Every time I hear someone say they like their SUV or mondo pickup truck because it feels safer, I usually reply, "I know what you mean. That is why I stand up when watching movies in the theater -- the view is so much better."
In the UK at least they are less common, I think it's partly a cultural thing, but I suspect road size and layout is also a significant factor, which negatively affects the practicality of actually driving and parking a big SUV over here. I'm pretty sure that's why they will always remain uncommon, and haven't kicked off a chain reaction like in the US.
I think that's the only way you can prevent this kind of arms race in a society, by designing aspects into the system that reduce socially undesirable properties by making those same properties less desirable to the individual, intrinsically - i.e I don't want an SUV, because it's going to be so damn annoying to drive and park in so many places (note how that affects all individuals regardless of wealth). The same works with speed, using intrinsic speed limitations due to road size and layout instead of extrinsic punishment which doesn't effectively prevent injury or death. If the appropriate speed is 30mph, don't build a 6 lane style highway and be surprised when people find it hard to stay under 80. I think so many of the societal issues caused by cars can be all but eliminated through road design.
I'm not sure how you fix it, considering that pretty much every proposal to narrow a road, add a bike lane, add a bus lane, increase registration fees etc around here is treated like you're trying to bring back Hitler. It's so frustrating.
Best example I guess is Ford who discontinued its Ford Ka and Fiesta because "they wanted to focus on EVs" - on the other hand they introduced the F150 to Germany. Not the most honest move.
I'd argue 80% of customers are sheeple following whatever is advertised on TV / parked in the neighbours driveway. I used to enjoy cars but with the climate crisis and just by how automotive attempts to innovate these days, I cancelled this entire industry.
Gonna get a Bullitt Cargobike soon
It's an arms race that just leaves everyone worse off than at the start.
Gun ownership has always been common. I didn't say more or less common than any point to compare to.
We're lucky it's more common now than in previous points in history. You just don't know it yet.
Secondly, I have no interest in schooling you. You're an American, right? No free education for you. Pay for it!
Thirdly, I was being serious. Do you actually know what the data look like or are you guessing?
Maybe something similar will happen again, ie energy will become expensive.
I have kids and I don't care how my SUV makes you feel. Riding a bike is a cool hobby, and my family and I own tons of bikes that we take on the awesome bike paths they have all over our town. Bikes are also a great way to exercise.
But they don't really belong on roads. Taking a bike a place it isn't mean to go, then complaining about how unfit for the bike that place is, is absurd.
You aren't supposed to stand up in a movie theater. You are supposed to drive your car on the streets that we build specifically for driving cars.
Okay, but you should be aware that everyone with an SUV increases the danger to everyone else's kids.
> But they don't really belong on roads. Taking a bike a place it isn't mean to go, then complaining about how unfit for the bike that place is, is absurd.
Bikes have to share roads almost everywhere, and big cars are also bad at pedestrian safety.
> You aren't supposed to stand up in a movie theater. You are supposed to drive your car on the streets that we build specifically for driving cars.
You're supposed to have a car, you're not supposed to have an oversized one.
These types of statements illustrate the lack of cognition the average person employees versus parroting words. This superficial and attempted tautological sounding argument just speaks about how we have not gotten critical thinking education right.
And roads built for cars just so happen to be the legally mandated place to ride bikes in many locals.
Of course roads build with only considering car travel and no secondary effects are optimized for cars over bikes. That’s exactly the problem, not a point in the favor of cars or for driving cars.
You realize how stupid you sound, right?
If roads are for cars, then you will have no problems with abolishing people being inside of them while they drive on your sacred car only roads?
> Add more walking and cycling paths and bikes/pedestrians won't have to use the roads.
Add them where? Because in your scenario it's either cars or pedestrians and guess who have better lobbyists?
However: If you’re buying the biggest SUV you can so as to win the arms race, none of my sympathy applies to you. Stop it already. How do you even park?
You're right, I have no idea. But a lot of people in Europe have three young kids as well and seem to get by perfectly fine without SUVs.
