Sluggish Ugly Vehicles Suck

this post has been a LONG time coming...anyone who has heard my rants about SUVs can probably skip this.

I hate SUVs.
and not just the SUVs themselves, but the people who drive them. now, before I get into it more, yes, I drive a Prius, and yes, I care about the environment, but that's not the entire reason I hate SUVs and their drivers. There's a few reasons:

1. SUVs are generally much larger than necessary. I gave as an example the Ford Excursion. There were several versions, and the SMALLEST engine was a 5.4L V8. The curb weight is over 7000 lbs. Now, I understand that there are people who have large families (the Duggars have a friggin BUS, for goodness sake) and there are people who need to haul around a lot of stuff on a regular basis. My ire is not directed towards those people. If someone has a valid reason for needing a large vehicle, that's fine. What really gets me is the people who have a large SUV, are single, no kids, and work in an office all day. What possible reason do you have for needing a vehicle that large? If you were a carpenter, fine (my dad is, and he drives a truck. I understand that). If you run a daycare and routinely drive around with 10 kids, fine. But when I see a young woman (not that i'm trying to be sexist, but they are usually shorter), who can barely see over the steering wheel of this hulking behemoth, with no kids in sight, nobody else in the vehicle whatsoever, and the back row(s) of seats completely empty, as well as an empty "cargo" area in the back, I wonder, what possible use does the back 2/3rds of the vehicle get? Couldn't they get where they are going in a midsize passenger car, instead of something that is classified as a truck? I understand that people do have weekend/after work activities that may require a larger vehicle (boating, off-roading, etc). but if you have the money to afford a vehicle that large, and the gas it consumes, I would think you should be able to afford a small car for daily commuting too. That leads into my next point:

2. Gas. With gas prices on a rollercoaster that is only going to keep climbing, why drive a vehicle that gets 10mpg? If you can only afford one car, and you NEED a large truck regularly, then I can understand that. But, if you have a second car, which might be smaller and get better mileage, why not use that one AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, and save the gas guzzler to drive only when you need that extra seating/cargo capacity/towing capability? and if you don't need the extra stuff that a truck or SUV provides, why drive it and use more gas (read: spend more money) than you need to? With a typical small car, you can go twice (or 3 times) as far with the same amount of gas. If you are by yourself most of the time in your car (how often during rush hour do you see more than one person in a car?) why not get the most distance for your money?

2b. For the last few years, gas prices have been anywhere between $2-4/gallon, but have been holding fairly steady with a few exceptions (oil spills, refinery shutdowns, etc) But if you think about it, how much longer can that go on? eventually, oil WILL RUN OUT, and we won't have any more. For over 100 years, we have been pumping it out of the ground as fast as we can, and there's only so much that exists. Eventually, it will be (and has been) getting harder to find, harder to drill for, and lower quality than the stuff that came bubbling out of Jed Clampett's backyard. I've read several books on the subject, and all records indicate that Peak Oil (that is, the point where half of all available oil in the world has been used) will happen soon.

Look at the graphs on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil Notice how the ones about production in the United States look like a regular bell curve, with a midpoint high and then a down slope? That's the point when the US was unable to find enough oil to increase the amount that we were producing, and when the amount of oil imports drastically increased, even as consumption also increased. Rather than people saying, hey wait a minute, we have to buy more of this stuff from other countries, maybe we could try to conserve and not have to use so much? People buy second, third, fourth cars, and increasingly larger ones. Now look at the graph for the entire world. See how it generally follows the line of the US graph up to the "peak" point around now? What do you think is going to happen after the entire world starts going on that down slope? When it happened in the US, we could buy more from other countries (ie. Saudi Arabia) But when Saudi Arabia reaches their peak, where are we going to go when the world is maxed out on the amount of oil we can pump and we can't find any more? It's gonna get harder to pump out what's left, it'll get more expensive, and the world is gonna go to shit unless we can find alternatives. I could go on and on about this more (and I probably will in a future post) but we'll leave it at that for now.

3. What was I talking about again? oh yeah, I hate people who drive SUVs. Another thing that annoys me about them is the physical dimensions on the road. With most SUVs, if you are in a regular car behind them, all you can see ahead is...their ass. In typical highway driving, 55-65 mph, you need to see far enough ahead of you so that you can avoid a crash (or see a speed trap). With a large SUV, which generally have tinted windows in the back, you can't see ahead of them, above them, or through them. You have to either get out of the lane and hope there isn't a large SUV in the other lane too, or back off far enough that you can see around them (which causes traffic backups when people have to stay 50 car lengths behind the next person). If you don't back off or change lanes, the SUV is causing a potential road hazard which could cause a crash.

The width of them (or perceived width by the driver) also causes problems on small roads. On a narrow road, where there IS enough room for two cars to pass each other, with an inexperienced SUV driver, they think they are wider than they really are, which causes them to routinely cross the double yellow line down the MIDDLE of the road. This causes hazards for oncoming cars, who might have to swerve off the road to avoid being hit. This has almost happened to me before, and I've only been saved by the SUV driver seeing that there was an oncoming car, and moving back over onto their own side of the double yellow, but it only takes one time when they DON'T see the person, to have a horrific accident.

4. Environment. I can go on and on about this as well, and I agree that ALL gasoline powered vehicles are at fault, but SUVs do produce much more CO, CO2, and whatever other harmful gases, than smaller cars do. One of the problems here is that the largest SUVs are classified as "light trucks", which have less stringent regulations and less government oversight on gas mileage as well as emissions, than passenger cars do. Some SUVs (such as the Hummer H2) don't have to even have EPA mileage testing done, or displayed on the window sticker. I guess that is a fault of the government, who doesn't see the need to hold them to the same testing standards, the consumer, who doesn't demand the same information as other cars, and the dealers, who try to obfuscate the problems that SUVs have compared to smaller cars.

That's all for now, but other minor points- safety of SUV drivers isn't any better in a larger, heavier, higher-up vehicle; more dangerous for other drivers; harder to control; rollovers, etc.

I hate SUVs.