SUVs make up more than 40% of new cars sold in the UK – while fully electric vehicles account for less than 2%

[Looby]

But this is a thread discussing about the environmentally negative impact of SUVs as they continue to grow massively in popularity. It's not about an individual's unverifiable personal circumstances and justifications and it's not my fault he's decided to take it totally personally despite bragging about his luxury car earlier.

I get that but we can’t ignore personal circumstances completely and actually I think this alienates people from even wanting to have the conversation.

The whole ranting about Billy big bollocks, rich people with their flash cars etc isn’t constructive, it isn’t changing anything so I guess it’s for everyone to decide if they want a meaningful conversation looking at realistic solutions or an echo chamber of ‘aren’t SUVs awful’ with the odd bit of rev head trolling. It’s the same thing, round and round again.

I should remind myself of this every time I try to engage because it’s absolutely fucking pointless.

I do care about climate change, I do want to do as little environmental harm as I can in my life but personally I don’t think anyone on here wants to hear it until I universally condemn a type of car that is still not really defined as it encompasses a fiat 500 to a hummer.

And actually if people are saying Bahnhof Strasse shouldn’t have his car, I don’t think it’s unreasonable then to discuss what he should have. Why not?

 

[Sasaferrato]

Well, when I win the Euromillions*, I shall have a Maserati Ghibli Trofeo. It isn't an SUV.

*That is if I survive being struck by lightning, both are as likely.

 

[Rob Ray]

if people are saying @Bahnhof Strasse shouldn’t have his car, I don’t think it’s unreasonable then to discuss what he should have. Why not?

Because discussions about broad car policy and social trends are not the same thing as discussions about individual choices regarding best make and model based on personal circumstance, obviously. I'm not sure why this is so hard to grasp, or why some people seem so bent on doing this #notallSUVdrivers blah when they know perfectly well they're misreading what's actually being talked about.

If you actually want a conversation on the latter topic btw I hear you can get around this dastardly blockade against relevant model recommendations via the crafty trick of starting a new thread. There might even be a dedicated subforum for it.

 

[Looby]

Super.

 

[Chz]

How do you find transferring someone into a wheelchair from the SUV, compared to a car where the seats are broadly at wheelchair height? My mate drives a 308 because he can get a folded wheelchair in the passenger seat, set it up on the roadside then hop across into it from the driver's seat. That would be impossible in a car with a higher driving position.

If it's about transporting someone else who uses a wheelchair, you'd think an estate car would be ideal. But it seems likely that estates will go extinct in favour of more fattened-up hatchbacks.

Wheelchair seat height is well below the seat height of a 308 - you can get out easy by dropping into it, but it's not that simple the other way. This is true for the vast majority of cars, not just SUVs and why cars tend to get specially modified for wheelchair users. The difference is larger than a curb, too; although using one will reduce the difference and make life a bit easier. Depending on the wheelchair, the SUV's added height (I looked it up, it's 10cm or less in most cases) could help you get over the armrest to drop into the chair. Either way, no standard wheelchair will align with a 308 and if you're already in a custom job, why not just have your car and the chair modded for each other?
(Showing my work: Average wheelchair seat height is 485mm, 308 seat height is 560-600mm, randomly selected Audi Q5 is 690mm-750mm)

Just think about it for a moment. In both cases, you need to be able to comfortably rest your feet on the floor. But one of those seats is inside a vehicle where the floor is not resting on the ground.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I should remind myself of this every time I try to engage because it’s absolutely fucking pointless.

And yet here you are yet again to remind us all of how engaging you aren't.

 

[Looby]

And yet here you are yet again to remind us all of how engaging you aren't.

Actually I have fucking tried but whatever I say is dismissed so what’s the point? I’m not engaging in the right way apparently but I have tried.
It’s not exactly welcoming here so carry on and enjoy.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The whole ranting about Billy big bollocks, rich people with their flash cars etc isn’t constructive, it isn’t changing anything so I guess it’s for everyone to decide if they want a meaningful conversation looking at realistic solutions or an echo chamber of ‘aren’t SUVs awful’ with the odd bit of rev head trolling. It’s the same thing, round and round again.

They're not all rich people. Many are poor people who are too stupid to avoid being hoodwinked into buying an armoured personnel carrier on a terrible finance plan.

Doesn't help that there are so many reasonable ordinary people out there who have been conned into describing these monstrosities as 'family cars' to help normalise them. People with no skin in the game and no shares in BMW will still parrot this idiotic notion that the second someone gets pregnant, it'd be some kind of dereliction of duty not to instantly run out and buy a car the size of Norway. They're not fucking family cars. You can't see small children out the front of them. They produce far more of the shit that poisons growing lungs, while performing the same function as a car half the size. They're anti-family cars. They're anti-everything cars.

 

[editor]

Actually I have fucking tried but whatever I say is dismissed so what’s the point? I’m not engaging in the right way apparently but I have tried.
It’s not exactly welcoming here so carry on and enjoy.

I've hardly been welcomed by some posters but then this is a lively forum and not a Cuddly Huggy Internet Snugglefest.

