[Chris V]

Originally Posted by Swigz

I get what you're saying and where your opinion comes from.

However, you're likely a much better driver than the average owner. When I say "woman in a parking lot doing a 12-point turn," I MEAN that. I've witnessed it more times than I'd like to count and it bothers me, because it tells me "that's a person who doesn't know how to drive that SUV."

the fact is, less than 3% of people get into accidents each year, the vast majority of them in cars. So SUV drivers aren't really doing all that bad overall.

I also think there is the misunderstanding that when I say "SUV" It means "ALL SUVs," which is not what I meant to get across. I recognize that there are SUVs out there that are smaller than most trucks (Ford Escape, Lincoln MKX, etc) - those are not the focus of this conversation; the bigger, more purpose-built rigs that are mentioned in the article are what I'm talking about (Your Excursions, Expeditions, Escalades, Suburbans, etc).

And those make up les than 10% of the SUV population. You may be scared of them, but they are NOT the majority of SUVs and they are NOT in the majority of SUV accidents. Again, most drivers have no problems with them, either.

When it comes to those, I believe that some people just shouldn't drive them. And if you can't park your vehicle in an otherwise spacious parking lot, maybe you shouldn't be driving that vehicle.

I feel that way about ALL vehicles, but we cant' base our judgemetn of everyone's needs on what we see a small percentage of peopel doing. How many cars in total do you see everyday. How many of them do you see doing something stupid. Even if you see 5-10 people doing something stupid, I'd bet you see 100-300 cars or more per day total. Do the math. If you see one person per day not being able to park theri car, you're still only looking at 1/10th of a percent of all teh cars/trucks/SUVs you see per day.

I don't pretend to have an idea about every single person I see in an SUV. Most times, it's the people who stick out in the first place that lead me to conclusions - young couples out in their vehicle with no sign of a child, things like that.

And again, what percentage of all vehicles you see per day are those ones that stick out? And how do you know they dont' use that SUV other times? You don't. You simply assume.

A great example might be today. I brought my extended cab dually to work with me. I'm the only one in it on the way to work and on the way home. It would be easy enough for someone like you to see me as a single driver and complain about what a waste to drive it empty to work and back, and complain about how big it is next to your small car. But I took it today to fill up the fuel tank so that this weekend I could hook up to the 30 foot travel trailer to go camping in South Carolina (10 hours away) and not have to try to get fuel in it with the trailer connected first thing in the morning. I could just load it up and go.

I understand where you're coming from on the sports cars and exotics and agree to a point. People DO buy sports cars unnecessarily, HOWEVER, in many cases, those are reserved for weekends or nice days when you feel like driving it. If I own a Ferrari 458, I'm not going to be driving it on a daily basis or parking it at the parking garage; I'm going to be driving it on the weekends when it's sunny and parking it very rarely. They are cars that are meant for leisure and less than typical driving habits, so comparing them to SUVs in terms of usage is nowhere near an even trade.

Again, the point is ascribing need to someone else's buying habits.

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People are going to buy what they're going to buy. But I wish they would buy something suited to their needs and their abilities (sports/exotics aside).

Again, less than 3% of drivers have a problem with ANY vehicle per year. Most people BY FAR choose vehicles that suit their abilities already. And a whole lot of those are SUVs. And as an SUV and truck owner, I'm really REALLY tired of the wide brush they are painted with by people that should know better before setting of on their rants.