In reply to:


Nobody is going to flip their vehicle, no matter what kind, unless:

a) They are a bad driver and don't know how to handle their vehicle.

b) Someone else causes the wreck.

c) Some freak circumstance occurs and it is the will of God.


Many people who get in major wrecks that are their own fault end up wrecking many cars in their lifetime and would wreck just about anything on wheels. I used to own a Ford Bronco (which I couldn't have flipped if I tried) and I used to drive a Ford Explorer, but I'd know when I'm driving that Explorer that it's not going to handle like my mom's Taurus and I'm not going to be able to manuveur (spelling?) it like a car, so I handle it with a little more respect, and maybe I'll brake a little bit more in the turns or slow down a little more when it's wet. If someone doesn't think they can handle driving an SUV, then they shouldn't drive one. Same applies to other cars, motorcycles, planes, etc.



Sure, but your first 2 points merely restate what Detroit used to say in the 50's and 60's about car safety - i.e. its the nut(s) behind the wheels fault in every case and we cannot be expected to produce cars that don't crash or kill people due to this. [or words to that effect].

To which the reply from the politicians and judges of the day [after a few court cases from Nader et al], was "you damn well will engineer safety into your vehicles even if it costs a little more and we expect you to build safety in from day one from now on"

Still Detroit didn't learn too fast:

The lawsuits over the Pinto and other cars of the 70s and 80's were not for nothing - in those cases, the folks in a Pintos would get incinerated through no fault of their own if they got rear ended due to the placement of the fuel tank right near the rear of the vehicle - inches from any impact point in a rear-ender.

There was a similar situation/design issue with a Lockheed plane in the late 50's I believe, that had the undercarriage retraction lever near the control stick/column, and in a position which could be easily knocked accidentally, now when the plane was in the air, who cared, but while the plane was on the ground, that would be a problem as there was no interlock to stop the undercarriage being retracted on the ground so if the lever was knocked while on the ground, sure enough the wheels fold up and the plane goes onto its belly causing lots of damage in the process.

Now the FAA and the Airlines didn't like this "no safety" design, and asked Lockheed to fix it, eventually Lockheed hmm'ed and looked into it and in the end the Lockheed fix for the problem was to simply stuck a small sign on the cockpit near the lever that said "Do not retract undercarriage while plane is on runway".

Now, given that the pilots of the day were no doubt very highly skilled people who were trained not to make mistakes, yet they managed to damage a few planes with a simple unprotected retraction lever.

So if a highly skilled and trained plane pilot makes mistakes, then drivers - no matter how skilled - have no chance of never making one, and in the case where you're driving a SUV and make a mistake (or someone else makes one for you), you can end up in a roll over that had you been driving a non-SUV vehcile may not have rolled.

In reply to:


... don't think the answer is to ban tricycles, bicycles, or SUV's. I think some people should be more competent when they are handling a 3000 lb vehicle. So instead of being anti-SUV, I guess I would be anti-bad-drivers.



Problem is that right now, with 25% of the new cars sold being SUVs, I see a lot of people buying or using them, who are doing so without proper driving skills being taught or required.

Sure, maybe 5 or 10 or even 15% of those SUVs are sold to people who know how to drive them and take care to drive within its and their limits.

But the other 80+% don't.

The issue is:

Is it the fault of the car (and by extension, the maker) that those 80+% can't drive them properly becuase they are so badly/differently engineered to start with, or is it the fault of the 80+% people who don't bother upgrading their skills to know how to drive their SUV properly?

See, any reasonable person would expect that if a SUV was this much harder/different to drive than a car, then the US lawmakers would require a different type of driving license or training to drive one.

But thats not the message that Detroit puts across - they say "anyone can drive a SUV safely" - they do that in all sorts of non-explicit ways, not least in the way they advertise them and where and how they show them being used.

I don't know about the US, but I need different license to drive a Motorcycle, a Car, a bus, a taxi, a heavy vehicle over 2.5 tons, a vehicle with tracks instead of tyres, a vehicle over 5 tons, a vehicle with more than 18 wheels, a vehicle with a cab and trailer combination, a vehicle with more than a cab and one trailer combination etc.

Thats not simply bureauracy gone mad, its simply because all of these require different skills or safety precautions and need specialist training that the average "car driver" just doesn't have/get from driving a car around.


So, if you are saying "its really only bad drivers" not bad SUVs - I can't agree - there is a line between making products that anyone can use safely, and making products that are unsafe at any speed without proper training but not telling anyone that.

I think SUVs are in the latter class of vehicles, and no-one in Detroit wants to admit that and lawmakers seem unwilling to address it either with stricter licensing rules.