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Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

theguardian.com

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Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#91

Post by matsemann »

wepple wrote: post #77
hkt wrote: post #32

Obligatory plug for cycling and cycling infrastructure. Getting people out of cars - all cars - is a necessity for preventing catastrophic climate change.

I simply can’t see cycling as the answer. Public transport, 100% yes. But when people suggesting cycling I feel like they’re asking for their hobby to be taxpayer subsidized. How does it work for those who aren’t fully bodily abled? When it snows and rains? Traveling non-trivial distances? Hills?

We have lots of snow and hills here in Norway. I bike year around. Studded tires in the winter. I always find the argument a bit funny, because on the worst snow days the roads are littered with cars and accidents. While I bike happily past.

Electric bikes solves the hills-problem for those that don't want to get sweaty. I see lots of parents shipping their kids around on cargo bikes.

I hate the argument about "bodily abled". What about all those that cannot drive? Lots of conditions where that's the case. Or even factors as age (young, old), money (car is expensive). A car centric society is far more excluding than one made for active modes of transport and public transport.

Additionally, one can of course make provisions for those that need a car because of handicaps. Would you be fine if we banned cars in the city centre, except for those not bodily abled? My experience is that those pushing HC as an argument doesn't do it in good faith.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#92

Post by jimnotgym »

maxwellburson wrote: post #35
michpoch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular? Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective.…

> Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law > SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. He may be ref…

Or like my other note at

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150286

Visibility needs depend on your environment.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#93

Post by ahartmetz »

jdietrich wrote: post #23

Note to American readers: The most popular "SUVs" in Britain are small crossovers that are compact or subcompact cars by American standards. The Ford Puma is currently the best-selling car in the UK and while it's marketed as an SUV, it's based on the same platform as the Ford Fiesta. It has big wheels and an SUV silhouette, but the base model has a 1 litre engine with a mild hybrid system and 4 wheel drive isn't eve…

They also seem to have adjusted the Fiesta. I've had one as a rental car and felt like sitting on an elevated platform - which I didn't like. I thought: "So the Fiesta, of all models, is now a kind of SUV lite?!".

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#94

Post by jayski »

nologic01 wrote: post #12

Oversized SUV's littering urban landscapes (taking effectively twice the space of a small electric car) are the tangible evidence of how society grows not just unsustainable and unequal, but aggressive and in-your-face. I don't think there is any other period where the front "face" of a car aimed to create such an ugly, intimidating impression (i am huge and i will tear you apart). Their popularity speaks volumes abo…

I live in a smallish city in Mexico. For many years I had a Honda City, and I hated it the whole time because the streets are awful.

Which means I was always scraping the bottom of my car. Potholes, uneven pavement, damaged pavement etc. It was so bad the plastic coverings underneath tore apart and now I was dragging plastic everywhere I went.

Needless to say for my next car my main priority was ground clearance. I ended up getting a Jeep and now my problems are solved.

So that's my only point, I agree we should all have small eco cars. I would love to have a 2 seater and save on gas. But you have to live in a place with good infrastructure. A lot of cities in the third world are basically "off road" in practicality.

Especially in the third world a car can be an extraordinary purchase, people need their cars to not get damaged easily.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#95

Post by jlund-molfese »

detritus wrote: post #6
bdavbdav wrote: post #3

I’m all for fewer people driving them (most are just lifted versions of normal cars now, but more uncomfortable and inefficient), but I’m very sure messing essential safety features (correctly pressurised tyres) is not how you get that point t across.

The point is not to slightly adjust the tire pressure to some dangerous state, but to completely deflate them to be a pain in the rear to re-inflate before driving off again.

Well, these guys are not professionals and it's completely possible for someone's tires to be partially deflated and the flyer to blow away, leading to a dangerous situation.

Regardless, what's more likely when someone deflates your tires and makes you miss an important event—that you'll suddenly take your car to the junkyard and buy a bicycle, or that you'll just have a more negative opinion of environmentalists?

Plus, you can't know why someone's driving a particular car. Maybe that used hybrid SUV was the easiest thing to modify for wheelchair use, the only thing they could afford that sat everyone in their family, or they really do need to tow something a few times a year.

Even in the UK, going onto someone else's property to disable/damage their cars will eventually lead to physical altercations.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#96

Post by Timshel »

dmazin wrote: post #24

I was nodding along until I read that they deflate XC90s. To me, that is a completely reasonable car if you have 3 children. I know people who buy Range Rovers just to drive to work, but not XC90s.

As if having 3 kids is the norm ...

And outside of the ability to have a third row of seats the xc90s compared to the v90 are just more expensive with less trunk space and less fuel efficient ...

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#97

Post by dan-robertson »

kergonath wrote: post #55
michpoch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular? Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective.…

> Why weight in particular? Kinetic energy (thus fuel consumption and particles from brakes) and road wear scale with weight. It's not perfect but it's most of the way there. > Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). This does not solve the issue with externalities: fuel cost absolutely does not offset the cost to soc…

Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight.

I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about – road wear, vehicle deaths/life-changing injuries, noise, pollution, parking space in streets, passing room on narrow roads, etc.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#98

Post by jayski »

numpad0 wrote: post #85
nologic01 wrote: post #12

Oversized SUV's littering urban landscapes (taking effectively twice the space of a small electric car) are the tangible evidence of how society grows not just unsustainable and unequal, but aggressive and in-your-face. I don't think there is any other period where the front "face" of a car aimed to create such an ugly, intimidating impression (i am huge and i will tear you apart). Their popularity speaks volumes abo…

IMO, everyone should start from phasing out street parking. Mandatory private parking would create selection pressure towards smaller and less obnoxious cars, proportionate to mental as well as financial investments by its owner.

Denmark taxes car purchases at 150%. I think Singapore does something similar.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#99

Post by wkjagt »

When driving my Miata, the size of the other cars on the road is getting scarier every year. I'm in a somewhat rural part of Canada, so there are many oversized pickups. An additional consequence of higher vehicles is that their headlights are placed higher, and often other people's lights are at the same level as my eyes, making it really uncomfortable to drive at night because I get blinded all the time by these huge trucks coming from the opposite direction.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#100

Post by yodelshady »

master-lincoln wrote: post #79
paganel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those cars (toys) get you very far outside of the city. And inside of the city we've got public transportation.

I'd argue all of the cars you listed get you as far as you have gasoline. Even with room for at least one passenger and luggage. What's your argument? And public transport cannot always replace individual mobility. E.g. transporting big things or sick people is not really an option on public transport

If you argue that you'd be a liar. They just don't.

They all get about 200 miles real world, my (£10,000 cheaper !) hatchback, petrol with a 55 L tank and much more interior space than any of those, can push 400.

Why say things that aren't true? People aren't going to be fooled.

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