> no individual parent is going to solve that problem
This is how social change dies. "I can't do change things on my own, so why inconvenience myself?" Having an SUV increases your chances of KILLING PEOPLE. How does not having one not change anything?? And cars are big, high-margin purchases, of course you putting +1 in the minivan instead of SUV purchases column at your local dealer is going to have some impact on what they stock and a push more of. And your neighbours will see how convenient your non-insane car is and that will slightly away them towards buying that instead.
Why are people in this thread jumping to these absolutely absurd ideas about the motivations somebody would have for the car they drive? Do some of you seriously have this idea of a deranged murderous psychopath gassing up their giant child squishing machine and going out into the world looking for children to run over or something?
> Why are people in this thread jumping to these absolutely absurd ideas about the motivations somebody would have for the car they drive? Do some of you seriously have this idea of a deranged murderous psychopath gassing up their giant child squishing machine and going out into the world looking for children to run over or something?
It doesn't matter what your justification is for owning SUV, statistically you are more likely to hit pedestrians because SUV have bad visibility. And when you hit pedestrian it's more likely that injuries they suffer will be fatal. SUVs are higher than normal cars so when hit by it pedestrian will more likely have head and torso injuries, with more often are fatal. Also SUVs have bigger clearance under it, so hit pedestrian will more likely be also squished by wheels and dragged under the car for no one knows how long. This is even more dangerous for kids(you might not know that but on average they are smaller than average adult).
SUVs are not safer than normal cars. Poor visibility, higher center of gravity, stiff undercarriage all contribute to higher possibility of rollover. They have worse crumple zone, car might be ok but driver not so much. Worse fuel efficiency (car exhausts are not healthy). And many other things.
In the end your motivation doesn't matter, you are a bigger danger to pedestrians(not to mention other drivers) than if you owned normal car or bicycle.
You really should come and visit NL for a bit. I'll borrow you a bike so you can experience first hand what it's like when bikes are 'first class citizens'.
You will lend them a bike, and they will borrow it from you.
(I still don’t know how English ended up with separate verbs for both actions whereas Germanic languages only have one.)
Yay for bike paths! Especially if it keeps bikes out of the street.
This reflects more on you than the person you're replying to.
Proposal: special compact car paths where people can safely drive smaller cars that don't belong on the road.
And either way, the intent of my "counter-proposal" is to point out that the normal size cars shouldn't be considered not suitable for road use just because there are bigger badder cars out there and that, if anything, the big and dangerous cars are the ones that should be segregated to protect everyone else, not the other way around.
If you want to participate in these kinds of discussions and have them turn into anything but shouting matches, you might want to consider that "specifically for driving cars" is very much the problem for many people. They don't share your axiom that it should be that way, or even that it's OK. Think for a moment. In an ideal world, how much space would you devote to cars and parking vs. bikes and pedestrians? Now go see how much is devoted to that. A lot of people don't even realize how big those numbers are, and you might find that the percentage is greater than even you just determined it should be. Cyclists drive in the road because they feel they're already being denied their fair share of that space, and what space is nominally given them is unfit for purpose (especially with regard to safety and freedom from obstruction). You might agree with them and you might not, but simply stating your (probably unexamined) axiom as fact isn't going to get anyone anywhere.
BTW it feels weird to me, taking the side of the cyclists. More often I'm at odds with them; I even recognize some of the names here from past encounters. As a "high speed pedestrian" (i.e. runner) I am absolutely sick and tired of cyclists trying to push me aside where I have every right to be and in fact 100% have right of way when there's contention. Especially when I know 99% of them are not commuters whose riding does anything whatsoever for the environment. The parking lot between the local bike path and where my daughter used to do karate is always full of cyclists unloading their bikes from their cars for what is clearly a recreational ride. They drove there (and back) to indulge in their hobby. I won't accept any self-righteous bullshit from them, but I do recognize that the actual bike commuters have every right to use paths and roads, and they're helping the (natural and human) environment by doing so.
Roads belonged to bikes before they belonged to cars.
This a real case of 'check your privilege'.
This is IMHO not true. In majority of the western world, roads belonged to horses and carts before the automobile.
Bicycles were not very popular in most cities and towns in the 1800s, even in Europe. Cobblestone, brick, dirt and gravel roads of the 1800s were often impassible on the bicycles of that time.
Asia likely had a historically different bicycle:car ratio though.