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RE: SUVs



I totally agree with your bumper qualms. The reason I don't complain about the risk of being killed by a load of gravel is the fact that it's an unavoidable risk. The potentially deadliest vehicles on the road are semi-trucks, and although I wish we could use railroads for more of our freight, I'm willing to accept that using the freeway means sharing it with them and risk getting hit by them. The same goes for a contractor hauling gravel (which would probaby be an F150 rather than a expedition, but trucks are trucks). The soccer mom, on the other hand, has no reason to be driving a truck and endangering other motorists to that degree. Being killed by a commercial truck is an essentially unavoidable risk associated with road use, but there's absolutely no reason I should have to face the additional risk of trucks being used as passenger cars. At least that's the way I see it. If full-size pickups could have car-compatible bumpers and crumple zones that would be great, and make our roads that much safer, but I think it's unrealistic. Asking the soccer mom to trade her Excursion for a Windstar, on the other hand, I think is perfectly reasonable, because in addition to saving lives, she'll find her needs are better met by the lower, more agile, more spacious, and more efficient vehicle.



<snip>
> I'll defend your right to drive a Fiat 500 on the freeway because
> you're only putting yourself at risk--but driving a truck on public
> roads places everybody else at risk.  That's why your freedom to
> drive drunk is restricted.  (Since people like to assume otherwise,
> I'll add another sentence to this off-topic post and state explicitly
> that I have absolutely no problem with people who use trucks to haul
> gravel, tow Alfas, go offroading, etc, etc.)
>
> No one likes to see their Alfa destroyed by someone else's shitty
> driving, but if it can do what it was designed to do and save your
> life by absorbing energy, you shouldn't complain because there will
> always be shitty drivers.  It's when the idiot's vehicle contributes
> more energy to the collision than your Alfa can absorb, and absorbs
> none of it itself, and you die, that I'm apt to complain.
<snip>

So if you get hit and killed in an SUV that's hauling gravel, that's ok,
but if you get hit and killed by the same vehicle being driven by a
soccer mom, it's not?

I don't get the logic.

The only thing wrong with SUV's, trucks, etc, imo, is that they aren't
made to adhere to the same type of bumper laws that passenger cars
adhere to.  It makes no sense to me that passenger car bumpers all have
to be at a uniform height, so if they crash into each other they absorb
equal energy, but SUV and truck bumper heights can be much higher.  In
fact one might argue it's almost criminal that passenger cars aren't
allowed to raise their bumper heights to protect themselves against
SUV's.

bs
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