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.

@bombomboobah

These are interesting ideas for sure.

The taxation system means you can buy anything you want, however harmful it is, because it's a flat rate, and then we get this nonsense of "if you buy a car over £40,000 in price, you have to pay way more tax" .

If we taxed according to a combination of CO2, particulates, fuel economy and emissions, you'd find a whole load of people economically forced out of certain choices and into more eco friendly vehicles.

The other option is to get rid of vehicle tax and incorporate it into the price of fuel - so people who use more fuel pay more as they go. That again would drive people to lower consumption/electric

To me it feels as if if I don't live in a place designed for the convenience of people rather I live in a place which is designed to accommodate cars and maximize the profits of all the industries associated with them
I feel as if vehicles are my overlords, everything bows down for them

@gindaddy

However the set of arguments we're ignoring here is that more wide large cars, sometimes (not always) piloted by poor drivers, means there's a larger chance of accidents, silly car park scrapes, people being blocked in, poor parking outside school gates, silly situations on narrow roads where SUV driver refuses to reverse..

Really? I'd love a link to your source of info... to add to that, all the incidents you list can be caused by drivers of smaller cars too. In my 25 years of driving 4x4, I've never scraped another car, refused to reverse, parked outside a school etc.

An SUV will cause more wear to the roads due to its weight, which is unnecessary if it's not being used off road or as a towing vehicle.

Question - does my 4x4 do more damage to the road doing 10k miles a year, than a Focus doing 30k miles?

@Shmithecat2

You already know the answer to your question in terms of a high mileage Focus.

But what if the Focuses (focii? haha) are slowly becoming replaced by Ford Edge and Kugas, some of them doing high mileages?

This is what is actually happening. SUVs number a third of cars in the UK and are growing as the fastest sector. More fuel efficient, compact vehicles are being traded in for larger, heavier cars at a time when we're looking at the economic and climate impact of motoring.

So no your 4x4 doesn't do as much damage in direct comparison to that one Focus.

But if each year 20-30% of those hatchbacks are being traded in for newer SUV types, and they do decent mileages...

@allthethings

Shmithecat2If you're able to buy and insure a 4X4 SUV for your 17 year old then you clearly have a different income bracket and priorities to the majority of the country.

And? Is that something else I should self-flagellate over, additional to my 4x4 owning?

A 17 year old male driving an SUV?shudder

A 17 yo child of either sex learning to drive in something not much bigger than a baked bean can on wheels makes me shudder more.

gin fwiw dsd’s own car is tiny. Simply because she doesn’t personally need to own a big luxury car as a student and has access to bigger vehicles should she need one. So I don’t have any objection to anyone choosing a smaller vehicle to learn in. I’ll admit most people don’t have private land and a range of vehicles to teach dc in. And I certainly wouldn’t be allowing any 17yr old to have their first driving experience in my very powerful car on rural roads.

I’m just refuting the assumption it’s somehow more dangerous, or more selfish than some numpty that passed their test 15 yrs ago in a corsa and rarely drives any distance, with very little improvement since, driving around in a medium size hatchback.

I also think most posters are guilty of confirmation bias. I went through a week where muppets in a certain make of tiny car kept using the outside lane everywhere, despite the fact both their speed and acceleration was matched to the inside lane. Prior to that, every crappy parker appeared to drive a different make of small car. Last week, it was arseholes in a certain model of luxury saloon assuming they had a god given right of way. But really it’s just coincidence, I notice two shit driving examples and then I’m more likely to remember the errors of anyone driving the same vehicle, rather than any other fool driving badly.

7/8yrs ago when I often had young dc riding on the road it genuinely was people carriers and tiny cars that were the worst culprits of dangerous driving round horses.

But essentially it isn’t the make and model that makes someone an incompetent or dangerous driver. If you’re crap, you’re crap in any vehicle.

bom and you’re willing to absorb all the extra costs that would create? So every haulage firm, trades vans, home delivery, mini bus hire etc putting their prices through the roof?

‘Deflecting’ or giving actual facts which contradict the assumptions behind one of the barbs directed at 4x4 drivers?

Yes, there are less safe cars around than mine. Some of those are SUVs/4x4s, plenty aren’t.

