Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 194 posts

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

#101

Post by ahartmetz »

azherebtsov wrote: post #66
blitzar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the equivalent thought process as "everyone making my salary + £1 or more gets paid way too much money and should be taxed at 100%"

What car would you recommend to a family of five? I have 2 kids and when we go for a trip the my Citroen c4 is full. Would I have one more kid it’s no way we can fit into this car, despite it has 5 seats. Should we stop thinking about road trips and consider only plane/train/bus? Or should we consider only van/caravan? I support the argument that unnecessary consumption should be penalised somehow, but I do not suppo…

> What car would you recommend to a family of five?

Any mid-sized or larger station wagon. From experience, even riding along in a recent Skoda Superb is quite fun. There is also an enormous amount of space in the trunk, which most SUVs don't have.

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

#102

Post by jimnotgym »

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.

Yeah nice. I live in the country. I moved out of my preferred are due to rent increases. I would love to work nearby, but I have to drive 25 miles. I don't have perfect health. Should I cycle?

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

#103

Post by yodelshady »

stuaxo wrote: post #72
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.…

Because damage to the road increases by something like the weight increase ^ 4.

Which means, as pointed out by e.g. zemvpferreira, proportionate-to-damage then either makes HGVs completely unviable or the wear component of tax for any passenger car negligible.

And HGVs really are the limiting factor on road design. We could ban SUVs maybe, we could ban cars and scooters and bicycles if various factions get their way, but if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days.

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

#104

Post by petre »

jayski wrote: post #98
numpad0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Denmark taxes lower income rural residents disproportionally. Singapore is a city state.

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

#105

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #56
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…

Honda’s CR-V is one of the most popular SUVs in the US. It’s an all-wheel drive Civic wagon.

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by dash2 »

jayski wrote: post #94
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 e…

The equivalent in the developed world is when there are so many speed bumps that it incentivizes having a SUV! My city is a bit like that.

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

#107

Post by fragmede »

resuresu wrote: post #86
stuaxo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how ugly cars have become. The upsizing is stupid - lots of cars either new versions of renamed versions of old ones but with another layer sandwiched in to make it higher, or just grow all dimensions and more clearance. A lot of them don't even have much / any more room inside.

They exist for a reason. Some people have more to haul than just groceries.

Agreed. The kids won't drive themselves to soccer practice!

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

#109

Post by sethammons »

praptak wrote: post #74
Bostonian wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others." I am wary of this statement, because it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services. On another note, if SUVs are much more dangerous to others than other cars, insurance claims against SUV drivers and insurance…

> it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services GP qualified their statement pretty precisely: no purpose other than ego, significant cost to others. What's the harm in banning anything that ticks both of these boxes?

On the surface, it seems to make sense. I'm wondering if it falls apart quickly.

"I like it" and "because ego" is a hard line to carve. I usually hear ego-purchase and translate it to "you like it and I don't."

Lots of things are provided at a cost to others. Some argue the modern economy can't exist without exploiting someone. And there is all the things that ticks tragedies of the commons.

What could be made illegal using such a lens? Fashionable clothing seems fit (hell, the US killed off an entire species of pigeon because their feathers looked good on a hat; a hell of a cost to everyone). Mountain climbing or hiking to summit could be viewed as an ego thing and the trails have to be maintained and emergency personnel available -- all at significant costs.

Depending on how sensitive "cost to others is" and depending on how willfully something can only be attributed to ego makes this more slippery.

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

#110

Post by fragmede »

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.

That sounds more like a transfer of wealth from government coffers to private parking structure owners. How would that affect the size of vehicles?
Post reply on HN