices! GIMME!!!
Gimme lower interest rates!!!!
Gimme credit card! GIMME MORE CREDIT!!!!!!!
Gimme pollution!!! GIMME CANCER!!!!!
Gimme feeling of security!!!!!!!
GIMME SELF ESTEEM!!!!!
GIMME MORE!!! MORE!!!! MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You program the lemming SUV drivers around in congested traffic. You must succesfully haul the national debt through different checkpoints. Map level increases in difficulty, you encounter more road construction, drunk drivers, and bottle throwing pedestrians. Apparently, there is also a level where you buy and sell different SUV's. The objective is to obtain the largest model without trading in. You must beware, sometimes the vehicle will just flip over on top of you while you're haggling with the dealer. I also heard there is a message board level.
You must stop whistle blowers and SUV critics from spreading their discontent. Seems like a technical problem or two was mentioned concerning this stage.
Something about the SUV sims becoming frustrated and incoherent, repeating, "we SUV want car, we SUV want freedom!" over and over.
Reason? Simple, our roads are among the worst in the developed world despite paying the highest fuel prices and the many other taxes we have thrust upon us, plus we now build humps, chicanes and other anti car measures into our roads. My Ford Probe suspension is almost wrecked at 41,000 miles.
My opinion on the suv issue is based on personal experience. That which I have seen with my own eyes.
FACT: I have been a firefighter for over 21 years.
FACT: I have been a rescue technician for 15 years. (ie; cutting people out of cars after a crash)
FACT: I have been a medic for 11 years
FACT: I have extricated DEAD bodies out of most vehicle body types driven on the american roadways. I have NEVER had to cut someone out of a Chevy Suburban, Ford Bronco ( full size ) or Dodge Ramcharger in 21 years. The only small car that I have never had to cut on is the Saturn.
I put no stock in the so called safety ratings of vehicles. I use my own eyes, ears, and vivid gory memories to form my own conclusions. My wife dirve a Chevy suburban, because of my life experiences, and hers ( her first accident scene as a volunteer medic was all it took). But now that I think about it most of the wives of the guys that I work with drive suv's. Coincidence ?????
Draw your own conclusions. Don't take my word for it, join a volunteer rescue squad or fire department, get your hand dirty..... maybe even bloody, then you will understand why I am so opinionated on this subject and all the safety ratings, rantings, or politically correct arguments will fall on my deaf ears.
For those of you who still believe you are safe in the half-sized tin cans that are so common, I hope you will not be a vivid gory memory for a member of the american fire rescue service.
As a footnote a football teammate of my teenage son was involved in a fatality accident last month. He was the wrong place when someone else crashed into him. He is alive today BECAUSE he was driving a full size pickup truck.
My opinion on the suv issue is based on personal experience. That which I have seen with my own eyes.
FACT: I have been a firefighter for over 21 years.
FACT: I have been a rescue technician for 15 years. (ie; cutting people out of cars after a crash)
FACT: I have been a medic for 11 years
FACT: I have extricated DEAD bodies out of most vehicle body types driven on the american roadways. I have NEVER had to cut someone out of a Chevy Suburban, Ford Bronco ( full size ) or Dodge Ramcharger in 21 years. The only small car that I have never had to cut on is the Saturn.
I put no stock in the so called safety ratings of vehicles. I use my own eyes, ears, and vivid gory memories to form my own conclusions. My wife dirve a Chevy suburban, because of my life experiences, and hers ( her first accident scene as a volunteer medic was all it took). But now that I think about it most of the wives of the guys that I work with drive suv's. Coincidence ?????
Draw your own conclusions. Don't take my word for it, join a volunteer rescue squad or fire department, get your hand dirty..... maybe even bloody, then you will understand why I am so opinionated on this subject and all the safety ratings, rantings, or politically correct arguments will fall on my deaf ears.
For those of you who still believe you are safe in the half-sized tin cans that are so common, I hope you will not be a vivid gory memory for a member of the american fire rescue service.
As a footnote a football teammate of my teenage son was involved in a fatality accident last month. He was the wrong place when someone else crashed into him. He is alive today BECAUSE he was driving a full size pickup truck.
I intensely despise the belief that inanimate objects are the source of all our ills, rather than the people who make the choice to be jerks, idiots, and low-lifes.
