Okay, I give up, why do people who otherwise have a full contingent of brain cells turn into mindless idiots when behind the wheel of an SUV? For that matter why do they buy the hateful things in the first place?
This rant is a direct result of getting chopped not once, not twice, but thrice on the 4 mile trip to work this morning by three separate SUV's all loaded up with Mom and Kid. No, that's not a typo, these huge off-roaders really were carrying two people on the school run. One decided it wanted to be a lane further over, which was a shame as that was where I was driving at the time. The second decided to barge onto a roundabout but it was the third that had me cursing up a storm. Seems that the woman driving this vehicle doesn't want her kid walking more than two yards to the school gates so, and I swear I'm not making this up, pulls to a halt in the inside lane of a three lane road, puts the hazard lights on and gives the kid a long hard talk on the meaning of life, the universe and everything before letting him off right outside the school. Suffice to say I was uttering prayers of thanks to BMW for fitting brakes the size of dustbin lids to the 5 series otherwise the vehicle might have been seriously abbreviated as a result of this somewhat unorthodox parking maneuver.
Now granted, this could just have been a bad day, but sadly this is a regular occurrence around here and I just don't get it. I can't figure out what it is about SUV's that make people think they're somehow invincible on the road, or for that matter why people with so much money choose to buy one. I can understand people in a Defender having a certain "sod you" frame of mind as I've seen what happens when they have an argument with another vehicle. Doesn't matter what the other vehicle is it gets turned into a very small cube and the Landie MAYBE has a little scratch on the paintwork at point of impact. But we're not talking about a Defender and its ilk, we're talking about SUV's. These things are, by and large, not a patch on a proper car dynamically, they stop slower (and are therefore more likely to hit something), handle worse, accelerate slower and their gas mileage is bloody awful. I saw a Hummer H2 the other day sitting in traffic and I'd swear you could actually feel it warping the gravitational pull of the planet. This however was nothing compared to the sight of the driver starting and stopping the engine every time traffic lurched forward a few more yards in a desperate attempt to make it to the next petrol station before it gulped the last few gallons from the tank. At least companies like BMW and Volkswagen acknowledged the fact that most people want a SUV for the looks and built one that actually matched the equivalent car for handling and driveability and in fact the X5 is one of the very few SUV's I'd even remotely consider buying. Of course it goes without saying that taking such a vehicle off road is not a good idea but that's hardly a problem considering the target consumer.
And there, really, is the point. If you need to go off road, you don't buy an SUV, you buy a proper, honest to god four by four. More specifically, if you need to cross serious terrain in palatial luxury you buy a Range Rover and if you need to get places even the mountain goats won't tread you buy the best four by four in the world.... a Land Rover Defender. Better yet, buy two of them and get a mate to drive the other one as there hasn't yet been terrain discovered that can stop two Defenders working together. But the sort of people that are buying SUV's these days don't want a proper off-roader, they want, well, that's the question isn't it, what exactly DO they want in a car? If it's carrying capacity they're after a people carrier will give more seating capacity and an estate will give more boot space. If it's image they've failed already as the image of a SUV these days to other road users is one silly mustache away from becoming the Hitler of the motorways. And if the word "safety" is brought up, well most SUV's, especially those that are basically trucks in drag, are simply not designed for tarmac use. As a result they take longer to stop, are worse at making evasive maneuvers and in truth have worse crash protection for the occupants than most 'regular' vehicles. In fact SUV's are no safer for the occupants than conventional cars (with the average SUV ranking alongside the safest subcompacts) while presenting far greater risk to other road users. (http://www.aceee.org/pubs/t021full.pdf) Oh, and the majority are also far more environmentally-unfriendly as well.
Put this another way, I consider myself a decent driver who, and this is the important bit, is actually interested in what's going on around him while on the roads. I've learnt to take special notice of what cars I'm sharing the road with and what they're likely to do A couple of examples for you:
It's a Volvo T5 in the inside lane of a motorway doing 50. It's the local constabulary in an unmarked vehicle so ripping past at warp six isn't the brightest idea in the world.
It's a BMW 3 Series with a young man in suit and sunglasses behind the wheel. It's a rep and will be undertaking you half a second from the time you first see it regardless of what engine is under the bonnet.
It's a Mercedes S Class with a middle aged gentleman behind the wheel, it will sit behind you flashing its lights until you move your lesser car out of the way.
It's a Ferrari with a young, attractive lady driving, it WILL break the sound barrier away from the traffic lights.
It's an Aston Martin Vantage, get out of the way because it won't even notice you're there as it comes by, or through as the case may be, as a big Aston can headbutt a tower block and win.