 

[editor]

They're not all rich people. Many are poor people who are too stupid to avoid being hoodwinked into buying an armoured personnel carrier on a terrible finance plan.

Doesn't help that there are so many reasonable ordinary people out there who have been conned into describing these monstrosities as 'family cars' to help normalise them. People with no skin in the game and no shares in BMW will still parrot this idiotic notion that the second someone gets pregnant, it'd be some kind of dereliction of duty not to instantly run out and buy a car the size of Norway. They're not fucking family cars. You can't see small children out the front of them. They produce far more of the shit that poisons growing lungs, while performing the same function as a car half the size. They're anti-family cars. They're anti-everything cars.

Beautifully worded

 

[Looby]

I've hardly been welcomed by some posters but then this is a lively forum and not a Cuddly Huggy Internet Snugglefest.

Fucksake.

 

[editor]

Fucksake.

Well what do you expect? Not everyone is going to agree with you or your style of debating, but just coming in to moan and criticise others while contributing nothing relevant is hardly an endearing attribute.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Of course, a reason so many good people no longer bother with this place. Quite sad really.

I wouldn’t know about that or what your definition of good people is but the fact remains when you’re at someone’s house it’s their rules and only a disrespectful person would reject them.

 

[Rob Ray]

whatever I say is dismissed

Ugh

Seriously though it's a bit of sarcasm – I can't imagine you're unfamiliar with it if you've spent any time debating anywhere on the internet.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I get that but we can’t ignore personal circumstances completely and actually I think this alienates people from even wanting to have the conversation.

The whole ranting about Billy big bollocks, rich people with their flash cars etc isn’t constructive, it isn’t changing anything so I guess it’s for everyone to decide if they want a meaningful conversation looking at realistic solutions or an echo chamber of ‘aren’t SUVs awful’ with the odd bit of rev head trolling. It’s the same thing, round and round again.

I should remind myself of this every time I try to engage because it’s absolutely fucking pointless.

I do care about climate change, I do want to do as little environmental harm as I can in my life but personally I don’t think anyone on here wants to hear it until I universally condemn a type of car that is still not really defined as it encompasses a fiat 500 to a hummer.

And actually if people are saying Bahnhof Strasse shouldn’t have his car, I don’t think it’s unreasonable then to discuss what he should have. Why not?

The problem I see is the opening post point being out of date, SUVs are well on track to be net zero, just like all cars. Targeting one car type when cars in general is a huge issue that reflects how shit our public transport is seems a little narrow.

I also think the stereotype of an SUV owner isn’t quite the same as it was a decade ago. A number of friends have one (from ICE, Hyrbid to EV) and none of them fit the mould of perception that SUV ownership seems to hang on…

 

[editor]

I wouldn’t know about that or what your definition of good people is but the fact remains when you’re at someone’s house it’s their rules and only a disrespectful person would reject them.

This argument that my presence is somehow stripping this place of posters has been rattling around for - literally - decades now, and it really is a tired cop out.

For sure, we're nowhere near the pre-social media days of 5k posts every day, but the fact that we're still here really is something to celebrate and proof that the moderating policy must be doing something right - especially given the lack of advertising meaning that it's solely supported by volunteer mods and the generosity of its users. And this community regularly does bloody amazing things.

And despite our/my supposedly awful moderation, we're still ticking over with around 1.4k new posts every day while just about every single comparable forum has long, long since bitten the dust with its contributors deserting to Facebook or whatever.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

This argument that my presence is somehow stripping this place of posters has been rattling around for - literally - decades now, and it really is a tired cop out.

For sure, we're nowhere near the pre-social media days of 5k posts every day, but the fact that we're still here really is something to celebrate and proof that the moderating policy must be doing something right - especially given the lack of advertising meaning that it's solely supported by volunteer mods and the generosity of its users. And this community regularly does bloody amazing things.

And despite our/my supposedly awful moderation, we're still ticking over with around 1.4k new posts every day while just about every single comparable forum has long, long since bitten the dust with its contributors deserting to Facebook or whatever.

Well said.

It's actually quite remarkable, been online in different ways since the mid-late 90s and I've never known a community forum survive this well for this amount of time, through waves of other places that do similar (I've seen many a FB group die due to Discord, the wheel turns)...

That this place remains largely intact values and experience wise from the first time I wandered on here over two decades ago is a real testament to the community and the moderation team.

 

[Brayfart]

Well, when I win the Euromillions*, I shall have a Maserati Ghibli Trofeo. It isn't an SUV.

*That is if I survive being struck by lightning, both are as likely.

This is not true. About 60 people a year get hit by lightening whereas there have been 40 UK jackpot winners in the last 7 years. So you are roughly ten times more likely to be struck by lightning.

 

[Sasaferrato]

This is not true. About 60 people a year get hit by lightening whereas there have been 40 UK jackpot winners in the last 7 years. So you are roughly ten times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thanks for that cheery thought.

 

[kabbes]

If you go out to buy a lottery ticket, there is a much higher chance of being killed on your way home from buying it than winning with it.

