SUVs piss me off

There, I've said it and I wont apologize because its just how I feel. In the same way that liberals piss some people off, or poor people on the streets begging for money offend other people, I feel just the same way about SUVs.

I'm feeling a little better these days because even though 50% of all new car sales are SUVs (and I'm not sure if that's by $ amount of number of vehicles - does it matter?) but at least 50% of all my acquaintances also feel the same way as I do about SUVs. Its really a case of "either you're with SUVs or you're against them". Either you do or you don't get the problem with driving a vehicle that uses twice or three times as much gas as it needs to, is six or more times likely to kill someone in a side collision, and is more likely to kill you the driver per mile driven than a car. If you don't get it, or do get it and don't care, well it tells me a lot about you. It tells me you're exactly the kind of person who should be punished by driving a Reliant Robin for a year and then see how you feel about sharing the road with a monster Ford Excursion.

I wont deny that some people have a legitimate reason to drive an SUV. Those people have been driving them, and their light truck breathren for years now, but they aren't the SUV "I like to be up high" neophytes we are now seeing rushing out to put $55k down on a Hummer H2. The most common reason to buy one of these monsters is pure and simply fear, followed closely by a generous helping of the "fuck you" crowd. Its the people who got tired of driving behind the other people with SUVs and tired of being cut off and menaced by the big SUV behind them or beside them. And its the people who just do it because they can. Why buy a small car when the big one costs the same or less? Why not? I ask you, bigger is better aint it? Go figure.

Where, just where I ask, will this all end? Will it only be the width of the lanes on the freeway, the height of people's garages and the length of parking spots that prevent us all from driving a Kenworth eighteen wheeler to and from the video store? Will America's next President be elected on a wave of support for his constitutional ammendment for the right to drive a big wide ass "fuck you" car crushing OLV (obscenely large vehicle) and be able to right it off on your taxes?

On that note I was recently led to the web site of the Avanti Motors Studebaker XUV. A vehicle designed to so closely resemble the Hummer H2 that they are being sued by the makers of the Hummer. Well, my heart bleeds for Avanti, but I doubt if it'll do any good at keeping this oversized death machine of the roads.