To not understand the obsession with SUVs/4x4s?

[GinDaddy]

I'm genuinely curious to hear people's views below. Nearly every parent I know in my area has a 4x4 car of some sort. That's dozens of folk. The car parks at our local supermarket are covered in the things.

My AIBU is to ask, what is the obsession with these things? Why are they the "default" choice for parents now, considering so many folk can't park them properly, and our roads aren't set up for them?

I watched in amused horror yesterday as a lady with a Vauxhall Grandland X (yep...me neither) tried to park head-first in a bay in our local supermarket. The width of the thing was the issue, but once "parked", the rear of the car was practically touching the front of the neighbouring vehicle.

It was just absurd. Why is this car any better than an Astra estate, or in the same price category, a Skoda Octavia estate, both of which are narrower and better on fuel, and the Skoda which has extraordinary amounts of luggage capacity and legroom?

I think the answer is simple, it's an image thing. People feel their life is more exciting with DCs if they're in something that looks like it could climb a mountain at the weekend.

Only problem is, my DW and I find public car parks absurd at the moment as I find more and more of these hideous things parked terribly at every juncture.

The beauty of living in a capitalist economy is the prerogative of choice, helped by dollops of PCP finance handed out by every car dealer, meaning anyone can get into a boxy car on stilts.

But for goodness sake can people learn how to drive and park these things if they're going to be bought by everyone? Driving down streets with parked cars on either side is a game of "my car is bigger than yours, so move over", which is just embarrassing.

NOTE: I have no issues with envy here; we have a 6-year old estate car from a well known Bavarian marque with a three letter acronym. I don't ride 2mm off people's bumpers, and it serves our family's needs well.

W0rriedMum

Oh, I love the idea of having another driving licence class for extra wide cars/4x4s!

A lot of them do drive straight at you, expecting everyone else to give way to them, even when you have right of way. I guess sitting up so high they feel invincible, and drive like it.
Also, I can't be the only one to notice that on a narrow road, it's always the 4x4s who fail to give anyone else room. They so often speed at you a couple of feet from the kerb on their side, forcing you to slow down and track centimetres from the kerb on your side. I guess being so high up they can have a very poor sense of road positioning.

My observation is that a lot of people driving overly big cars are enormously fat and either wouldn't fit into, or feel like they wouldn't fit into, a normal-sized car.

The use of "4x4" is ignorant though. 4x4 does not equal gas guzzler or large and menacing vehicle. You can get a 4x4 Fiat 500.

We have an X-trail and the main reasons for getting it was because I get car sick due to the windy roads here so feel better being up higher (and safer) and we planned on having three kids. It made more sense to just get a bigger car than having to do so afterwards. Plus, got a great deal on it with all the bells and whistles. My husband works in London which is about an hour drive and also drives to the airport so he doesn’t have to taxi back. We go up North 5-8 times a year so it does get a lot of miles on it quickly.

You could also move away from your affluent area if you don’t want to see so many

Yesterday I saw very few as a percentage of cars on the road in clearly unafluent Beaconsfield (where the houses in the estate agent's window I walked past were being advertised at two million quid and rising). Of the seven battlewagons I saw in the first hundred cars that went by on that road, six were Range Rovers. The only one parked in the Waitrose carpark was a Range Rover, too. Maybe they are the big car of choice for the truly wealthy, or something.

About the thing a few pages back about there being more accidents before the SUV: it is true that the highest recorded peacetime fatality rate on the roads was 7,985 in 1966 and it has been falling ever since in spite of the SUV not existing during the rapid fall to 1980 (5,953), but this century it's not all that clear-cut:

In 2010, there were 1,847 deaths on the UK roads, and 20,803 people seriously injured.
In 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available, the figures were 1,782 killed and 25,484 seriously injured.
So deaths have fallen but serious injuries have risen, during this decade. In 2011, pedestrian fatalities increased by 12%, and I have no idea what to make of that except that I doubt that pedestrians suddenly became that much more reckless and careless..

(Motorways are still the safest places to drive per mile travelled, and motorways in the UK are the safest in Europe.)

The only obsession with SUVs is on the part of those who apparently spend their time compiling bullet points to contribute to threads like this.

However flashy and ostentatious are exactly the words you'd use to describe an SUV or 4x4 with shiny paintwork that's never seen a mud track or had a tow bar attached

You would not hear those words used anywhere but Britain.

The class system truly is a poison. How can people go around paying such attention to other people's lives? And indulging in such mean spirited judging of other people's taste? And apparently feeling completely justified in this appalling habit of mind...

Ok, instead of flashy and ostentatious why don't we say greedy and selfish?

And ostentatious consumption in a country that's suffering more and more from grotesque inequality is not a class issue but a human one.

So we don’t care about the emissions, no?

