Ban SUVs

photonic69

tangled_metal said:

4x4 without winter tyres isn't much better than 2wd without winter tyres in snow.

Auto car put a YouTube on where they tested summer and winter tyres on 2wd and 4wd versions of the same suv going up a ski centre slope. The only options to get far up the slope were 4wd and 2wd with winter tyres. The same cars with 2wd tyres didn't get any further than each other. Well the 4wd got a few metres further then slid back to below where the 2wd had stopped iirc.

So all your torque and 4x4 isn't the best solution to snow. It's the right tyres. Just had to point out the bleeding obvious.

PS my old astra estate got me home through the Lakeland snow one Sunday evening after a heavy fall. Skinny summer tyres and nowhere near 600nm of torque. I did drive past xtrails and land cruisers with big off road tyres and 4x4 low range etc. Took 3 times as long because I am cautious in snow and blizzard conditions but at no point did I feel it was struggling or would let me down.

haha! Yes! My mate is German so he always has winter tyres as he's used to fitting them. We've had he best fun on the Salisbury Plain in the snow in a little Fabia with winter snow and mud tyres. Driving across fields, crashing through snow drifts, trying to drive along bridal ways and getting stuck (it was very rutted). The look of disbelief on walker's faces as we drove past them as they were getting out of their 4x4's parked safely on the cleared road tracks. No one 'needs' a lifestyle car except to massage their own vanity....

pblakeney

tangled_metal said:

4x4 without winter tyres isn't much better than 2wd without winter tyres in snow.

Auto car put a YouTube on where they tested summer and winter tyres on 2wd and 4wd versions of the same suv going up a ski centre slope. The only options to get far up the slope were 4wd and 2wd with winter tyres. The same cars with 2wd tyres didn't get any further than each other. Well the 4wd got a few metres further then slid back to below where the 2wd had stopped iirc.

So all your torque and 4x4 isn't the best solution to snow. It's the right tyres. Just had to point out the bleeding obvious.

PS my old astra estate got me home through the Lakeland snow one Sunday evening after a heavy fall. Skinny summer tyres and nowhere near 600nm of torque. I did drive past xtrails and land cruisers with big off road tyres and 4x4 low range etc. Took 3 times as long because I am cautious in snow and blizzard conditions but at no point did I feel it was struggling or would let me down.

I did have a right old laugh the time I passed a guy slip sliding away on snow in his Range Rover Sport on low profile summer tyres.

kingstongraham

StillGoing said:

It will comfortably go off-road when needed.

It will pull a load without issue thanks to the 600nm of torque.

These seem to be the only ones that you couldn't get without a proper car. If you live on a farm, then I think most people would say it's fair enough to own a farm vehicle.

Now updated.

StillGoing

Love the pinko reactions. Just off to do the school run in the Treg. Think I'll leave it idling.

kingstongraham

StillGoing said:

Love the pinko reactions. Just off to do the school run in the Treg. Think I'll leave it idling.

Do you live/work on a farm?

kingstongraham

Fair play to the car companies that can convince someone that giving them £40K+ of their own money for an oversized pig ugly machine is an efficient way of winding up pinkos. I really don't understand why people living in towns would want something that is too big externally for no internal advantage.

monkimark

It's pretty handy having half our village driving enormous SUVs, it means I can always find space outside the shop for my little hatchback as they sit waiting for a bus sized space to open up.

tangled_metal

I just drive my van. So it sticks out of a parking space. They're too small anyway so doesn't bother me.

Plus fun parking really close to the drivers side door of the nearby car knowing I can always get out easily from another door.

It's got plenty of dents already so any more doesn't bother us. If we find a parking space within empty spaces either side we tend to find them empty when we come back. Makes it easy to wheel round when coming out.

Plenty of other benefits to the van. Such as the 1.6 litre engine is more efficient for fuel and emissions than my old seat mpv car. At least 10mpg better in real time use. When we get it remapped it'll be even better.

Funny how we never get environmentalists sticking a pollution leaflet on it like they do with SUVs.

amrushton

kingstongraham said:

Fair play to the car companies that can convince someone that giving them £40K+ of their own money for an oversized pig ugly machine is an efficient way of winding up pinkos. I really don't understand why people living in towns would want something that is too big externally for no internal advantage.

noticed that Aston Martin have now launched an SUV. £185k+. thats the way the market is going - SUVs. Of course the bubble will burst - eventually

neeb

They're clearly completely inappropriate vehicles for cities. It's difficult to ban them outright in retrosopect of course now that they almost seem to comprise the majority vehicles on the road, although the question arises of how we allowed that to happen in the first place. The danger to pedestrians and other road users should have been enough to regulate against them a long time ago (before they became common), but that never happened. Are there any countries in the world where it did, I wonder? Evidence, if any were needed, of the malign power of global multinationals.

