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They often lack confidence in their driving skills.
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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."
When I ask people who have absolutely no need for something as big as an SUV why they have an SUV, this is the #1 answer I get: "Because I'm worried about an accident." In fact, that's pretty much the only answer I get.
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They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church...
Not fair! This describes me and I loathe SUV's.
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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."
This is why I never let SUV's push their way through me in traffic. If you're tailgating me in your SUV, you'd better be prepared to hit me and let your behemoth machine result in your paying for my overpriced Acura replacment parts.
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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.
That's not entirely fair... I mean, there is the occasional SUV driver who actually NEEDS to drive something that big, to go offroad and to haul shit around. I mean, at least I assume those people exist.
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The occupant death rate in SUVs is 6 percent higher than it is for cars ÂE8 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.
Haha!
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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.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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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.
Thanks, israphael, I greatly enjoyed this article. It seemed very obviously written by someone with SUV-rage, and its logic got specious at times (and sometimes downright silly, as in the quote above), but I think it's a great read.
I've often hoped gas prices did spike up, just to punish those fools getting 10 mpg in their SUVs. 8)