 

[Silas Loom]

If you go out to buy a lottery ticket, there is a much higher chance of being killed on your way home from buying it than winning with it.

Not a fight any sane person would pick with an actuary, but really? Killed, as in murdered? In the UK, which averages only two homicides daily? Assuming that the journey home from an authorised lottery retailer takes no longer than an hour on average?

Obviously the chance of death from natural causes is going to be much higher then the chance of winning the lottery over any given week, so it would be foolish to buy the ticket any more than five minutes before the draw.

 

[kabbes]

Not a fight any sane person would pick with an actuary, but really? Killed, as in murdered? In the UK, which averages only two homicides daily? Assuming that the journey home from an authorised lottery retailer takes no longer than an hour on average?

Obviously the chance of death from natural causes is going to be much higher then the chance of winning the lottery over any given week, so it would be foolish to buy the ticket any more than five minutes before the draw.

No, just killed as in dead. After all, once you’re dead, you don’t care how you died. The risk is mostly from road death, based on assumptions for how far people typically live from a shop. You’re unlikely to be killed on the road, but you’re even less likely to win the lottery!

 

[Silas Loom]

No, just killed as in dead. After all, once you’re dead, you don’t care how you died. The risk is mostly from road death, based on assumptions for how far people typically live from a shop. You’re unlikely to be killed on the road, but you’re even less likely to win the lottery!

That makes more sense. When you say “much higher”, what is the factor? Multiplied by £2m, which DfT reckons is the value of a human life, that gives the minimum jackpot value at which it’s worth leaving home and braving the SUVs festooned with spiked bull bars to buy a ticket.

 

[Chz]

They're not all rich people. Many are poor people who are too stupid to avoid being hoodwinked into buying an armoured personnel carrier on a terrible finance plan.

Doesn't help that there are so many reasonable ordinary people out there who have been conned into describing these monstrosities as 'family cars' to help normalise them. People with no skin in the game and no shares in BMW will still parrot this idiotic notion that the second someone gets pregnant, it'd be some kind of dereliction of duty not to instantly run out and buy a car the size of Norway. They're not fucking family cars. You can't see small children out the front of them. They produce far more of the shit that poisons growing lungs, while performing the same function as a car half the size. They're anti-family cars. They're anti-everything cars.

Utter bullshit.

The vast majority of these cars are no bigger than buying one size up would have got you in the past, except now they're 10cm higher because that's what people want. Hoodwinked my fucking arse, the car makers tried to keep the small sedan alive, but no one would buy the motherfuckers.

This isn't the first US wave of SUVs where they took a truck chassis that was subject to fewer regulations and sold it with a giant markup. Europe's 2023 SUVs are, for the most part - the ones that sell in large numbers - based on cars and have a similar profit margin. There's no conspiracy. Big Auto isn't forcing you into it. It's a completely consumer driven trend, and stabbing at the automakers won't make it go away because so long as people want it they're going to build it.

 

[kabbes]

That makes more sense. When you say “much higher”, what is the factor? Multiplied by £2m, which DfT reckons is the value of a human life, that gives the minimum jackpot value at which it’s worth leaving home and braving the SUVs festooned with spiked bull bars to buy a ticket.

From memory, the total risk of death due to leaving the house is broadly 1 in 10 million (give or take an order of magnitude each side, depending on where you live). By contrast, the chance of winning the lottery is 1 in 300 million. So by your arithmetic of death, you’d need a jackpot of about £60m.

 

[kabbes]

,.. mind you, staying home is also a dangerous business.

 

[Chz]

What level of risk is acceptable is pretty much an unanswerable question. We categorise the risk, plan around it, and hope for the best. Otherwise we'd have to ban ladders.

 

[SpookyFrank]

What level of risk is acceptable is pretty much an unanswerable question. We categorise the risk, plan around it, and hope for the best. Otherwise we'd have to ban ladders.

OK but the benefit of an SUV in terms of functionality is exactly the same as that of a hatchback but the risk is far greater. People should be able to run the numbers on that one without the aid of a maths degree tbh.

 

[Chz]

OK but the benefit of an SUV in terms of functionality is exactly the same as that of a hatchback but the risk is far greater. People should be able to run the numbers on that one without the aid of a maths degree tbh.

Pedestrian safety is the New Thing in crash tests that all the manufacturers are chasing. If it doesn't already exist, you'll very soon have even large suvs that are less dangerous than a 5 year old sedan to the more vulnerable road users (as NCAP puts it). Which one do we try and remove from the road first?

Admittedly a lot of it is using tech to get around the bulk of the larger vehicles - bonnet cushion zones, automated braking systems, etc. that work just as well on smaller vehicles, but it does work.

 

[SpookyFrank]

If it doesn't already exist, you'll very soon have even large suvs that are less dangerous than a 5 year old sedan to the more vulnerable road users (as NCAP puts it).

No you won't. Not unless they've changed f = ma somehow, and relocated the major organs of the human body from the top half to the bottom half.