2) Put my SUV against a Saturn in a head-on, and tell me who wins. Statistics and "engineering" can't change physics. My family IS safer.
What about what happens when you crash head-on into another SUV? The odds of that type of collision grow with the overall growth of SUV popularity.
What about other types of accidents, like roll-overs, loss of vehicle control, etc.?
The attitude expressed here about statistics, engineering, and physics is overly simplistic. I'm afraid the real world really is more complicated that "big always wins".
But just for the hell of it, for sake of argument let's consider only two-car collisions, and I'll give you for now that bigger cars always come out better in these collisions. But let's also assume that it's relative size that makes the big car safer, and that two big cars crashing into each other don't come out any better than two small cars crashing together.
What you now have is a kind of arms race scenario. You buy a big car to make yourself safer, but this makes everyone around you relatively less safe, because now there are more big cars out there to crash into.
Other buyers wanting to gain a safety advantage can, of course, respond by buying bigger cars too. Many will. The more this happens, the smaller the safety margin becomes that you thought you were getting along with your big car. You can accept this, or you can buy an even bigger vehicle and try to regain your advantage.
The end result is an overall escalation of vehicle mass, vehicle price, and fuel consumption. There is no corresponding increase in overall safety, however, just a shift in safety favoring the more affluent over the less, at the expense of the less affluent -- their safety doesn't simply stay the same, it drops for them. Setting aside human safety, overall property damage costs rise because, on average, the average vehicle price of the vehicles involved in collisions will be much higher.
Free markets are good, but they don't always arrive at optimal solutions. I'd say in situations where free markets look like they're going to get caught in self-defeating feedback loops like this, it's a reasonable place for laws, regulations, and/or taxes to be imposed to create saner outcomes.
In (a little) defense of SUV drivers, the ability of the car is deceving. I was a passenger in a few SUV's and the car is (intentionally or unintentionally) designed to give a false impression of security. (Coming from a Porsche driver )
?Hight: The hight of the car makes it appear you are not traveling fast. Like an optical illusion, the lower the car is to the road, the faster it looks like you are driving. Why not have hydraulics that lower the car over 35MPH? Anything you would need clearance for you wouldn't hit at 35MPH.
?Speedometer: The speedometer should be adjusted to the safe driving condition of the car. If the speedometer only reads up to 100MPH, it looks like you are pushing the limits of the car when your are speeding at 85MPH. (Which in my opinion you are!) If you want to drive fast, buy a sports car. It is still dangerous, but many times safer than a SUV.
?Shocks/springs: Though necessarry, these are all designed to separate the driver mentally from the road. The shock/spring combination does a great job at suppressing most bumps in the road including LANE MARKERS! Anyone else find this a bad idea? SUV's are by far the most problematic when it comes to staying in their own lanes. In smaller cars you can feel the bumps and center your car, but it usually takes a honk to right a SUV.
?Power steering: This could be one of the easiest ways to fix some of the problems. Instead of an effortless power steering system, install a force-feedback device into the steering wheel. That way the driver can tell if they are pushing the car too much. At the very least, it will keep them more alert. Believe it or not, I can tell a great deal about the condition of my porsche through the vibration of the steering wheel. (Traction, road condition, weight balance, etc.)
Most importantly, I want you all to understand I am not against SUV's. They have very practical uses and I have friends who use them appropriately. My guff is with the ignorant drivers who do not know their cars.
Some SUV are safe : for example the X90 from Volvo is ranked 5 stars (the maximum) at the euro Ncap test.
The debate about safety is not SUV or not SUV, but safe car agaisnt bad ones. The euro Ncap tests are one of the best campaign for increasing safety in cars. This test is the reference in europe and most car-makers design their new cars in order to have good results with this test. I will never consider to buy a car that perform badly with these tests.
Personally i don't own a SUV because i think that they eat too much oil, and in europe it's a real issue.
I have a peugeot 607 HDI Pack GPS and i am very happy with it. Safe confortable silent ... and place in it.
Great! One more thing that we can hate people for!
Not at all. Hate the vehicle, love the driver.
Quote:
Good thing social pressure only works on the weak...
