There seem to be more and more of them on our roads. Not only are they not echo friendly but lots of
people just drive them to the shops or local schools.
people just drive them to the shops or local schools.
Damn it, you're right! They devour enormous quantities of petrol and make emissions go through the roof. Moreover, they create jams in the crowded city center, and they occupy a lot of space on small suburban parking lots.There seem to be more and more of them on our roads. Not only are they not echo friendly but lots of
people just drive them to the shops or local schools.
They are very practical... especially in rural locations. I wish you could observe how Armenians and Abkhazians ride them in Caucasus mountains.True, but IMO they are still not as impractical as pickup trucks ....
True, but IMO they are still not as impractical as pickup trucks ....
Vot-vot...Moreover, many SUV drivers think that they own the roads and tailgate.
This is true about their thinking they own the road. I had an SUV for a while, but I swear, I wasn't like that. It came in handy when I moved, though, for hauling a lot of stuff. I now have a smaller car that gets much better mileage.I was comparing an SUV to a standard car and not a pick up.
I really don't see the point of an average person owning one. They consume so much petrol and space for no valid reason. Moreover, many SUV drivers think that they own the roads and tailgate.
This is true about their thinking they own the road. I had an SUV for a while, but I swear, I wasn't like that. It came in handy when I moved, though, for hauling a lot of stuff. I now have a smaller car that gets much better mileage.
Exactly. Their driving behavior is atrocious. They routinely cut people off without using directionals and are just aggressive in general. They are particularly awful in the winter when it snows. They drive as if there were no snow on the ground, forgetting that you still need distance to stop in time to avoid crashes. Four-wheel drive is great, but it doesn't mean you have a license to drive like a maniac in bad weather.I'm sure that you weren't a tailgater. Some people, mainly men feel so superior on the roads when they have huge cars.
We have had an SUV for years, but I am not going to defend it. We made a selfish choice.
The SUVs have got to go (and some of the trucks, other larger vehicles).
If you have a famiy of five then it's fair enough. Maybe if you live down a dirt road.
But most of them have 1 - 3 people and are on tarmac roads.
Although hopefully the next generation of families will have more 1 and 2-child families. There are too many of us.
We can't just make so many excuses all the time. We are going to destroy the entire amazon rainforest and melt all the ice in all the glaciers and arctic and antarctic if we don't change. Billions of people may die. Rich white people will be making tropical countries unlivable for a negligible benefit. Surely this is more important that the need to carry sports equipment around and still be able to swing your legs.
Just hold your rucksack or bag of shopping on your lap and think of all the thousand of dollars you've saved on petrol, maintenance and the cost of the vehicle. SUVs just eat money. It's not a vehicle that can be considered an investment in any way.
It's not just climate change and pollution. SUVs mean that if you have an accident, you impose a greater risk of injury and death on others at negligible benefit to yourself (because of SUVs rollover risk due to high centre of gravity countering any other benefit). SUVs take up more space on the road, meaning others can't see. THey take up more space in the parking lot making it harder to park next to them and making it hard to see when backing out. They are a selfish car in every way.
SUVs have single handledly destroyed all the extra efficiency gains of cars over the years. There has been no improvement after accounting for the increasing size of cars.
SUVs are a tragedy of the commons, because, when you can't see ahead of you on the road and everyone else's kids have one of these shiny monsters with all the space inside looming over you, you have to get one just to keep up. But if they had never been invented, everyone would be happy without. I blame the early adopters of SUVs for pushing the trend. A lot of the middle class people who have bought one in the last ten years have just done it so their kids don't have to be the only ones in the class/street without one.
It's pretty clear that (so far, this is changing) it's been harder to make electric cars in SUV sizes, so SUVs have held back electric cars for a while.
It's unfair to ask some people to be altruistic though while others get to drive them.
The only fair option is massive taxes on them (perhaps around $5,000-$10,000 in addition to existing taxes and I suggest to base this on CO2 emissions for all cars including the production of the vehicle rather than targeting SUV specifically). At the moment, SUV owners force society to pay for build bigger roads, wider parking spaces, medical care for people suffering for pollution, increased costs associated with worse accidents, not to mention the cost of sea walls, desalination of sea water, and all the other horrendous costs of dealing with climate change. At the moment, us SUV owners are externalising our costs and making everyone else pay for them.
A new tax of $5,000 or $10,000 per SUV would make things quite fair because it would be simply be making us SUV owners pay for the costs we oblige the rest of society to pay for us. Then, the number of SUVs would reduce while the money in taxes could go to good causes. That would make driving an SUV guilt-free for those that really need it as well.
Of course, depending on the composition of your electricity grid, is driving a brand new SUV electric car (with all the carbon emissions in its construction and other non-environmental negative factors I've outlined above some of which are valid even for electric SUVs) really a more ethical choice than driving around an old petrol car with good mpg carefully? - the answer is it probably depends on whether your electricity grid is more renewables or not and whether you drive it a lot.