evilC wrote:

QUOTE:
Serious question:

Would most people who drive large trucks/SUVs/4x4s/larger MPVs still choose them if their speed was electronically limited to 70mph ...or even 60mph?

In the US? Yes. These things are damn slow. Admittedly the Porsche Cayenne Turbo is one of the fastest cars on the road, and the luxury SUV's aren't to slouchy.

But an F250, or the average SUV? They are so bloody heavy, they certainly aren't quick.

That one's a Ford though innit?

Yeah, I was trying to say that though the one in the picture is a Ford, most of the Big Truck Guys I know drive Chevys.

I think my Jeep is the right size for me. Not so big that I'm too much of a danger to everyone else, but not so small that I feel scared of the big trucks on the road. In that chart of driver-killed/other-driver-killed that was posted on the old OTF, it's sort of in the middle, but on the very low end of death among SUVs.

It's not as useful as it was when I lived in Massachusetts, so if I'm still living here next time I need to buy a car, I may go with something that gets better gas mileage. Then again, there's a diesel version of what I have now so maybe in a few years it will be possible to get one of them that runs on biodiesel. My sister-in-law's brother is way into that stuff and has converted several diesel vehichles to run on cooking grease.


I think it would be great if all vehicles on the road were limited to 70 mph (or maybe slower. Find whatever's most efficient and add 10 mph for passing). The only reason I ever drive faster than that is to keep up with traffic. I don't like people passing me on the inside, tailgating or hanging out in the blind spot. But if nobody could go more than 70, everything would slow down, be more fuel efficient and probably safer. We'd get to where we're going a little slower, but so what?

Every time I see one of those pissing boy stickers on a pick-up window, I want to do something violent to the driver. That and those "It's a Jeep thing, you wouldn't understand." stickers. Just how much personal identity do you attach to your gas-guzzler that you feel the need to draw tribal lines around them?

The worst is those guys with the big red testicles hanging underneath their trucks. Euthenasia's too good for 'em.

Like this:

Ewww. I've never seen that before. Thank God for my snobbish urban lifestyle.

I live your same urban, snobbish lifestyle and I've seen them four or five times now. I wish I could add "in Buffalo", but I can't.

Good point.

Stickers on cars that make me want to do something violent:

Obviously, anything pro-W, or pro-conservative idiocy, racist, anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-evolution, etc. I won't post images for fear of causing rage.

Others that make me think about running the person off the road.













But this may actually be the king of them all. Nothing says "I'm a douchebag" like this one:

I think the "Fear Not" ones are worse.

I've never seen that.

My favorite sticker of all time was a massive sticker across the windshield that said "SETTLE DOWN, BEAVIS"

Just saw the balls again on a brand new Avalanche pickup in the downtown financial district. So pathetic. I should have run up and castrated him.

That's unacceptable. I can understand it on somebody who works in bull or horse breeding as massive nads are practically a symbol of their profession and probably haunt their dreams, but for anyone else, it's just a stupid, gross macho gesture.

I've fallen in love with the Volkswagen Transporter.

Thankfully the nads seem to have fallen out of fashion in my area, and I don't see them that much anymore. I remember seeing some bright blue ones once--do you want to go around bragging that you have blue balls? Besides the shiny plastic "Bumpernuts," I've also seen homemade ones--two tennis balls put in pantyhose.

Reed not nailing the Mini "The SUV Backlash Starts Here" issue, but nailing the bumper sticker on pickup issue.

FF- This is what enviornmentalists have been hoping for years, a market reason for the end of gas-powered vehicles. With the Chevy (100mpg) Volt around the corner, we're slowly starting to see the end of the gas age.

The next big thing is how to lift an airplane off the ground carrying payload. NASA figured out how to lift a jet off the ground with no passengers or luggage. Once that's figured out, we should really start making progress.

With OPEC saying $7 a gallon gas is around the corner, that could be the best market-based impetus to solve this problem.