Like the keeping-up-with-the-Jones's social pressure that convinces so many people to buy SUVs in the first place? Like responding to SUV marketing like a puppet on a string?
Some SUV are safe : for example the X90 from Volvo is ranked 5 stars (the maximum) at the euro Ncap test.
We have similar ratings in the States, but they fail in one area - the ratings are relative to vehicle type. A 5star SUV is only a 5star against other *TRUCKS*... which have much lower safety standards than cars. If SUVs were classified as cars, they'd rate very low.
What about what happens when you crash head-on into another SUV? The odds of that type of collision grow with the overall growth of SUV popularity.
Head on collisions are not the most common type of accident.
The bigger problem with the "safer" SUV is it's high center of gravity. In an offset frontal crash with a normal sized car, your SUV is gonna override the car and flip. When you are t-boned by that Saturn, you're gonna flip. You flip, pretty much, you die.
My over six-foot parents managed to cart themselves and their three kids (who all hit over six feet in their teens) and their crap in a succession of Oldsmobuick sedans. It can be done.
I think a lot of people who get SUV's don't want to be seen as driving what their parents drove: big, chrome laden gas hogs with crappy handling, shi77y brakes, and... never mind.
We have similar ratings in the States, but they fail in one area - the ratings are relative to vehicle type. A 5star SUV is only a 5star against other *TRUCKS*... which have much lower safety standards than cars. If SUVs were classified as cars, they'd rate very low.
The euro Ncap rating is not relative to a vehicle type : that's why it's a good rating.
Euro Ncap is a crash test : frontal, lateral, against a post. It studie the level of injuries of the humans bodies in it, and give the risk of injuries of the head, chest, arm, legs ...
This is a very expansive test (they buy the cars tested), but very accurate.
The euro Ncap rating is not relative to a vehicle type : that's why it's a good rating.
Euro Ncap is a crash test : frontal, lateral, against a post. It studie the level of injuries of the humans bodies in it, and give the risk of injuries of the head, chest, arm, legs ...
This is a very expansive test (they buy the cars tested), but very accurate.
Cool. Glad to see some sanity there. I can't say I'm surprised that it's a *Volvo* that rates high. They did start with a car, after all, and not a truck...
Now, can anyone explain to me the rationale behind *chrome* brush guards?!?? *sigh* Talk about your yuppie bling...
Not to defend yuppies, but I see this much more as a suburban hair-gel thing.
For the record, my folks have SUVs, but then again they haul stuff every weekend and have a weekend home in the sticks. My mom, however, has hated her explorer since soon after she bought it. Reason #1: it's unsafe.
We have a volvo. I wanted a honda, but I rarely have to drive so it wasn't up to me.
About taking the kids around: you can certainly do it with a car, you just don't want to be seen in a station wagon. However, if you aren't actually hauling anything substatial with your Darango, you are a loser. Just like people with things like Sport Tracs. Those are useless, and believe me I've tried using them. The center of gravity is off and the bed is too small for anything.
Buy a car unless you have something real to haul often, like a vintage ferrari or a mound of dirt.
The optimal solution for removing large, slow moving, and mentally slow obstacles was discovered long ago: the cow catcher. All we need is to install cow catchers on the fronts and backs of our smaller faster cars and with the help of physics merely flip the larger, slower suvs out of the way...
I personally like my flat black 350 lb bumper replacement.
*Brush* *guards*. If you're not going offroad into brush, they're just bling bling, pure and simple. They're about as useful as oversized gold emblems on a Honda lowered with under-deck neon. :P
It's like chroming a Swiss Army knife - yeah, it looks cool, but the first time you *use* it, the very thing that you think looks cool is ruined - therefore you won't use it - therefore it's a useless addition that is put on just to say "Look! I *LOOK* like I could go off-road! Ain't I *COOL*!??" (The suburban equivalent of stick-on bullet holes on a low rider.)
In other words, it's right up there with the 4WD systems on 90% of SUVs that never get engaged... useless.
Pure decoration for the sake of decoration is one thing... but to pretend that it has actual utility is just sad egostroking.
