SUVs not EVs

[Potemkin Villager]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/clim ... -303476225

We really are well and truly fecked.

"It’s the car of the future. It’s taking off in markets all over in the world.

The electric vehicle? Hardly. It’s the S.U.V., the rugged, off-road gas-guzzler that America invented and the world increasingly loves to drive.

Spurred by rising incomes and lower gas prices, drivers in China, Australia and other countries are ditching their smaller sedans for bigger rides at a rapid pace. "

[kenneal - lagger]

Little men need big cars to boost their fragile egos, unfortunately. My SUV is used as an SUV for off-roading and towing a 3.5 tonne GVW trailer or a stock trailer though as my ego doesn't need a boost!!

[Potemkin Villager]

I would estimate that about only 5% of SUV/4WDs are driven by Folk who actually have a real need for them. I have the utmost contempt for the other pathetic 95% who are so desperate to appear rufty tufty.

[fuzzy]

We have flooded roads about once a year around here. My suzuki alto is good for about 1 foot deep [not tried more]. I often see 4x4s turning back, clearly with nothing urgent to visit.

[vtsnowedin]

We have flooded roads about once a year around here. My suzuki alto is good for about 1 foot deep [not tried more]. I often see 4x4s turning back, clearly with nothing urgent to visit.

It is the washed out road you can't see under the foot of muddy water that you fall into and get washed down stream in. What's on the other side worth risking your life for?
Women especially women with school aged children drive the SUVs and mini vans around here. They really do a good job of holding all those child seats and soccer and hockey gear. The men drive pickup trucks and could care less if people think they drive them as a status symbol. When you are stuck in the snow bank or spring mud they will churn on by and not bother to twitch you out of the ditch with the chain they keep in the back for friends and family mishaps.

[Potemkin Villager]

A dangerous effect on many folk driving SUVs is the belief that they are now invincible and the vehicle confers Marvel Comic style super powers that can defy all known laws of nature.

There was a very sad case locally where almost an entire family apart from a baby drowned in an Audi Q7 behemoth which slid down a slipway into the sea.

Another effect is the magnified sense of entitlement and exemption from social norms and legal requirements as displayed in road rage incidents:-

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/miami ... story.html

[vtsnowedin]

A dangerous effect on many folk driving SUVs is the belief that they are now invincible and the vehicle confers Marvel Comic style super powers that can defy all known laws of nature.

There was a very sad case locally where almost an entire family apart from a baby drowned in an Audi Q7 behemoth which slid down a slipway into the sea.

Another effect is the magnified sense of entitlement and exemption from social norms and legal requirements as displayed in riad rage incidents:-

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/miami ... story.html

Yes I see that a lot. People don't seem to realize that the moment you take your foot off the gas and hit the breaks you are now no better then all the other cars as they all have four wheel breaks and you with your big macho 4WD just entered the break test going 20mph faster then all the cars around you. Quite often they end up in the median, wheels pointed toward the sky showing off their "All season radials" that are really only good for all the seasons they get south of New Jersey.
Getting another Nor Easter here today, four inches so far expecting more then a foot more over the next twenty four hours. I've plowed the first bit off and will hit it again before bed time then again in the morning. Pretty mild here but down on Cape Cod they are getting horizontal snow and waves that are throwing beech rocks up onto the streets.

[woodburner]

Pedant watch - slowing is done with brakes, breaks is what happens when the brakes don’t work.

[vtsnowedin]

Pedant watch - slowing is done with brakes, breaks is what happens when the brakes don’t work.

Spelling Nazi.!!
Point taken.

[kenneal - lagger]

.... Women especially women with school aged children drive the SUVs ...

They do in the UK too. Chelsea Tractors, they're called as they haven't even had two wheels on a grass verge let alone four wheels off road. Women buy them because they think that they're safer in a big motor but fail to realise that when everyone else has one the combined inertia in a crash between two SUVs is more likely to kill them than if they were in smaller cars!

They should be taxed off the road unless you have a farm address and a business account to go with it.

[fuzzy]

We have flooded roads about once a year around here. My suzuki alto is good for about 1 foot deep [not tried more]. I often see 4x4s turning back, clearly with nothing urgent to visit.

Knew I had a photo - flooded hop field in flat river plain. Lots of steep hills here and joined small river systems:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4788/4009 ... 7d40_k.jpg

unfortunately the road was this side of the hedge.

[vtsnowedin]

.... Women especially women with school aged children drive the SUVs ...

They do in the UK too. Chelsea Tractors, they're called as they haven't even had two wheels on a grass verge let alone four wheels off road. Women buy them because they think that they're safer in a big motor but fail to realise that when everyone else has one the combined inertia in a crash between two SUVs is more likely to kill them than if they were in smaller cars!

They should be taxed off the road unless you have a farm address and a business account to go with it.

Yah I know a women that had an SUV for four years and never had it in four wheel drive. She assumed it always was in 4X4 and didn't know what that lever on the center mound was for.
I don't know as your big vs. big theory is valid though. The SUVs have a lot of sacrificial metal between passengers and front bumper and their safety ratings are right up there. And of course a SUV vs. Honda Civic crash goes to the SUV every time. I used to buy full sized Chevy Caprices and similar Buicks. Beaters well broken in. The six feet of front hood made quite a crumple zone. One time I heard "Daddy Daddy Mommy made the car into a pup tent".

[Potemkin Villager]

I am taken particularly taken by how passenger protection is taken to a new level with the protection features afforded our great leaders and other associated sociopaths.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -fire.html

"Security-conscious drivers can put their worries at ease after BMW unveiled its latest armoured car with claims it can withstand the fire from an AK-47.......

...... When he was Prime Minister, Tony Blair took delivery of a fully armoured BMW 7-series — dubbed the ‘Blair Panzer’ after the German word for armour.

David Cameron has, as his official car, an armoured, top-of-the-range Jaguar XJ.

But trumping them all is U.S. President Barack Obama with his gargantuan armoured Cadillac-style limousine, dubbed ‘The Beast’, which follows him around the globe on official visits.

Demand for armoured cars is on the increase in the U.S. while in Britain they are popular with Eastern European oligarchs."

[vtsnowedin]

I am taken particularly taken by how passenger protection is taken to a new level with the protection features afforded our great leaders and other associated sociopaths.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -fire.html

"Security-conscious drivers can put their worries at ease after BMW unveiled its latest armoured car with claims it can withstand the fire from an AK-47.......

...... When he was Prime Minister, Tony Blair took delivery of a fully armoured BMW 7-series — dubbed the ‘Blair Panzer’ after the German word for armour.

David Cameron has, as his official car, an armoured, top-of-the-range Jaguar XJ.

But trumping them all is U.S. President Barack Obama with his gargantuan armoured Cadillac-style limousine, dubbed ‘The Beast’, which follows him around the globe on official visits.

Demand for armoured cars is on the increase in the U.S. while in Britain they are popular with Eastern European oligarchs."

As rifle rounds go the AK-47's ammo is on the lower end of the range 1587 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle. Determined opponents will just move up the scale to something that can penetrate the relatively light armor these cars carry. For comparison a 7mm Remington mag has 2938 ft. lbs and a 50 BMG has 14,000ft. lbs.

[kenneal - lagger]

... For comparison a 7mm Remington mag has 2938 ft. lbs and a 50 BMG has 14,000ft. lbs.

All readily available in the US for self protection I take it.