Some smaller cars give off more harmful emissions than some 4x4 engines.

Some smaller cars have terrible visibility (sports cars with long bonnets and small rear windscreens for example), making them a bigger ‘risk’ on the road due to observation issues (sticking out further at junctions, reverse parking etc).

Sure, 4x4’s aren’t a perfect solution but anyone driving a little car whilst polishing their halo and sneering at 4x4 drivers is misguided.

I have a Grandland X. I bought it as DH is 6'6'', DSD14 is 5'8'' and all bloody leg, and DSD8 is going the same way. We're TTC, and there's loads of space for a car seat and lanky children, even with DHs seat whacked right back. Can fit dogs in the boot too.

Used to have a small hatchback and DH used to have a company 4x4. His job changed and company car became a coupe, and I needed to change my car at the same time so here we are.

As a family we do lots of mileage (one DSD is 250 miles away) so can easily clock up 1000 miles every few weeks seeing her on top of my job and day-to-day life. Whoever is doing the mega miles uses the big, comfortable car.

I for one am looking forward to car free day on sunday

LiveInAHidingPlace

so you own two cars but think you can have a go at people in SUVs?
We only have the one. I'd say that about evens things out.

Why would you say that? We may well cover far fewer miles per year in both cars than you do in your one as we work 2-3 miles from where we live and use other transport means, and like I said, tend to use the small car for short journeys.

Shmithecat2 You don't seem capable of engaging in a very grown-up manner, I have a feeling if I said the sky were blue you would argue it is black. You are coming across as very defensive for someone who claims to absolutely need a Landrover discovery.

I don't care and I am not impressed by how much money you have to lavish on yourself and your child. I'm merely pointing out that the majority of parents in the UK won't have the money to buy and insure an SUV for their 17 year old. It's rather rude of you to belittle parents who let their children learn to drive in a normal small car.

@allthethings

You're the one that mentioned finances, not me

@allthethings

It's rather rude of you to belittle parents who let their children learn to drive in a normal small car.

But it's ok for you to be rude about people who drove 4x4s?

I haven't been rude at all. I've talked about them generally, I've particularly focused on safety for others on the road - that's my main concern.

bluebeck Not sure what part of the city you live in but you must be blinkered if you don’t see all the SUVs, MPVs, 4x4s, Range Rovers etc! The Merc GLC is a firm favourite with many here!

I drive one but it’s no wider or longer than a saloon or estate car. I can park perfectly well so no issues there (bad parking really drives me insane but it’s rife in all car sizes)
I like the higher driving position. I love the look of my car and the way it drives.

I guess it’s like anything OP. Why do people buy big houses when they don’t need them...is that just to show off 🤷🏻‍♀️ We all do or have things we want rather than need sometimes.

A 17 year old male driving an SUV?shudder

All of my DCs learned to drive using a combination of their high school's Chevy sedan fleet and the family vehicles. The first vehicle was a minivan (aka people mover) and the second was the SUV that I still drive. Both automatic.

Thanks to the excellent programme in school and the requirement that they got 50 hours of supervised driving under their belt after passing the rigorous test administered in school before presenting themselves at the DMV to get their licences, with the possibility of being spot checked at that point, they are all excellent drivers. DS got spot checked at the DMV and headed out with the examiner in the SUV, returning half an hour later having passed.
The school programme involved a semester of daily classes lasting 45 minutes.

ExH always drove a manual transmission car and the DCs also got a good deal of practice driving stick. DS managed to pull exH's car across three highway lanes to the hard shoulder when the car had a blowout in 65+mph traffic around age 17-18.

OP
However the set of arguments we're ignoring here is that more wide large cars, sometimes (not always) piloted by poor drivers, means there's a larger chance of accidents, silly car park scrapes, people being blocked in, poor parking outside school gates, silly situations on narrow roads where SUV driver refuses to reverse...

..and that can all happen no matter what tech a person's SUV has.

But that can all happen with poor driving in all other types of vehicle too, and I will take this opportunity to remind you that all other vehicles have grown heavier and wider since the 1960s when many car parks were painted.