What if they were renamed to shopping cart guards? They work wonders for those kids in the Supermarket parking lot that race the carts around and slam them into the front of cars. No scratches on my SUV!!
What, did someone discover the Earth's core is filled with oil?
Why is it that the closer we get to running out of oil the bigger the vehicles get? (edit: I realize that as Americans get morbidly obese more and more, that regular cars become less of a viable option...)
You SUV folks should just leave your arguments at "It's a free country I can buy one if I want".
That is the only valid (meaning technically true, if unethical) thing I've heard.
The issue shouldn't be whether you can buy one, but that they exist to be bought at all.
I don't care if you really, really love driving a Pinto. Tough. They were deadly, they were recalled.
I do indeed want SUVs banned (gradual of course now that they are so pervasive). You do not have a right to drive at all, let alone any particular vehicle. Driving is an earned privelege. Companies do not have a right to sell unsafe products. There needs to be a moratorium on making new ones.
This gorging at the oil trough is bad enough. Are Americans so bad at math math that they can't see that using half as much gas is the same as gas costing half as much? Do you like making Arabs richer?
Do you take delight in knowing the burden of dealing with oil depletion will occur in your child's lifetime and your own too, at a far faster rate than would normally occur, simply to be able to haul them to soccer or stock up on a case of 3 liter Pepsis in the latest trendiest SUV?
You should drown them in a tub now then, because I assure you, the world you are creating for them by wasting oil so obscenely today in fat-assed SUVs will be a world with even more wars over the last remaining oil resources. With these trends it wont be long.
I wash my hands of the whole situation. I spit on SUV owners for their shortsightedness and selfishness (to their unwitting children).
Don't tell me you love your family and want them to be safe. All you are doing is guaranteeing more Arab/OPEC threats, war, pollution, high prices, rollovers...
Enjoy the outcome.
Do me a favor. Look at your child and tell them "I don't give a shit about your future. What matters is how comfortable we are today."
That is if you can pry their eyes away from the Disney DVD in the back seat.
Comments
Originally posted by Jubelum
Good thing social pressure only works on the weak...
Obviously, since you most likely bought one, in the defiance of facts to the contrary, because 'everyone knows' that they're safer...
Sorry dude, you got taken.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Obviously, since you most likely bought one, in the defiance of facts to the contrary, because 'everyone knows' that they're safer...
Sorry dude, you got taken.
Yep. I'm a dupe. See you on the highway.
Originally posted by SDW2001
2) Put my SUV against a Saturn in a head-on, and tell me who wins. Statistics and "engineering" can't change physics. My family IS safer.
What about what happens when you crash head-on into another SUV? The odds of that type of collision grow with the overall growth of SUV popularity.
What about other types of accidents, like roll-overs, loss of vehicle control, etc.?
The attitude expressed here about statistics, engineering, and physics is overly simplistic. I'm afraid the real world really is more complicated that "big always wins".
But just for the hell of it, for sake of argument let's consider only two-car collisions, and I'll give you for now that bigger cars always come out better in these collisions. But let's also assume that it's relative size that makes the big car safer, and that two big cars crashing into each other don't come out any better than two small cars crashing together.
What you now have is a kind of arms race scenario. You buy a big car to make yourself safer, but this makes everyone around you relatively less safe, because now there are more big cars out there to crash into.
Other buyers wanting to gain a safety advantage can, of course, respond by buying bigger cars too. Many will. The more this happens, the smaller the safety margin becomes that you thought you were getting along with your big car. You can accept this, or you can buy an even bigger vehicle and try to regain your advantage.
The end result is an overall escalation of vehicle mass, vehicle price, and fuel consumption. There is no corresponding increase in overall safety, however, just a shift in safety favoring the more affluent over the less, at the expense of the less affluent -- their safety doesn't simply stay the same, it drops for them. Setting aside human safety, overall property damage costs rise because, on average, the average vehicle price of the vehicles involved in collisions will be much higher.
Free markets are good, but they don't always arrive at optimal solutions. I'd say in situations where free markets look like they're going to get caught in self-defeating feedback loops like this, it's a reasonable place for laws, regulations, and/or taxes to be imposed to create saner outcomes.
Far more clever than the one that preceeded it.