It's a white Ford Transit van coming the other way down a narrow street. If you value your wing mirrors park up on the kerb or, if possible, in someone's garden until its gone away.
Yet show me an SUV and I will have no clue, not the first inkling of an idea about what it will do next. You can get a few hints if you can see those inside but these days all the windows are tinted so the only way to find out is to get in front of it. And that requires overtaking. And THAT is very, very dangerous indeed as you have no idea if it's being driven by a school mom who's trying to contend with four screaming brats and may suddenly realise that's her turning coming up and she needs to be over there NOW. This normally ends up with a kind of psychic conference between all those people wondering about overtaking which sees the fastest car in the pack shuffle up to the front. After completing the white knuckled overtaking maneuver the driver of this car will then break out the semaphore flags and signal to those still waiting behind what they're dealing with.
Still, could be worse I suppose, at least living in the UK we don't have to contend with that scourge of the American Highway - the Pick-Up Truck.
Now this one REALLY puzzles me. In Europe we dream of owning cars that accelerate quickly enough to create their own weather, that handle like their suspension and chassis were crafted by God himself (rumors that God works at Lotus are entirely unsubstantiated) and that look like moving sculptures. Cars like the Aston Martin DB9 for example:
Yet, from conversations I've had with folks living stateside, their dreams are substantially different and are instead filled with vehicles you need a step ladder to get into, that come with your very own in-lane refueling truck (complete with driver) and that can carry three people. Or, to put it another way, a vehicle that makes you look like a successful plumber.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start spouting nonsense about how the car manufacturers should insist on seeing an "intent to go off-road" document before selling one of these vehicles. We should all be free to buy whatever the heck we like it's just.... WHY buy things like this? If you're going to take them off-road then fine, I can understand that but if all they're going to do is sit on the tarmac and put huge profit margins into the bank accounts of car manufacturers while slurping petrol and throwing out up to 50% more pollution than a car, why buy one? Put it this way, the top of the range Ford F350 pick-up truck goes for about $41,000. For the same money you can buy a brand new BMW 525. Or, if you don't mind going second hand, a three year old M5. So... a supercar in sheep's clothing with a superb level of refinement and ride comfort, razor-sharp handling, elegant looks, peerless build quality and an engine crafted from the raw essence of speed itself or.... a Ford Truck. Hmm, tough choice.
This rant is a direct result of getting chopped not once, not twice, but thrice on the 4 mile trip to work this morning by three separate SUV's all loaded up with Mom and Kid. No, that's not a typo, these huge off-roaders really were carrying two people on the school run. One decided it wanted to be a lane further over, which was a shame as that was where I was driving at the time. The second decided to barge onto a roundabout but it was the third that had me cursing up a storm. Seems that the woman driving this vehicle doesn't want her kid walking more than two yards to the school gates so, and I swear I'm not making this up, pulls to a halt in the inside lane of a three lane road, puts the hazard lights on and gives the kid a long hard talk on the meaning of life, the universe and everything before letting him off right outside the school. Suffice to say I was uttering prayers of thanks to BMW for fitting brakes the size of dustbin lids to the 5 series otherwise the vehicle might have been seriously abbreviated as a result of this somewhat unorthodox parking maneuver.
Now granted, this could just have been a bad day, but sadly this is a regular occurrence around here and I just don't get it. I can't figure out what it is about SUV's that make people think they're somehow invincible on the road, or for that matter why people with so much money choose to buy one. I can understand people in a Defender having a certain "sod you" frame of mind as I've seen what happens when they have an argument with another vehicle. Doesn't matter what the other vehicle is it gets turned into a very small cube and the Landie MAYBE has a little scratch on the paintwork at point of impact. But we're not talking about a Defender and its ilk, we're talking about SUV's. These things are, by and large, not a patch on a proper car dynamically, they stop slower (and are therefore more likely to hit something), handle worse, accelerate slower and their gas mileage is bloody awful. I saw a Hummer H2 the other day sitting in traffic and I'd swear you could actually feel it warping the gravitational pull of the planet. This however was nothing compared to the sight of the driver starting and stopping the engine every time traffic lurched forward a few more yards in a desperate attempt to make it to the next petrol station before it gulped the last few gallons from the tank. At least companies like BMW and Volkswagen acknowledged the fact that most people want a SUV for the looks and built one that actually matched the equivalent car for handling and driveability and in fact the X5 is one of the very few SUV's I'd even remotely consider buying. Of course it goes without saying that taking such a vehicle off road is not a good idea but that's hardly a problem considering the target consumer.
