Stupidest idea ever

[dmaze]

The Zipcar du jour was Eva, a Ford Escape living in the Alewife garage. This is a vehicle whose rear-view mirror doesn't allow you so much to see the cars behind you as to see over the cars behind you, a vehicle with the general aerodynamic properties of a Borg Cube. It was, I'll grant, a fairly comfortable ride, particularly through the questionable pavement of Harvard Square. But the negative-zero-emissions-vehicle aspect of it seems contrary to the Zipcar environmental bit. Given that these are expensive vehicles, that are expensive to operate, they're kind of dangerous (both in the "roll over" and the "greater risk of putting your bumper through someone else's windshield" senses), why are SUVs so popular?

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I assume they are popular because the modern world seems to contain approximately zero station wagons.

I mean, think about how many modern families need to use their cars. They need space for four humans, maybe more. They need space for gear for these humans -- if any of them play, say, hockey or lacrosse, that can be very large gear. A compact car, even a four-door, is probably not big enough for some of their frequent uses. Once upon a time they would have solved the problem with station wagons, but no one sells those any more, so they buy SUVs.

(Why are so many SUVs built? Aside from the fact that people buy them, it has to do with government fuel efficiency standards. Companies are required to have their fleet averages meet certain targets, but nothing is said about specific vehicles. Station wagons count as cars and, unsurprisingly, are likely to increase the emissions average of the car fleet. SUVs, however, are built on truck skeletons, and thus count as part of the truck fleet; their spectacularly poor fuel efficiency therefore does not impact the car fleet average.)

Oh, and, well, people just like having really big cars that let them tower over the other puny mortals on the road for the same reason they like huge showy houses and penis extensions, I guess.

[dmaze]

I suspect a lot of the reason Zipcar started having them is because people want to rent things with non-zero cargo capacity. But now that you mention it, yeah, the world mostly doesn't contain station wagons these days. The "light truck" bit does kind of irritate me since people are mostly buying them as personal passenger vehicles and not for actual hauling that you'd want a real truck for.

Hey!

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

They still sell lots of station wagons!

Loooooooooves my wagon I does.

Re: Hey!

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Huh, cool. I never see them, but it's nice to know they're still out there.

Re: Hey!

[eichin.livejournal.com]

The Magnum in particular seems popular around cambridge, or maybe it's just "what's that supposed to be" distinctive. And the smaller BMW X-series, and the Toureg/Cayenne, that sort of thing, are more "tall station wagons" (remember the AMC Eagle, from the late 80's?) than anything really Sport or Utility.

Another thought: tall vs. long gets you cargo volume without costing you the ability to *park*...

Re: Hey!

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

I would have called Toureg/Cayenne "offenses against god and nature" myself. I mean, the VW one is bad, but doing that and calling it a porsche... so wrong... now I feel dirty just thinking about it.

Re: Hey!

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

I think people just don't recognize station wagons without the fake wood. Of the cars that tend to park on my short block, there are four Subaru Outbacks, including the one I often drive, and I was still thinking that they didn't make station wagons these days. It's easy to think of modern ones as oversized hatchbacks if you grew up with the old wood-grain boxy station wagons as your prototype.

[ilai]

I think some people do not see SUVs as having a "greater risk of putting your bumper through someone else's windshield", but rather "a lower risk of someone else putting their bumper anywhere near you." At least that's how my parents see it--they might not think of it as being dangerous to others, but rather as being safer for you.

They also have the idea that since you're higher up, you can see more cars around you (not necessarily behind you).

[dmaze]

I did not find the overall visibility generally better: having to look for something "to my side and down" is more effort and less obvious than something just "to my side". The cute little sports car that cut me off on Mem. Drive near Harvard Square, for example, would have been totally invisible if it was behind me or right next to me as opposed to somewhat ahead and on my left.

Otherwise...mmm, tragedy of the commons.

[cmouse.livejournal.com]

They're useful for people who live out in the boonies with bad roads and bad weather.

[dmaze]

Cambridge does, admittedly, have bad roads and annoying weather...but it also has T stops, which make it not quite the boonies. :-)

[unclenomer.livejournal.com]

Having lived much of my life in the boonies on a dirt road and plenty of bad weather, I don't think SUVs really solve many problems out there. Swapping in studded tires in the winter and possibly 4 wheel drive makes a big difference, though. The studded tires aren't great for the gas mileage, but boy do they grip icy roads well.

Of course in the area where I lived, the dirt roads were generally well maintained so you didn't need lots of extra ground clearance. The extra cargo space would be useful for hauling the garbage to the dump (and hauling back whatever treasures were found there). :-)

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Having driven a couple of them I gotta say I am completely mystified by their popularity as well. In an SUV I feel less safe than in my wagon for several reasons:
1) I tower over everyone, feeling disconnected from the road and like I will fall over
2) Visibility, as you said, sucks. Wayyyyy better in my wagon.
3) My reaction time sucks - steering is geared so that I have to haul the wheel all the way around to make a turn (which, I assume, is designed so that I don't turn too quickly and flip the beastie).

That is until I actually took a Jeep Liberty up a dirt road. Suddenly it felt right at home! Crawling through ruts and over potholes at 20mph I didn't have to worry about flipping AND I didn't have to worry about scraping my undercarriage. There wasn't any traffic I had to see or worry about dodging around quickly. It was in its element. If someone had to drive on roads like that everyday I could totally understand wanting an SUV. But why in god's name would they ever want to take it on the road??