SUVs: Threat or menace?
SUVs are the tools of Satan.
Not in the way you probably think. I care maybe 10% worth about the harm versus good that a particular car does to society and 90% about the harm versus good that a particular car does for me. I suspect I’m not alone here. While I get mildly ruffled about low mileage vehicles, so long as nobody’s making me pay to fill them up, I can pretty much live with my pain.
No, the thing that’s wrong with SUVs is the quintessentially deceptive nature of the whole SUV idea. First off, I should explain that in my college days I gladly spent a good part of several weekends as a passenger in a borrowed Jeep careening over the logging roads and through the streams of the Allegheny mountains. And while the fact that the driver was drunk out of his mind undoubtedly added to the thrill, there’s just no denying that this was fun.
And so, people buy SUVs expecting to have that kind of fun occasionally. But the truth is, not only does an SUV have less cargo space than your average mid-size sedan; not only is it uncomfortable and overpriced and under-powered and under-braked; not only does it steer like a bullet; not only does it want to tip over at the slightest curve; but an SUV is such a crappy vehicle as a vehicle that it isn’t a fun source, it’s a fun sink. Head on out in your SUV with a little fun in mind, and before you’ve gone five miles, that SUV has sucked all that fun out of your soul.
And so, you end up in the left lane, inattentive, going a couple of mph slower than the speed limit, wondering what went wrong.
Well, I’ll tell you what went wrong. You’re in the left lane! Get the hell out of the lane that’s set aside for drivers and take your suburban disappointment with you into the spectators’ lane where you belong! That is one part of the social cost of SUVs that I do care about and that I will not gladly pay. If you want to drive in the left lane, get a car!