When I see a great big SUV I wonder what the guy/gal inside wants me to think of them. That they are rich? They "Off-road" in their spare time? That they don't give a damn about the future and that it is all about them?
Yeah, me too. I just cannot see how these people can justify themselves.
These vehicles are too big, crowd the roads and wreck the tarmac.
They are not safer.
They are not more reliable.
They are not status symbols. (They stopped becoming that when everyone got one)
They are not efficient.
They are not user friendly.
So you sit high up so you can see the road. Well if everybody didn't have one you wouldn't need to be high up.
Smarten up folks. Cheap gas will only be here for the current recession and then we will be back to $1.30 a litre again.
I'm not saying you should go buy a Hinda Fit or Toyota Yaris (although that would be nice if you did) I am saying, when you buy your next vehicle buy a more efficient one. Going from 12 MPG to 18MPG is far better than me going from a 32 MPG to a 35 MPG. Big savings, huge difference in gas. And then when you trade up, make the jump to 25 MPG.
And slow down, you can save up to 30% buy driving the speed limit.
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Well, I have an Honda CRV. Not quite a truck. Not quite a car.
Sure, I could save money, and get a Smart Car. Or a Yaris.
But I like my SUV. It's got 4WD. I live in the bush..I'm always using it to go on remote back-roads that you can't get to by normal car. So I can find an isolated lake to plop in my canoe in and fish, and get in touch with nature.
Does this needlessly burn a lot of gas? Probably...YEAH. But this is what I like to do..it makes me HAPPY. And I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can afford it.
(But hey...I don't have any kids who need to be fed and consume resources....so I suppose I should get some carbon credits for THAT..!)
- Friar
I think I've had this discussion with Friar before and other SUV drivers. They just laugh, call you a tree hugger and kick carbon beach granules in your eyes. But you go Eyeteaguy. All we can do is to keep nagging in a self-righteous manner and then laugh our asses off when the fuel runs out.
I heard in Germany they are burning these big cars. Not a great fan of violence. Still, don't they have a point?
Hi,
New here.:) I don't like to make too many generalizations, but that said, people who drive SUV's are vain a-holes who don't care about the environment.Arg!
@DP
You are exempt. Your vehicle is barely classed as an SUV. And you use it for what it was intended, to go off road and carry big stuff.
You are excused.
@XUP
Yup.
@lost
I think burning them is even worse! You can recycle 90% of a car. That is a good place to start.
@Hannah
They don't care because the environment doesn't affect them. Somehow we need to make it tangable for them.
However I think it may be too late. We have removed 97% of the biomass from the oceans and the latest studies show that the co2 tipping point was between 1950 and 1970. Woops.
Eyeteaguy
Francis,
I just listened to a piece on the radio about the possible death of the Hummer brand, where the Hummer head honcho tried to explain how the folks who've bought it for 20 years aren't status-seeking egotists with money to burn, but folks who "need" these vehicles for all the hard work they do on their ranches & such.
Um, I live on the East Coast, in a megalopolis that stretches for hundreds of miles of cities and shopping centers, and the nearest ranch is 1500 miles from here. Yet for 20 years there have been Hummers all over our narrow, cobblestone streets in Center City Philly and Boston, in traffic jams in New Jersey and New York and D.C.... Puh-leeeze.
That said... I own a minivan which I'm going to run into the ground before I replace it, and when I do, it'll be with a hybrid minivan.
Because I have a very bad back, and being high up in my vehicle helps, because I haul stuff in it regularly, and because I fear being mistaken for someone sexy or cool if I weren't in the ultimate blah-machine. Lemme tell you, dudes stay away in droves from this thing, and that's written in the benefits section on Dodge's website for sure. Mmhm.
So I'm agreeing 100% and still disagreeing a bit, I guess. Ain't I a stinker?
Regards,
Kelly
I like smaller vehicles myself - especially turbocharged vehicles. I intentionally traded my sedan for a hatchback with a turbocharger, and a manual gearbox.
Now I get about 50 percent better fuel economy than I used to, the car holds a lot more if needed and if I have to haul ass, it is PDQ. But it is just as safe.
Like a few have said, Friar's "SUV" doesn't count as it is basically a tall station wagon with AWD, and he actually does take it off road. So Friar's off the hook...
@Kelly,
Have you ever considered buying an aftermarket car seat, like a Recaro? It wouldn't be that expensive and could make a heck of a difference.
Plus, if you put a Recaro seat in your minivan, that would give you some "street cred" with all the dudes. I know this, because I'm a dude.
Back to all...
Honestly though, I think the auto manufacturers were moving (slowly) away from the behemoths even before they started to tank after Christmas.
I expect that people who want the "rugged look" in a few short years will drive these, perhaps a hybrid electric version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Ute
Shades of the El Camino, the good old pickup car.
Make it smaller, put a 4-banger in it and it would actually be quite practical.
Honda, are you listening? Put a small box on the back of a Fit and I bet it would sell!
I bet it will sell once gas is $5.00 a litre, never mind a buck thirty.
You know, we can claim that people who drive SUV's are insensitive environmentally unfriendly a-holes, but before we judge them, we need to take a look at our own life-styles.
My sister-in-law rigtheously lectured me once about special front-end loader washers, that save hot water. Right after she and her husband had just come back from trip around the world.
Or my Brother in Law. Buys a scooter to save on gas and brags about it. But EVERY vacation he takes involves getting on a plane and flying somewhere exotic. Or he'll fly to Vegas just to enter a marathon race.
Or what about people who take those decadent vacations on those expensive cruise ships? Or fly to the Caribbean to sit in the sun for a week because they don't like winter?
(Umm...How much jet fuel does THAT burn?)
- Friar
From HowStuffWorks:
"A plane like a Boeing 747 uses approximately 1 gallon of fuel (about 4 liters) every second. Over the course of a 10-hour flight, it might burn 36,000 gallons (150,000 liters). According to Boeing's Web site, the 747 burns approximately 5 gallons of fuel per mile (12 liters per kilometer).
This sounds like a tremendously poor miles-per-gallon rating! But consider that a 747 can carry as many as 568 people. Let's call it 500 people to take into account the fact that not all seats on most flights are occupied. A 747 is transporting 500 people 1 mile using 5 gallons of fuel. That means the plane is burning 0.01 gallons per person per mile. In other words, the plane is getting 100 miles per gallon per person! The typical car gets about 25 miles per gallon, so the 747 is much better than a car carrying one person, and compares favorably even if there are four people in the car. Not bad when you consider that the 747 is flying at 550 miles per hour (900 km/h)!"
Heh heh...
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