To irrationally resent SUVs ?

[SavoirFlair]

For those who have impossibly avoided the term, I’m talking about “fake 4x4s.”

A car that would have been a hatchback a dozen years ago, but is now wider, higher up, with fake 4x4 styling (flared wheel arches, roof rails, big plastic moulding).

I can’t stand them.

As someone who has owned two generations of Range Rovers when we lived off a track a mile or so from the main road, I realise people are free to lob back at me. but those cars had a purpose. We wanted to be comfortable; but we absolutely needed the traction and clearance that vehicle gave us.

Does anyone need what a Grandland X offers? A Mokka? (Jesus save me from that awful car. Worst on sale today - just buy a Corsa and stop being previous). Who needs a Sportage or a Qashqai? (the hallmarks of the aspiring, when years ago a Focus or a Golf would have done just fine).

The worst offenders for me are actually the so called luxury ones. BMW X5 is an abomination - can’t do anything off road, is massively wide on road, and two mums at our school park terribly with them and block the road for the other direction.

And that’s the thing - a large segment of folk who own them, can’t drive them properly. I go to the hospital car park twice weekly with my DD. If someone is careless (often are) and parks close to or on the white line… renders the next space completely useless. Which when hunting for the one or two spaces available for my vulnerable DD, can be infuriating.

We don’t need these things, but I get people love them for

• being “high up” (still doesn’t make the drivers any better at driving)

• Being “high up” to load DCs and allow elderly parents to get in and out without bending back

• some of them have a big boot

Ok, but my answer to all these three is..

an MPV. Cars like the Ford Galaxy, S Max, Touran, Alhambra - all high up seating, easy to get in and out of, massive boots.

But no.. the truth is fashion. Why buy a Corsa when you have a jacked up version. Why buy a 5 series when you can have an X5 and dominate the school run.

Meanwhile the greater fuel consumption, the materials cost to make the thing …

AIBU to irrationally hate these stupid wide massive things?

Don’t have any beef with them. I had a Toyota RAV4 for six years many years ago - maybe the best car I’ve ever had. Couldn’t afford the petrol now though.

One small gripe now is trying to reverse out of a parking space when surrounded by them - can’t see a thing!

YABU to HATE them. YABU to not accept other people like them, particularly since you've listed a few reasons
YANU to be irritated by poor driving and/or pollution

no one is so clueless that they would overlook the entire sense of the post just to focus on the size of my car.

I'm still trying to find the sense of the post tbh

As someone who finds the size of them the primary issue I do think your argument is undermined by heading the biggest car in the whole thread 😅

You can have the 2 best drivers in the world and it doesn't make your vehicle smaller, someone's still got to do a crappy maneuver to enable passing in many situations.

People rocking round in cars they won't drive up a bank are more annoying in a rural setting, not such an issue in London though

This is actually brilliant. You drive a larger car than most of the cars you're complaining about while simultaneously lecturing about the cumulative impact of slightly-less-large-cars-than yours on the road.

Where in the world did you get envy or class from? I'm pointing out that you're being pretty stupid in some of your arguments. Stupidity transcends class or cash.

I'm exasperated with anyone who can't reverse a couple of hundred yards. I've seen all kinds of drivers of all kinds of cars in both tight urban streets and narrow rural lanes who can't, or won't, reverse decently. Some drive SUVs (and increasing number, in line with the increasing number on the roads), some drive tiny hatchbacks, a disproportionate number seem to drive vans and object to moving for a woman.

Regardless, bad drivers are irritating. But bitching about the width of cars while driving a very wide car is, objectively, hilarious. That's my 'observed experience.' It's real.

Wait, so your big car is completely irrelevant to all this. It’s all the other big cars that are the issue? You get funnier with every reply 😂

I mean I got my qashqai after my Mazda got wrecked driving down rough tracks and country lanes (to get to horses) the qashqai gave me the extra ground clearance I needed

Oh right so basically it's everyone elses fault on the road, so let me guess your one of those that will refuse to pull anywhere near the side of the road in case you get your previous extra wide car dirty or touch some brambles at the side.

I see it all the time there is entry of room for two cars too squeeze past but the one who thinks there better than anyone else will sit a couple of feet from the edge for fear of getting it dirty and blame all the other drivers.

If other drivers can't reverse in their SUVs because there shit, why don't you reverse then instead. This thread strikes me as some one who thinks there better than everyone else and they should not be on the road.

As for saying people can't handle SUVs many of them have far more driving and parking assist features than cheaper cars, so actually these people are better off driving these SUV's.

But bitching about the width of cars while driving a very wide car is, objectively, hilarious.

Because that’s what you took from my post… I can’t argue a nuanced point to someone who’s looking for drama or hilarity.

You must struggle with Mumsnet in general.

Yeah, I took the massive hypocrisy of citing width as one of the issues you have with these cars while driving one of those cars yourself as one of the takeaways from your posts. Particularly when you doubled down on it.

We get it, we get it. You're special, and an excellent driver. Gold star!

Oh god @rumship let me go point by point

Oh right so basically it's everyone elses fault on the road

no..

so let me guess your one of those that will refuse to pull anywhere near the side of the road in case you get your previous extra wide car dirty or touch some brambles at the side.

no!! I always reverse when I can see someone who is completely refusing to. The problem is, if you’ve got a person who has a perfectly good space 200-400 ft behind them, but refuses to reverse, and yet I and the three cars behind me have to reverse three or four times the distance…. How can that be fair?!

as for brambles, I couldn’t give a shit. My car is literally beige in colour - it’s a tool - I don’t care. it’s not leased, I don’t owe anyone a handover description.