Also, I can't be the only one to notice that on a narrow road, it's always the 4x4s who fail to give anyone else room. They so often speed at you a couple of feet from the kerb on their side, forcing you to slow down and track centimetres from the kerb on your side. I guess being so high up they can have a very poor sense of road positioning

My mum would agree with you. Twice in the last three years she has been more or less pushed off the road on country lanes by 4 x 4s and both times her tyres have been damaged. Of course they drive off without a care in the world and she only finds out after they've disappeared :( I told her in future just to stop, and make them get over to get past her.

I honestly feel like the only mum in the world who drives a small car

The largest car we've had in nearly 17 years of being parents has been Ford Focus size. You are not alone :)

The problem I found with little cars and even most estates is fitting 3 children in car seats in, most cars don't have full size sits for the 3rd one.

It's fine if you never go out as a family and can sit one child in the front although not ideal. As we did want to do out all together we've got a 7 seater.

I'm even worse than a 4x4 driver I have a van based car 🤫 which means it's very wide and long. I think the design team must have been obsessed with post man pat, see the pictures for the evidence. Although they are cheap at £22-26K new so maybe I'm good cause that can't be called ostentatious compared to an 60-90k 4x4.

I’m not sure the issue is the 4x4 but you’re saying people that have them can’t handle them etc? I think that’s a general car problem and not unique to 4x4. We’ve all seem people in very small cars struggle to get into a parking space that you could get a submarine into. I have an old Land Rover and I can park it and handle it fine including getting it on my small drive, however a friend came over and couldn’t get her VW polo on my drive.

For the people saying 4x4 don’t give people any room on county roads, I find the opposite, my car has multiple scratches from me being forced into the hedge by smaller cars who’s drivers think they need twice as much room! Now I just pull over and stop and they still hit my wing mirror!

This isn’t a 4x4 issue, you get shit drivers of all vehicles.

One thing that does shame me though is when 4x4 drivers park across two parking spaces, they are definitely letting the side down, if you can’t handle the size of the car you shouldn’t get it!

We've got one and it's really nice because it fits all our children and all our stuff when we drive off on holiday or to stay with ppl.

Like you I was anti them til we got one, and now I love it. I also have a smaller car for shorter trips.

So we don’t care about the emissions, no?
Apparently not. And we're also not supposed to care about the carbon cost of building new shiny vehicles instead of keeping the older ones running.

But then everyone knows eco-conscious people are just virtue-signalling and we all secretly eat veal roasted on rainforest charcoal ¯\(ツ)/¯

I recently got leant one for a couple of weeks while moving.
Omg I thought the same OP we live in a town and I used to joke about family’s clearly needing them to get up the local supermarkets slope to the upstairs car park.
Since driving one for a few weeks they are soooo much easier for a family. High up so young dc can see everything, wide and large inside so plenty of space everywhere, massive boot space, just everything was tons easier than our current family car which is not a small car by any means.

Apparently not. And we're also not supposed to care about the carbon cost of building new shiny vehicles instead of keeping the older ones running.

I am curious about this - how long should I run my car before it becomes more environmentally friendly to buy a new one that's more efficient?

And is there actually any environmental value in the fact that the Subaru factory that built my car is a zero-waste facility?

(I don't have an SUV by the way, I'm just curious.)

Good question - I think you have to know the emissions value and mileage per year of the car you're driving, the same for the car you're looking at, and the equivalent value of the production cost - including all the shipping - of the car you're looking at. Then you can decide that, say, 5 years would be the tipping point to run the new car for to outweigh the emissions of the old car. The comparison is going to be different for different cars - but I'm going out on a limb to suggest that there's never going to be a situation where buying or leasing a new car every year - or even every 3 years - is the green thing to do

"Zero waste" factories? Really? In any case they still use raw materials and energy to produce the cars.

We just sold our 16yo Focus and bought a 1yo Octavia, it is obviously much more fuel efficient with lower emissions - but we still didn't have to buy new. Buying nearly new is better for the environment and the bank balance.

Subaru factories have been zero water for over 15 years now.

I’ve got an SUV and love it. We have a young dd with a big pram and massive car seat so we needed the room. I’m not obsessed with it, it was a practical decision not one out of vanity

Honestly if I can make do with an estate then NOBODY in Britain needs an suv.

Leftie no, you didn't need it. Unless your DD's pram is also a wheelchair, you could easily have a smaller pram.

I had a tiny car until DD was 9. Could fit car seat, pram (from newborn all the way through), cot, high chair, luggage in it.

It's this nonsense that as soon as you have a child you must have a mahoosive car which adds to the fact that having DC is the worst thing you can do for our planet.

Wake up, people!!!

I have an Audi Q5. I got it because I do live in a town but surrounded by fast rural roads, I do a lot of driving along these roads with my kids and I’ve seen a fair few accidents. Generally your typical car has ended up in pieces, the suv’s Etc always come away a lot better. It’s a safety issue.

@CassianAndor quite. In these days if heightened awareness about climate change the sheer don't give a fuckness of people (who have kids to pass a world down to) shocks me.