?Hight: The hight of the car makes it appear you are not traveling fast. Like an optical illusion, the lower the car is to the road, the faster it looks like you are driving. Why not have hydraulics that lower the car over 35MPH? Anything you would need clearance for you wouldn't hit at 35MPH.
?Speedometer: The speedometer should be adjusted to the safe driving condition of the car. If the speedometer only reads up to 100MPH, it looks like you are pushing the limits of the car when your are speeding at 85MPH. (Which in my opinion you are!) If you want to drive fast, buy a sports car. It is still dangerous, but many times safer than a SUV.
?Shocks/springs: Though necessarry, these are all designed to separate the driver mentally from the road. The shock/spring combination does a great job at suppressing most bumps in the road including LANE MARKERS! Anyone else find this a bad idea?
?Power steering: This could be one of the easiest ways to fix some of the problems. Instead of an effortless power steering system, install a force-feedback device into the steering wheel. That way the driver can tell if they are pushing the car too much. At the very least, it will keep them more alert. Believe it or not, I can tell a great deal about the condition of my porsche through the vibration of the steering wheel. (Traction, road condition, weight balance, etc.)
Most importantly, I want you all to understand I am not against SUV's. They have very practical uses and I have friends who use them appropriately. My guff is with the ignorant drivers who do not know their cars.
The debate about safety is not SUV or not SUV, but safe car agaisnt bad ones. The euro Ncap tests are one of the best campaign for increasing safety in cars. This test is the reference in europe and most car-makers design their new cars in order to have good results with this test. I will never consider to buy a car that perform badly with these tests.
Personally i don't own a SUV because i think that they eat too much oil, and in europe it's a real issue.
I have a peugeot 607 HDI Pack GPS and i am very happy with it. Safe confortable silent ... and place in it.
Originally posted by Jubelum
Great! One more thing that we can hate people for!
Not at all. Hate the vehicle, love the driver.
Good thing social pressure only works on the weak...
Like the keeping-up-with-the-Jones's social pressure that convinces so many people to buy SUVs in the first place? Like responding to SUV marketing like a puppet on a string?
Originally posted by Powerdoc
Some SUV are safe : for example the X90 from Volvo is ranked 5 stars (the maximum) at the euro Ncap test.
We have similar ratings in the States, but they fail in one area - the ratings are relative to vehicle type. A 5star SUV is only a 5star against other *TRUCKS*... which have much lower safety standards than cars. If SUVs were classified as cars, they'd rate very low.
Originally posted by shetline
What about what happens when you crash head-on into another SUV? The odds of that type of collision grow with the overall growth of SUV popularity.
Head on collisions are not the most common type of accident.
The bigger problem with the "safer" SUV is it's high center of gravity. In an offset frontal crash with a normal sized car, your SUV is gonna override the car and flip. When you are t-boned by that Saturn, you're gonna flip. You flip, pretty much, you die.
My over six-foot parents managed to cart themselves and their three kids (who all hit over six feet in their teens) and their crap in a succession of Oldsmobuick sedans. It can be done.
I think a lot of people who get SUV's don't want to be seen as driving what their parents drove: big, chrome laden gas hogs with crappy handling, shi77y brakes, and... never mind.
Originally posted by Kickaha
We have similar ratings in the States, but they fail in one area - the ratings are relative to vehicle type. A 5star SUV is only a 5star against other *TRUCKS*... which have much lower safety standards than cars. If SUVs were classified as cars, they'd rate very low.
The euro Ncap rating is not relative to a vehicle type : that's why it's a good rating.
Euro Ncap is a crash test : frontal, lateral, against a post. It studie the level of injuries of the humans bodies in it, and give the risk of injuries of the head, chest, arm, legs ...
This is a very expansive test (they buy the cars tested), but very accurate.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
The euro Ncap rating is not relative to a vehicle type : that's why it's a good rating.
Euro Ncap is a crash test : frontal, lateral, against a post. It studie the level of injuries of the humans bodies in it, and give the risk of injuries of the head, chest, arm, legs ...
This is a very expansive test (they buy the cars tested), but very accurate.