Wake up and smell what you are shoveling.
You're saying 'you get suvs for your own safety.'
Article's saying 'people buy suvs for selfish reasons, FOR their own safety, With NO regard to the 5 other lives that you will probably kill.' Just like that lady in the article who walked out of her suv after killing someone in an accident and saying 'i'm going to buy a bigger SUV'.
Conclusion=your selfish.(PERIOD)
FACT- I'm a road cyclist. I get honked at by SUV drivers at least once every ride. These drivers have no regard for a cyclist's life, no regard to STATE LAW that requires drivers to S-H-A-R-E with cyclists on the road.
Sorry but it happens and it's still happening.
FACT- you never have to cut dead people out of SUV's. DUH!! You just PULL DEAD people out of SUV's because their so big compared to the human body.
LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION OH SELFISH ONE-
IF YOU WERE DRIVING OR WALKING, WOULD YOU RATHER BE HIT BY A CAR OR AN SUV?
Point made. Thank you.
If you were walking or driving, which would you rather hit you? car or suv.
Point made. Thank you.
IF YOU WERE INVOLVED IN A MAJOR ACCIDENT (NOT YOUR FAULT AND YOUR FAMILY IS WITH YOU), WOULD YOU RATHER BE IN A LARGE SUV OR A SMALL ELECTRIC CAR?
Point made. Thank you.
You want to buy one for Junior for graduation too? Fine, get your consuming asses out into the 'burbs where you can enjoy all the strip malls. That's what you want and that's where you belong.
"how much land could a land rover rove if a land rover didn't have land?"
oh and by the way, did you know some SUVs are so effing fat they are ILLEGAL? see link below.
first off I carry a u-lock and i know how to use it, don't make me buy a gun. Actually, a key will do equally well on your nice paint job. JQ Public had better watch out when he gets his license renewed, cause this is the vehicle code. Comes down to "bicycles have use of full lane" Read it and weep (Um- if you can read I mean):
CVC 21202.
(a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except under any of the following situations:
(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle proceeding in the same direction.
(2) When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(3) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes) that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge, subject to the provisions of Section 21656. For purposes of this section, a "substandard width lane" is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.
(4) When approaching a place where a right turn is authorized.
(b) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway of a highway, which highway carries traffic in one direction only and has two or more marked traffic lanes, may ride as near the left-hand curb or edge of that roadway as practicable.
I saw a Ford Explorer flip over on city streets on Bay street in the Marina. Some guy from Walnut Creek didn't see a red light, but he had applied the brakes before he hit the shorter car - yet at this speed (however fast you can go on city streets minus the amount he braked before he hit it.. maybe 30mph?) was enough for it to not just roll over or fall on its side, but it did a complete roll then ended up on its side - so one and a half spin. 30mph doesn't feel that fast to drivers, yet it is highly dangerous.
If you walk around looking at trunk space of cars, the smaller SUVs definitely have no more space than a regular car with trunk, or hatchback, and medium sized ones have equal or less space than those Volvo station wagons. The SUV is just higher and has more head space and this is what makes it so unaerodynamic and top heavy. The station wagon probably gets 10mpg more.
The old Scouts are tough, reliable, and will go just about anywhere. They're available with 4wD, an automatic transmission, and a romovable top, (with the top off it's really cool. It looks like giant radio-flyer wagon cruising down the road) The downside is they're noisy, uncomfortable, jounce around a lot, look like shit, and get horrible gas milage. So fucking what? The scout was designed as farm vehicle, and once it's off the asphalt, it'll probably outperform a Hummer, One thing I'm sure of, you'd take a Scout places yoou wouldn't dare go with a Hummer for fear off fucking up your expensive paint job, (with a Scout all you'll need is a spray can of rustoleum and mabye a little bit of bondo).
Why show everyone that you're a rich-fuck, pseudo-macho poseur when you're out devestating the enviorment? When trashing the desert in a Scout, the local community might be fooled into thinking you've got at least a little class. And if you,are stupid enough to drive it in in the SF bay area you won't have to worry about Irate pedestrians and/or cyclists keying your paint job, , And no, I do not sell IH Scouts, nor am I a mechanic.
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