I would love to know why it's a thing to park and walk one's child/ren into school. Nobody does the good old drop and run? Parents could not enter my DCs' school morning or afternoon. This encouraged dropping off as opposed to parking.

And why should it be the SUV driver who always has to reverse on a narrow road?

As for being happy that DCs are learning to drive in saloons or compact cars while also railing against (1) the fact that SUVs are the wave of the future, and (2) decrying poor driving by SUV drivers -

(1) Is there any cognitive dissonance there?

(2) And are there any links?

But I'd rather my DCs learned in something they can handle safely and correctly, and learn defensive driving techniques.

You do realise that none of that is ruled out in a SUV or 4x4, right?

Defensive driving is a mindset and a general approach to driving btw, not a set of techniques.

Well I wish I'd read that before reading economics at university, could have saved myself thousands of pounds of bother once I knew I don't ever have to understand why people make economic choices in life

If you have the means of figuring out the answers to the questions swirling around in your head wrt 4x4 ownership/choices in life, why post a thread inviting answers?

And if you are truly only concerned about the economic rationale then why all the snootiness and snideness?

"Why would you say that? We may well cover far fewer miles per year in both cars than you do in your one as we work 2-3 miles from where we live and use other transport means, and like I said, tend to use the small car for short journeys."

But that's exactly the point. You can't judge. We use our car about once a week and I didn't learn to drive til I was 40. There are thousands of factors you have to take into consideration, to the point where judging an individual on their choices becomes meaningless.

It's hardly reverse snobbery why most people on here are objecting to the rise of these huge vehicles. Most people, like me, are bothered about how safe our roads are. Anyone who owns an Suv knows they make everyone else on the roads less safe because they'd lose in a 2 car collision, and pedestrians and cyclists less safe because the reduce their visibility. In yet people still buy them because they want to be part of the crowd, they put their own image over the common good. Not eveyone before the horse owning brigade jump in, but those who live in urban environments who could easily find a shorter, lighter car to get from A to B.
allthethings

How about the people who have more than two children under age 12...
You can't strap children onto the roof rack or stow them in the boot any more.

Stay back from a car that you can't see around. Don't fret about someone else cutting in.

And watch your own driving instead of getting all hot under the collar about other users of the road. You are responsible for your own driving decisions, and nobody else's.

If the roads are so crowded, why are people signing their children up for organised activities that require ferrying about all afternoon and on weekends? No doubt you carpool like crazy. (And maybe when someone else is driving your DCs to their practices and music lessons and matches, you feel a little more at ease when you see they are being safely buckled into a 4x4?)

You are so sure 4x4 ownership is about image, and that the people who own 4x4s are cutthroats who have calculated their survival chances on the roads and levied their purchasing power accordingly.

Tall poppy syndrome alive and well, I'm afraid.

But that's exactly the point. You can't judge. We use our car about once a week and I didn't learn to drive til I was 40. There are thousands of factors you have to take into consideration, to the point where judging an individual on their choices becomes meaningless

Again, I'm judging collectively. I'm judging the huge rise of large, and I mean wide and tall, vehicles clogging up the urban environment. If it weren't a nuisance, no-one would have noticed them in the first place. Yes, people carriers used to be a nuisance but you could understand why people owned them. It was/is a matter of need if you had more than 2 children. Parents ended to use them until they needed them no more. Old people, non-parents, parents with 1 child, dog owners, 17 year olds tended not to use them. There weren't that many on the road. The suv is being marketed to and bought by a larger market. I find them antisocial. That's my opinion. It doesn't matter that other people park badly, the impact of a bulky vehicle parking badly is greater. No-one here has addressed the issues with visibility. 3 facts. Other cars can't see round them at junctions or to pull out of spaces when parallel parked . Bikes are less safe alibgside them at junctions and roundabouts, pedestrians are less safe not being able to see round them to cross the road. Fill the roads with these vehicles and the roads are less safe for a lot of people.

Yes, some of you might need one. I get that. But no-one has said, 'I really need one, but I don't like how popular they're becoming with those who don't need them' Instead it's defend and deflect.

And you sure don't need them in the city and you sure wont need them on sunday cos its car free day - bliss