Cool. Glad to see some sanity there. I can't say I'm surprised that it's a *Volvo* that rates high.
Now, can anyone explain to me the rationale behind *chrome* brush guards?!?? *sigh* Talk about your yuppie bling...
Originally posted by Kickaha
Now, can anyone explain to me the rationale behind *chrome* brush guards?!?? *sigh* Talk about your yuppie bling...
Corrosion protection.
No paint to scratch.
Some think it looks good.
I personally like my flat black 350 lb bumper replacement.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Talk about your yuppie bling...
Not to defend yuppies, but I see this much more as a suburban hair-gel thing.
For the record, my folks have SUVs, but then again they haul stuff every weekend and have a weekend home in the sticks. My mom, however, has hated her explorer since soon after she bought it. Reason #1: it's unsafe.
We have a volvo. I wanted a honda, but I rarely have to drive so it wasn't up to me.
About taking the kids around: you can certainly do it with a car, you just don't want to be seen in a station wagon. However, if you aren't actually hauling anything substatial with your Darango, you are a loser. Just like people with things like Sport Tracs. Those are useless, and believe me I've tried using them. The center of gravity is off and the bed is too small for anything.
Buy a car unless you have something real to haul often, like a vintage ferrari or a mound of dirt.
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
Why do some like SUVs so much? It's the same reason americans prefer flip phones
Yep, we like to put the SUV's in our pockets and not have to worry about the number lock being on!
Originally posted by Jubelum
Corrosion protection.
No paint to scratch.
Some think it looks good.
I personally like my flat black 350 lb bumper replacement.
*Brush* *guards*. If you're not going offroad into brush, they're just bling bling, pure and simple. They're about as useful as oversized gold emblems on a Honda lowered with under-deck neon. :P
It's like chroming a Swiss Army knife - yeah, it looks cool, but the first time you *use* it, the very thing that you think looks cool is ruined - therefore you won't use it - therefore it's a useless addition that is put on just to say "Look! I *LOOK* like I could go off-road! Ain't I *COOL*!??" (The suburban equivalent of stick-on bullet holes on a low rider.)
In other words, it's right up there with the 4WD systems on 90% of SUVs that never get engaged... useless.
Pure decoration for the sake of decoration is one thing... but to pretend that it has actual utility is just sad egostroking.
I think plastic sidepanels work better.
What, did someone discover the Earth's core is filled with oil?
Why is it that the closer we get to running out of oil the bigger the vehicles get? (edit: I realize that as Americans get morbidly obese more and more, that regular cars become less of a viable option...)
You SUV folks should just leave your arguments at "It's a free country I can buy one if I want".
That is the only valid (meaning technically true, if unethical) thing I've heard.
The issue shouldn't be whether you can buy one, but that they exist to be bought at all.
I don't care if you really, really love driving a Pinto. Tough. They were deadly, they were recalled.
I do indeed want SUVs banned (gradual of course now that they are so pervasive). You do not have a right to drive at all, let alone any particular vehicle. Driving is an earned privelege. Companies do not have a right to sell unsafe products. There needs to be a moratorium on making new ones.
This gorging at the oil trough is bad enough. Are Americans so bad at math math that they can't see that using half as much gas is the same as gas costing half as much? Do you like making Arabs richer?
Do you take delight in knowing the burden of dealing with oil depletion will occur in your child's lifetime and your own too, at a far faster rate than would normally occur, simply to be able to haul them to soccer or stock up on a case of 3 liter Pepsis in the latest trendiest SUV?
You should drown them in a tub now then, because I assure you, the world you are creating for them by wasting oil so obscenely today in fat-assed SUVs will be a world with even more wars over the last remaining oil resources. With these trends it wont be long.
I wash my hands of the whole situation. I spit on SUV owners for their shortsightedness and selfishness (to their unwitting children).
Don't tell me you love your family and want them to be safe. All you are doing is guaranteeing more Arab/OPEC threats, war, pollution, high prices, rollovers...
Enjoy the outcome.
Do me a favor. Look at your child and tell them "I don't give a shit about your future. What matters is how comfortable we are today."
That is if you can pry their eyes away from the Disney DVD in the back seat.