And there, really, is the point. If you need to go off road, you don't buy an SUV, you buy a proper, honest to god four by four. More specifically, if you need to cross serious terrain in palatial luxury you buy a Range Rover and if you need to get places even the mountain goats won't tread you buy the best four by four in the world.... a Land Rover Defender. Better yet, buy two of them and get a mate to drive the other one as there hasn't yet been terrain discovered that can stop two Defenders working together. But the sort of people that are buying SUV's these days don't want a proper off-roader, they want, well, that's the question isn't it, what exactly DO they want in a car? If it's carrying capacity they're after a people carrier will give more seating capacity and an estate will give more boot space. If it's image they've failed already as the image of a SUV these days to other road users is one silly mustache away from becoming the Hitler of the motorways. And if the word "safety" is brought up, well most SUV's, especially those that are basically trucks in drag, are simply not designed for tarmac use. As a result they take longer to stop, are worse at making evasive maneuvers and in truth have worse crash protection for the occupants than most 'regular' vehicles. In fact SUV's are no safer for the occupants than conventional cars (with the average SUV ranking alongside the safest subcompacts) while presenting far greater risk to other road users. (http://www.aceee.org/pubs/t021full.pdf) Oh, and the majority are also far more environmentally-unfriendly as well.
Put this another way, I consider myself a decent driver who, and this is the important bit, is actually interested in what's going on around him while on the roads. I've learnt to take special notice of what cars I'm sharing the road with and what they're likely to do A couple of examples for you:
It's a Volvo T5 in the inside lane of a motorway doing 50. It's the local constabulary in an unmarked vehicle so ripping past at warp six isn't the brightest idea in the world.
It's a BMW 3 Series with a young man in suit and sunglasses behind the wheel. It's a rep and will be undertaking you half a second from the time you first see it regardless of what engine is under the bonnet.
It's a Mercedes S Class with a middle aged gentleman behind the wheel, it will sit behind you flashing its lights until you move your lesser car out of the way.
It's a Ferrari with a young, attractive lady driving, it WILL break the sound barrier away from the traffic lights.
It's an Aston Martin Vantage, get out of the way because it won't even notice you're there as it comes by, or through as the case may be, as a big Aston can headbutt a tower block and win.
It's a white Ford Transit van coming the other way down a narrow street. If you value your wing mirrors park up on the kerb or, if possible, in someone's garden until its gone away.
Yet show me an SUV and I will have no clue, not the first inkling of an idea about what it will do next. You can get a few hints if you can see those inside but these days all the windows are tinted so the only way to find out is to get in front of it. And that requires overtaking. And THAT is very, very dangerous indeed as you have no idea if it's being driven by a school mom who's trying to contend with four screaming brats and may suddenly realise that's her turning coming up and she needs to be over there NOW. This normally ends up with a kind of psychic conference between all those people wondering about overtaking which sees the fastest car in the pack shuffle up to the front. After completing the white knuckled overtaking maneuver the driver of this car will then break out the semaphore flags and signal to those still waiting behind what they're dealing with.
Still, could be worse I suppose, at least living in the UK we don't have to contend with that scourge of the American Highway - the Pick-Up Truck.
Now this one REALLY puzzles me. In Europe we dream of owning cars that accelerate quickly enough to create their own weather, that handle like their suspension and chassis were crafted by God himself (rumors that God works at Lotus are entirely unsubstantiated) and that look like moving sculptures. Cars like the Aston Martin DB9 for example:
Yet, from conversations I've had with folks living stateside, their dreams are substantially different and are instead filled with vehicles you need a step ladder to get into, that come with your very own in-lane refueling truck (complete with driver) and that can carry three people. Or, to put it another way, a vehicle that makes you look like a successful plumber.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start spouting nonsense about how the car manufacturers should insist on seeing an "intent to go off-road" document before selling one of these vehicles. We should all be free to buy whatever the heck we like it's just.... WHY buy things like this? If you're going to take them off-road then fine, I can understand that but if all they're going to do is sit on the tarmac and put huge profit margins into the bank accounts of car manufacturers while slurping petrol and throwing out up to 50% more pollution than a car, why buy one? Put it this way, the top of the range Ford F350 pick-up truck goes for about $41,000. For the same money you can buy a brand new BMW 525. Or, if you don't mind going second hand, a three year old M5. So... a supercar in sheep's clothing with a superb level of refinement and ride comfort, razor-sharp handling, elegant looks, peerless build quality and an engine crafted from the raw essence of speed itself or.... a Ford Truck. Hmm, tough choice.