The best approach at this stage would be to gradually regulate them out of existence by making life increasingly difficult for them. Higher parking charges in towns, parking spaces for small cars only (with the percentage of these increasing year on year), a special extra-expensive SUV-specific category of vehicle excise duty. And if there's an SUV in the supermarket carpark overflowing the marked parking space, don't feel obliged to leave room for the driver's door to open when parking next to it..

bompington

neeb said:

They're clearly completely inappropriate vehicles for cities. ... Evidence, if any were needed, of the malign power of global multinationals.

Not everybody lives in cities. How do you avoid penalising drivers who have a valid use for them? Although the proliferation of monster truck-style pickups around here is a bit of a pain: bigger (and with higher and more dazzling headlights) than most SUVs. Fair enough for the farmers but I bet the vast majority of drivers would be better off with a Transit or, err, a car.

Anyway, I'd say the cause of their popularity is more the malign power of global idiocy.

navrig2

You cannot ban SUV's.

The process of creating a legally enforceable definition of an SUV would be a nightmare and would simply result in vehicle manufacturers designing the next round of SUV's to avoid the definition thus making them legal. It's a stupid suggestion.

I was coerced into getting a 2WD SUV by my wife simply because my mother in law would not get in and out of our estate car. I didn't want an SUV. We bought a Honda CR-V (1.6TDi) and it has saved us a fortune compared to the SAAB 95 1.9TDi.

The VED cost is £30.
Fuel consumption is probably 25% or more better.
Tyres last 30-40k miles which is twice as long as the SAAB.

The storage space is large and high which is brilliant. I can get my bike (wheels off) in the boot cross wise with the wheels in the little triangle formed by the sloping back seats and the bike and still get two suitcases in.

Compared to the SAAB the drive and ride quality is awful but it has slowed me down so the chance of getting a ticket is reduced.

neeb

navrig2 said:

You cannot ban SUV's.

The process of creating a legally enforceable definition of an SUV would be a nightmare and would simply result in vehicle manufacturers designing the next round of SUV's to avoid the definition thus making them legal. It's a stupid suggestion.

Obviously you can’t ban them because they are SUVs.. But you can legislate to make it highly undesirable to use cars over a certain width (for example) in cities without a commercial license (parking restrictions, camera enforced congestion style charges etc), and you can ban the sale of new vehicles that fail strict safety laws, especially for pedestrian collisions. If manufacturers design the next generation of SUVs to get around that, that’s a good thing.

neeb

bompington said:

Anyway, I'd say the cause of their popularity is more the malign power of global idiocy.

Like most anti-progressive forces the malign power of global multinationals ultimately relies on the malign power of global idiocy..

navrig2

neeb said:

navrig2 said:

You cannot ban SUV's.

The process of creating a legally enforceable definition of an SUV would be a nightmare and would simply result in vehicle manufacturers designing the next round of SUV's to avoid the definition thus making them legal. It's a stupid suggestion.

Obviously you can’t ban them because they are SUVs.. But you can legislate to make it highly undesirable to use cars over a certain width (for example) in cities without a commercial license (parking restrictions, camera enforced congestion style charges etc), and you can ban the sale of new vehicles that fail strict safety laws, especially for pedestrian collisions. If manufacturers design the next generation of SUVs to get around that, that’s a good thing.

So taking your example above.

The CR-V is 65mm wider than the SAAB 95 but 150mm narrower than a Rolls Royce and narrower than a 5 series.

I think any attempt at restricting vehicles on width will be blocked even if as a result of the people of influence running wide cars. That's wrong but it's what happens.

There are plenty of current SUVs which have a high NCAP rating so safety will be a difficult differentiator.

I am currently resident in the Middle East where the SUV is incredibly popular. Most are 4WD and yet very few actually go anywhere which needs 4WD. Many other cars are large models including loads of American crap. The only good thing is that parking spaces are a decent size so my Corolla fits in anywhere.

joeyhalloran

I'd love to see a ban on SUVs.

To me it seems quite simple; tax the negative externalities.

That means:
- size
- (total) pollution
- safety

We should determine a minimum NCAP rating for people outside the vehicle for it to be legal, any car that does better than that can reduce it's tax liability via a VED reduction. VED should also consider more than just engine size, but an estimate of total environmental impact of running that model of car (including tyre and brake particles as well as fume emission). VED should also tax people for taking up more space on the roads. Wide cars can be very frustrating as a cyclist (not to mention more dangerous as people will always try to squeeze through gaps they shouldn't, which in a wide car can result in very close passes).

navrig2

The ban wanters are coming at this from the wrong direction.

Compare the data here

https://www.automobiledimension.com/large-suv-4x4-cars.php

with

https://www.automobiledimension.com/estate-cars.php
and
https://www.automobiledimension.com/executive-cars.php

By all means target width but recognise that it would affect large saloons and this is likely meet the wrath of people with 3 children who cannot fit them in the back seat of smaller cars.

joeyhalloran

The annoyance on the road is certainly due to size rather than a particular vehicle type.

However, I think why people dislike SUVs is the fact that the inconsideration to other road users comes at no benefit other than status. If you need to move lots of people or stuff you buy an estate, they may be wide and take up road space but people generally accept that as it's a practical choice. IMO, SUVs are never the practical choice, they are exclusively bought by people trying to buy 'status'.

