6/9 Dear hybrid and bike riding fanatics who hate SUVs: What do you
think about people driving their RVs across the country, or people
who fly planes (with much less miles per jet-A fuels than miles
per 87-91 octane fuels for cars), or people who drive high
performance sportscars with only 10-15MPG? What about the amount
of pollutants an electric car battery (or hybrid car battery)
emits and destroys the earth at the end of the battery's lifetime?
I'm just trying to understand why liberals think the way they do
Thanks for any insight.
\_ Hi non-interesting-troll! Commuting daily with your
bicycle has nothing to do with the above. Please
be funnier.
\_ I don't love hybrids or hate SUVs per se. I hate people who have
alternatives commute solo over long distance in vehicles with low
gas mileage. Also, I hate people who drive SUVs as if they're
driving a car, and then complain that SUVs are dangerous. Before
the "SUV" era, people drove 4x4s as 4x4s and minivans as minivans,
not as cars. I bought my first "SUV" in 1992, and my friends called
it a truck.
driving cars, and then complain that SUVs are dangerous, forcing
manufacturers to "domesticate" SUVs with silly changes like
lowering the CG in the expense of ground clearence and body
ruggedness. Before the "SUV" era, people drove 4x4s as 4x4s and
minivans as minivans, not as cars. I bought my first "SUV" in
1992, and my friends called it a truck.
\_ I hate suvs cause I can't see around them. Simple as that.
They make the road more dangerous.
\_ Agreed. I'm not an enviro-fanatic but I hate SUV's and any other
tall vehicles. BMW's also tend to piss me off because they seem
to always be driven by assholes.
\- a lot of the older driving stereotypes ... BMW drivers,
people driving large cars poorly etc are now trumped
by people driving cluelessly due to cellphone use.
of course a woman in an humvee who isnt a good driver
while on a cellphone in downtown sf [i.e. yesterday]
is even worse.
\_ BMW drivers aren't just bad. They are assholes. Of
the won't let you pass, cut you off, don't use turn
signal, tailgateing, driving too fast variety.
Yes it isn't all of them, but they are higher than
the average.
\_ I'll let you in on a secret. When you drive a BMW,
Mercedes, Lexus, or such, the people in other
luxury cars treat you much better. However, what
you then face is people in beaters (especially
mammoth trucks) being rude to you in all of the
ways as described above. You can draw your own
conclusions. From where I sit (as someone with a
BMW and a Lexus) everyone else seems to drive like
jerks and people with luxury cars drive better -
mostly because they don't want to total them. The
guy in the 1982 Tercel is the idiot going 95 mph
and passing on the right and all of the dents in
his car prove that he's none too careful.
\_ Let me in on a secret. They are still assholes.
And yes there is a the young guy in beater car
group that I also pay a bit more attention to.
BMW drivers tend to be more assholes than Mercedes
and Lexuses (except for Lexus SUVs, those are the
absolute worst in me experiance.)
\_ The reason is that BMW is more of a performance
car. Things that you wouldn't try in another
car are easily done in a BMW and after
driving a while you know what the car can and
cannot do. My Lexus is an IS350, which is also
a performance car. Many Lexus drivers are
driving big sedans that do not handle well.
So, while it may look like BMW drivers are being
jerks and driving recklessly, we are actually
pretty safe, although we sometimes get
annoyed at people in cars who cannot keep up.
--bmw asshole
P.S. I find Pious, er Prius drivers to be the
worst and their expressions are so smug I
want to beat them to death with their own
entrails.
\- supposedly the prius problem is they are
spending too much time looking at those
meters that have nothing to do with driving.
and supposedly some also try to spend time
"optimizing" ... although i kida wonder on
short blocks if some manual transmission
drivers drive annoyingly slowly between
stops to avoud shifting ... like i'll just
drive at 20mph.
stops to avoud shifting ... like just
driving at 20mph.
BTW, i think the reason BMW have a higher
proportion of asshole drivers is they market
to supposedly "serious" drivers ... which
is not who say lexus markets to.
And i think it is worth distinguishing between
And a think it is worth distinguishing between
aggressive and asshole driving. asshole is:
not signaling lane changes, tailgating without
a good reason, like in heavy traffic, cutting
people off, not letting people into a lane
when they have been perfectly reasonable [not
like somebody freeriding a merge]. i drive
quite aggressively but i singal lane changes,
dont cut in front of people because i have a
low accelleration car. i dont t'gate unless
somebody is driving slowly in the fast lane,
in which i will do all kinds of things to them
except flash my lights (tgate, weave, pass
on right, glare at them while passing, cut
them off after passing, slam on brakes after
cutting off after passing (depends on how
obnoxious they were)). i do much less of this
when driving with other people in the car
because if you have to allocate part of your
brain to having a conversation, you should get
out of the fast lane and just drive ambient
traffic speed.
i dont tailgate unless somebody is driving
slowly in the fast lane, in which i will do
all kinds of things to them except flash my
lights (tailgate, weave, pass on right, glare
at them while passing, cut them off after
passing, slam on brakes after cutting off after
passing (depends on how obnoxious they were)).
i also dont cut in front of people because
i have a low accelleration car.
