TheAgitator.com
SUVs, Again
Wednesday, February 19th, 2003Jesse Walker has a nice appreciation for Johnny Paycheck, now that the honky-tonk legend has cashed his last.
On a completely unrelated note, Jesse also cites this nod to SUV drivers, who have apparently been doing nice things for people since Mother Nature’s terrorist attack last weekend (I also pilfered this little nugget for the Cato site).
Civil, neighborly-minded SUV drivers has definitely not been my experience this week. Frankly, I’ve found SUV drivers to be every bit the bastards they were before the snow hit.
Twice yesterday, for example, I was precariously inching down my snow-caked road, which had been plowed, but was down to just one lane. Twice I was approached by an oncoming, four-wheel-drive, off-roadin’, high-traction, big-tired SUV. And twice the sumbitch driving the truck refused to yield the road, forcing me and my sporty, no-traction, warm-weather-only Alero to climb atop a small snowbank on the side of the road so as to make way for His Asswipeness. One guy even shook his fist at me for not yielding the road sooner. How silly of me! He, after all, was driving an Ess-You-Vee.
Grrr.
I’ve also found them constantly riding my ass over the past three days, apparently annoyed that my caution (and I tend to drive fairly fast) on iced-over roads was impeding their want to flaunt the speed limit with their two-plus tons and all-wheel-drive — thus throwing tarry, slushy wheel-grime on the windshields of the civilized driving public.
Forget oil. If Arianna Huffington could prove our reliance on the Middle East for wiper fluid, she’d have my vote to ban them in a week (I’m joking. But only a little).
I repeat. I’ll never, ever own one of those things.
To redeem my libertarian-ness, I’ll link to this piece by Jerry Taylor, another admitedly well-argued defense of the damned things.
yeah I get the same thing alot up here. I’ve been tooling around in a nissan sentra…not the best snowmobile around. I didn’t want to get a gas guzzling SUV, but that car was not cutting it up here in Erie. So I compromised and got a Subaru Forester. It’s basically a car. but I can now drive in the snow with no worries. and my gas bill isn’t much worse than before.
Dude! It’s “flout” you want, not “flaunt.” But you must have found Tuesday’s stories of _overturned_ SUVs pretty satisfying. At least a half dozen of them hit snowbanks and flipped.
it’s not the suv’s faults that their drivers are assholes, when their popularity wears off those assholes will be driving whatever is in style then
Tony is right. It’s not the SUV’s that are running Radley off the road. Vehicles don’t drive themselves. It’s the ass clown driving it.
Where does Arianna Huffington get off? Who the fuck is she to tell me what I can and cannot drive. I thought that was consumer freedom?
C’mon Radley - who do you define as the “civilized driving public”?
Just because a vehicle is bigger than yours does not make it, or it’s driver for that matter, uncivilized.
I see plenty of uncivilized drivers of all sizes, sexes, races and ages every single day. Me and my SUV were cut off in traffic this morning by a teenager in a BMW. So who should I go off on? All teenagers? All BMW drivers? All moron parents who buy their teenagers expensive cars? Take your pick…
I agree that it’s not just the SUV drivers that are asswipes when it comes to driving in the snow, or rain, or even on dry pavement for that matter. Although, like Radley, the asswipes that I have happened to come in contact with the last few days have been in SUV’s. Honks and fingers because I must wait for a car to make a turn before I can pass, since my Accord will get stuck in a drift if I don’t, yells because I also cannot drive into a drift to let the Escalade, Trooper, Explorer or 4 Runner pass first. At least in this time of remaining snow on the ground, the other non-snow driving cars I’ve encountered have been a little more understanding. Or rather the DRIVERS have been a little more understanding. Asswipes come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and drive cars of the like. But there is definitely a reason why a lot of people tend to believe SUV drivers hedge the market on asswipedness…
SUV and truck drivers are not all inconsiderate assholes, but there are enough of them out there to make me fairly hostile towards them.
My main complaint is the attitude they eminate of, “You better get out of my way, since I can eff you up if you don’t.” It doesn’t help that so many of the larger SUVs have huge blind spots.
Arianna Huffington is chauffered around in a “light truck.” ‘Nuff said.
Many who drive SUVs, my wife among them, feel they’ve been forced into the vehicles by general road obnoxiousness and the proliferation of SUVs.
Seeing around the SUV in front of you is quite difficult if you’re driving a conventional sedan…or the little sports bug my wife drove before I bought her an SUV. And of course, all other things being equal, SUVs are safer vehicles to be in, should someone else crash into you.
Myself, I prefer my Chrysler 300M, but then, I’ve always felt that speed and agility were better defenses than the thickest armor: when an accident occurs, they allow you to be somewhere else!
To the SUV or should I say ASS-UV wo pulled out of Amboy bank on Forsgate drive in Monroe and cutting me off, you are a self centered, pompous, asshole son of a bitch, who should`nt be driving a vehicle of ANY kind in the first place! 326-04
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