I don't mind people inconveniencing me as they have a need to use the road (e.g. trucks, lorries, wide estate cars full of people). I do mind people inconveniencing me because for no other reason than because they want to feel better than me.

bompington

joeyhalloran said:

The annoyance on the road is certainly due to size rather than a particular vehicle type.

However, I think why people dislike SUVs is the fact that the inconsideration to other road users comes at no benefit other than status.

As mentioned upthread, size is not necessarily what matters.

But I suspect there are quite a few reasons people buy SUVs and most of these are either fallacies, or show a worryingly ignorant worldview, or both:
- the height gives them a feeling of "commanding the road"
- the height and the bulk gives them a feeling of safety
- the bulk makes them think they're spacious
- everyone else is buying them
- it'll be really useful having 4WD for 2 days a year
- everyone will look up to me

Longshot

bompington said:

joeyhalloran said:

The annoyance on the road is certainly due to size rather than a particular vehicle type.

However, I think why people dislike SUVs is the fact that the inconsideration to other road users comes at no benefit other than status.

As mentioned upthread, size is not necessarily what matters.

But I suspect there are quite a few reasons people buy SUVs and most of these are either fallacies, or show a worryingly ignorant worldview, or both:
- the height gives them a feeling of "commanding the road"
- the height and the bulk gives them a feeling of safety
- the bulk makes them think they're spacious
- everyone else is buying them
- it'll be really useful having 4WD for 2 days a year
- everyone will look up to me

Or, as in my case, "I like the look of that, I'll get it and f**k what everyone else thinks".

bompington

Well, that wasn't one of the ones I listed, but a textbook example nonetheless

pinno

oxoman said:

For people that need an suv type vehicle with off road capabilities I haven't got a problem. However slot of these suv,s aren't even all wheel drive or will ever go anywhere other than normal roads. The majority of suv,s are like politicians anyway useless.

seanoconn

Yep, ban em. Particularly Volvo XC90’s in Wimbledon.

neeb

Even the RAC are coming round!
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56647128.amp

pinno

Perhaps they should come up with a gumment subsidisation scheme - trade your SUV in for an electric vehicle of some given size.

If that Volvo gets in the way Seano, take a large hammer and strike the front tow hitch hard which will activate the air bags.
Once you've done this a dozen times, he'll have to sell because the insurance people won't fork out for the extortionate cost of air bag recovery and his premium will be so high, the only thing he'll be able to insure is an e bike.
Job didid.

elbowloh

We have an SUV, it has the same length and width as a VW golf, it's just taller. The fuel consumption is also good relative to a golf with the same size engine. It's a 1.6 petrol rather than diesel, and the CO2 emissions are the same as a golf 1.4 engine.

DeVlaeminck

Yes not all SUVs are wider/longer than your average car.

I actually regret buying our X-Trail - I blame the missus as she liked it - it's nice on long journeys (this is relative to a base spec. 1.4 Doblo we had before - I suspect most things would be more refined than that) but a bit bulky on urban streets and it isn't even a large SUV. It isn't that uneconomical it's just bulky - I wouldn't object to an increase in VED (hopefully not retrospective) based on dimensions just to reverse the ever increasing size of vehicles.

kingstongraham

elbowloh said:

We have an SUV, it has the same length and width as a VW golf, it's just taller. The fuel consumption is also good relative to a golf with the same size engine. It's a 1.6 petrol rather than diesel, and the CO2 emissions are the same as a golf 1.4 engine.

What's the benefit of it?

neeb

Yup, it's big cars in general that's the issue really, not SUVs per se. Although as well as the road footprint there is the issue of safety in urban environments - if you are hit by one of those things as a pedestrian or a cyclist you aren't just going to roll over the bonnet.. They are also just extremely intimidating to more vulnerable road users, which of course is why they are particularly favoured by t*ssers.

If you take a step back and look objectively at how we move around in our crowded cities it is just completely, utterly absurd that our roads are clogged with single people making urban journeys of 3 or 4 miles at ~10 mph average in vehicles the size of small rooms powered by internal combusion engines. How on earth did that become normal and acceptable? In 100 years time we will look back at it as the defining insanity of the 20th and early 21st Cs.

Surely the solution is a complete redesign of vehicles for personal urban transport. Bikes and E bikes are part pf the solution (as is just making the environment more pleasant for walking), but they are never going to be for everyone. We need something like an enclosed, three-wheeled electric recumbent with all of the comforts that people have become accustomed to, but with the footprint of a moped. It baffles me that there never seems to be any momentum behind the development and marketing of such vehicles.

elbowloh

kingstongraham said:

elbowloh said:

We have an SUV, it has the same length and width as a VW golf, it's just taller. The fuel consumption is also good relative to a golf with the same size engine. It's a 1.6 petrol rather than diesel, and the CO2 emissions are the same as a golf 1.4 engine.

What's the benefit of it?

Higher driving position makes the wife feel safer and it's higher to get the kids in and out, so raiser on my wife's and my back. Same with getting prams/buggies out of the boot, no bending over and a flat loading space.