I see it all the time there is entry of room for two cars too squeeze past but the one who thinks there better than anyone else will sit a couple of feet from the edge for fear of getting it dirty and blame all the other drivers.

haha and you presume that’s me?? I’m the one going back 8-10 car lengths while the Grandland X or whatever silly thing is there, is gesturing furiously while sitting in the middle of the road. I’ve been reversing since I was 18, down country lanes. Three decades worth. I’m fine thanks.

If other drivers can't reverse in their SUVs because there shit, why don't you reverse then instead. This thread strikes me as some one who thinks there better than everyone else and they should not be on the road.

Just read the above and stop jumping to conclusions

As for saying people can't handle SUVs many of them have far more driving and parking assist features than cheaper cars, so actually these people are better off driving these SUV's.

these things aren’t always on for every manoeuvre and doesn’t seem to help the vast majority of folk who I encounter. But thanks for the patronising info.

@SavoirFlair

You don't have a point though. I must admit I'm surprised you came back after the width embarrassment.

No I’m not a special driver.

I’m just a driver who is exasperated by others who think they’re special for driving a wide and high car and who then can’t do basic manoeuvres.

Others have said exactly the same on this thread, and aired identical frustrations, yet they haven’t outed themselves as owning a so-called expensive car, so they’re not getting flamed for it

I get the feeling if I owned a Corsa-E or a Nissan Leaf, I’d be getting a much easier time of it (fine cars both but you get what I mean).

This thread is actually turning hilarious.

so if you own a wide car, you can’t criticise how the increase in wide cars being fashionable has exacerbated driving issues for people who are shit at driving.

This point cannot be made.. because you have a wide car.

I guess therefore if someone comes on Mumsnet and says “I am fat but I think the ubiquity of processed foods has led to us being an obese nation” we all know that every single poster will do nothing else but jump on the “I’m fat” admission and use it as a chance to invalidate everything the OP has to say on the issue.

Such a fucking waste of time making any nuanced argument on this forum.. it’s just a bear pit for folk to get personal to rubbish anything reasonable the OP is saying.

Others have said exactly the same on this thread, and aired identical frustrations, yet they haven’t outed themselves as owning a so-called expensive car, so they’re not getting flamed for it

Time to work on your comprehension again. It's not because it's expensive, it's because it's massive.

I get the feeling if I owned a Corsa-E or a Nissan Leaf, I’d be getting a much easier time of it (fine cars both but you get what I mean).

You would be getting a much easier time of it. Not because those cars are cheaper but because they're little.

Littler, anyway. The Leav isn't as narrow as I'd assumed.

Ah @JassyRadlett so once again, you’ve fallen into the fallacy that if a person has a characteristic that is similar to the thing they’re criticising or examining, then they are unable to even speak on it .

Me driving a wide car , is not the reason why the X5 owner on our school run can’t reverse ever.

One day she’ll encounter a Nisa foods lorry, or a fire engine. Or anything else fucking wide and massive. Are they also not allowed to comment on her complete inability to reverse, because their commercial situation means they have to drive something wide?

Should they get out into their personal vehicle, go back to the scenario, and then they can comment on how stupid people who buy cars too big for them, are becoming a pain?

I despair.. exhibit #78 of why philosophical logic should be mandatory in schools

You're able to speak on it. Just be ready to have people point out that you are, in fact, part of the problem that you're bemoaning - ever larger cars taking up ever larger amounts of space on our roads. You prefer to see yourself not as part of the problem by dividing 'larger cars' into subcategories that fit your desired conclusion, while still relying on the wider 'too many large cars are a problem if too many people drive them' argument.

If you're going to talk about logical fallacies you should (a) check what they mean and (b) check if they're applicable and (c) have a wee peek whether there are any in your own argument. Mind projection and suppressed correlative are two that leap to the eye.

Dinner time now! Thanks for the interaction.

I sort of get why you hate the actual fake SUVs, I’ve always thought they were a bit pointless with a massively underpowered engine, it seems like people buy them just for show.

I have one of the models you mention but it’s an actual AWD and I use it to tow my horse trailer.
I think you are being unreasonable for your hatred or cars like the Vauxhall Mokka, whilst they are not to my taste at all, they aren’t really that big and are useful for people who need the ease of being higher up for whatever reason.

Me driving a wide car , is not the reason why the X5 owner on our school run can’t reverse ever.

Remind me - which logical fallacy is it when you suggest that the reason the driver of the X5 can't reverse is because they own an X5? Would she be better at reversing in an estate, or would it just bother you less?

Is that you Jeremy Clarkson? 🤣

I've had two MPVs, including my current car. If I could get a reasonably priced, electric MPV I would absolutely buy one. As I can't, I've ordered a Niro EV, which has just been restyled as a small-ish SUV. I'm not looking forward to parking it!

Just got a Renault captur so evidently I'm a fan of these SUVs.

Makes putting DC in seat a lot easier than the Corsa we had previously.

Conversely it's also a smaller engine (0.9L) so more economical than the Corsa (1.4L) I sold.

The only regular parking problems on our narrow London street with no driveways is the driver of a Mazda 3 who sees parking within any distance of the kerb as an optional extra, and the one estate that the rest of us stare balefully at when it renders one nominal parking space unusable due to its length.

Yanbu or irrational. They are ridiculous.