Can you see much when you’re driving? If the answer is yes, it probably means you recently bought a new car.
Almost everyone who bought a car back in the sedan era is these days trapped at bumper-bar level. Holden’s factory is gone, the Commodore is gone, as is the Holden brand — and Australians don’t care. We are now delighted by enormous American-style SUVs and trucks.
The Toyota Hilux has gone from being a work beast to the new Corolla. It was Australia’s top selling car in November. Again. In second place was the 1.85-metre, 2.2-tonne Ford Ranger, which is another 4×4 ute. Sorry, a “pick-up truck”, according to Ford marketing material.
Third place is the Toyota RAV 4. On release in 1994 it was cute, weighing only 1.2 tonnes. To maintain popularity is underwent relentless expansion, growing taller, longer and wider. It now weighs 1.6 tonnes (despite many design improvements that have made cars lighter).
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In fourth place for sales in November is the Toyota LandCruiser, an enormous SUV.
Oh say can you see? If you bought a car before 2010 the answer is probably no. And the solution you will probably take is to join the arms race and buy a bigger car yourself.
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lSuburbanUrban Assault vehicles…It’s a war out there..they come with optional baby on board signs, & pedestrian killer bump bars..
Anyone in a Death-Star sized SUV with a BoB sticker is guaranteed to be tail-gating you through school zones, speeding in supermarket car parks and ignoring all other road safety warnings … because you know it’s all about my kids and no one else’s.
and running cyclists off the road as they rush to get their private school darlings to school on time.
Someone throws a lard-arsed Suburban assaUlt Vehicle at me pretty much every day. No one who drives one knows how big it is and invariably
2020 has been a bit different though. If you’re a cyclist, your one hour of exercise during lockdown in Melbourne was pretty sweet.
If SUV drivers were a nation, they’d be #7 in the world on CO2e emissions!
The Productivity Commission released a paper about 15 years ago (well, before the tax concession on the damned things was lifted anyway). Besides fuel consumption, there are so many ways SUVs are bad.
The PC is, you may recall, an organisation not given to left-wing or environmentally sensitvive pronouncements about… well, anything, really.
Got a new Focus this year, it’s as big as our 16 year old commodore!
At least the RAV4 is available in hybrid, so it’s quite low in pollutants relative to the glorified farm equipment occupying the top two spots.
The Ranger and Hilux are all too often diesel powered. Europe’s trying to get diesels out of their metropolises because their exhausts are so toxic, and here we are encouraging suburbanites to put on tradie drag by retaining commercial vehicle tax treatment for what clearly are luxury cars for people incapable of independent thought. Their owners might think twice about idling them outside their kid’s karate class if they understood the effects of diesel exhaust fumes!
Their owners might think?
Yes, the RAV4 is a pip-squeak compared to the other Ranger and Hilux, and most other urban assault vehicles. Not even in the same ball park. Mid size SUVs are equivalent to old mid Size sedans, and the small SUVs are as big as Corollas. Not really relatable.
Cars are so twentieth century. Why would you saddle yourself with the dirty, noisy things at all?
A few of us still live in houses with gardens, a garage/workshop and have kids. Bunnings, a weekly load from the supermarket and ferrying the kids to school, footy, swimming, music are all part of our life.
If you don’t have a “dirty noisy thing” yourself, you will depend on the dirty noisy things owned by others to deliver to you, collect your waste and, probably, provide services (tradies etc.),
I do still have one: can’t really do without, as you say. Mine’s twenty years old and I have every expectation that it will last until I can replace it with something that involves no oil, and no combustion, except perhaps some lubricant here and there. I don’t pretend that it isn’t anachronistic.
One day I hope to be ferried around by a robot that looks a bit like a car, but I’m less certain that my old Forrester will last quite that long (or me, for that matter).
To the extent that traveling at all is necessary. The pandemic has demonstrated that quite a lot of that wasn’t really required, and much of the rest could be managed by a bicycle or walking.
Depends on where you live to justify your mode of transport. We love living on our remote island that doesn’t even have a taxi service, and even though we have an suv we haven’t succumbed to buying a Prado, the resident best seller.
European countries manage just fine without resorting to owning SUV’s. I can carry most things I need as a cabinet maker using an Octavia station wagon (which actually goes around corners unlike an SUV). In Japan the tradie vehicle of choice is a Daihatsu HiJet.
Except when these noisy dirty things become electric as in many parts of Europe. France postal service alone has about 30,000 electric vehicles. Dozy Australia will wake up one day…