\_ Care to give an example of a thing that is
"easily done" in a BMW that you wouldn't
try in another car? I like BMWs and all but
the reality is that on public roads, whatever
maneuvers you may do are probably illegal or
dangerous, especially a freeway situation
like we're probably thinking about when we
think of asshole drivers. Darting into spaces
between cars isn't safe; you're getting into
people's buffer zones, and if other people
made sudden moves like that you could get
screwed.
\_ Merging, taking turns faster, stopping more
quickly, accelerating faster (e.g. when
getting on the freeway). In my old Nissan I
felt afraid going more than 60 and the
handling was terrible. I feel my car
has helped me avoid accidents I could
not have avoided in my Nissan or Honda.
When you're on a winding road and a BMW
whooshes by you it's not that the guy
is unsafe or an asshole. It's that his
car can actually do it. What annoys me
is people who drive their old Datsun
like it was a Porsche.
\_ Merging onto freeways quickly won't
generally make people think you're
an asshole. It's more the tailgating,
cutting off, not letting you merge etc.
\_ Can't say I do any of that except
maybe tailgate when there's a
person driving 45 in the fast lane.
\_ You haven't cited a single example of
something that's safe in a BMW, but
unsafe in a typical Nissan sedan. In
your example of a BMW whooshing by on a
winding road, no the BMW driver is not
being safe. Any time you drive
substantially faster than surrounding
traffic, you are not driving safely.
\_ I drive an Audi TT and do a lot of
maneuvering I wouldn't have tried in our
Jeep in Chile or with my dad's VW
Passat station wagon. It accelerates
and brakes very precisely, holds the
roads well in curves, and generally
gives me more control, say, a family
sedan. I know what I can and can't do
in it, and hence tend to cut my
tolerances closer when, merging or
slowing down behind people in front
(which can be taken as tailgating.) It
gets really dangerous when some asshole
becomes huffy that you passed him and
starts trying to prove something. -John
\_ In general, I think there are limited resources in the world and
that if we don't collectively reduce our usage of them, we risk
environmental degredation or perhaps even collapse. So I try to
tread lightly on the earth. There is also the notion of "Live simply
so that other's can simply live" which is to say that my increased
consumption of gasoline would tend to raise the price for those
who actually need it more than me. Individually, these actions
have no effect, but collectively they can be very strong. I don't
actually "hate" SUVs, and I think there are rare situations when
they are appropriate (say, you and your large family live on
an unpaved mountain road) but I do strongly disapprove of people
who are wasteful in general.
\_ Not all liberals are smart. The fundamental issues are 1.
reduce consumption per capita, and 2. have no more than 2 children
per household. Car is by far least energy efficient mean of
transportation. If you think of it. it's about 2000 pound vehicle
design to transport 200 pound cargo. this means more than 90% of
energy is used just to carry itself. SUV is worse; Hybrid is
fundamentally more efficient than what we got on the table, albeit
it is not a miracle. I don't have issue with SUV driver per se,
but I have serious issue with our current law, which as it is
right now, classifies SUV as a "secondary vehicle" thus does not
have the same emission and safety standard as regular passenger
cars. Again, I am a "conservative" in a sense that I belive in
market solution. This means I 1. oppose any relaxation on refinary
/ coal fire power plant's emission/exhaust gas 2. oppose any
tax break on oil exploration 3. oppose any royalty-free deal that
extract fuels out of federal land and 4. oppose any subsidies in
so-called bio-disel 5. oppose any tariff on ethanol from Brazil
(currently run at 18%). By enforcing emission and environment
standard on oil refinary and removing any subsidies from gas
exploration, price of gas will be no longer aribitarily low.
When gas is $8-10 dollar a gallon, people will find way to conserve
energy consumption. The beauty of it is that all sort of
alternative energy/transportation innovation will mushroom. And
people will get rid of their SUVs, 4000 pound Lexus, and other
fuel-inefficient cars and reduce the energy consumption.
\_ Isn't it amazing that modesty, thrift and temperance are now
considered "liberal" values?
\_ There was a time when compassionate toward the poor and
needy is considered as a Christian values too...
\_ Still is, the difference is, Christians want to actually
help, not just feel good about themselves. Government
social programs often make things worse.
\_ Yeah, and charities have no shortage of volunteers and
monetary support, what with 82% of the country being
Christian. Yup, good ol' Christian generosity will
fix all our social ills. Fuck off.
\_ We've had decades of welfare programs and no shortage
of social ills. Fuck off. (Besides, who are these
people suffering from a charity shortage?) -!ppp
\_ If Christians really had this level of moral
sophistication they wouldn't need to posit a
'kindergarden universe' where you get spanked eternally
if you are bad.
\_ The underlying philosophy has little to do with
daily living and enactment of core teaching and
beliefs but if it makes you feel better to think
all Christians are childishly unsophisticated
regarding their moral systems then it is still
mostly a free country. I prefer not to denegrate
an entire class of people based on their harmless
belief in fairy tales that tell them to be good
to other people. --Atheist
\_ me too, but I have serious problem with
the fact that federal dollars can go to these
religious organizations, and these organizations
then turn around discriminate against people of
different faith. |
http://csua.com/feed/