Winter Driving Advisory
The Strib editorial board, shocker of shockers, shifts into scold mode.
And so do I.
They're doing their annual jeremiad about the evils of the Sport Utility Vehicle.
Most of it is the standard anti-SUV boilerplate; they stop barely short of suggesting a Suburban is a form of, er, compensation.
However, they make a point:
Combine a truck-sized mass with car-sized brakes and an elevated center of gravity, and what do you get? A behemoth that an inexperienced or inattentive operator can quickly turn into a hog on ice. Even seasoned SUV drivers tend to forget, until further along into winter, how all that extra momentum translates into longer braking distances and reduced maneuverability, especially in the slush. Don't believe it? Just watch them slip and slide.
A few simple, ugly facts here:
- Most SUV drivers are sedan, minivan or wagon drivers that bought a bigger vehicle. For the most part, they've spent no time learning how their big honkin' four-wheel-drive vehicles actually work, and how they're different than the vehicles they used to have.
- Four-wheel-drive will help you go through crappy conditions; it will not help you stop in crappy conditions.
If I had a dollar for every time I looked in my rearview mirror as I hunkered down and concentrated on keeping my Saturn or Tempo from swapping ends on an icy two-lane, to look in my rearview mirror and see some Blazer or Cherokee driver swerving in and out of traffic like he's joyriding down the
Autobahn in a Ferrari on a gorgeous July day, I could pick up the tab for the first round at the next Blogger Bash.
Your four-wheel-drive vehicle will make you go forward. It will not keep you going forward when your wheels are grabbing for concrete and only finding glare ice. It will not help you stop when you see a whole lot of taillights 200 feet away and you're doing 70 on the ice. And when you slam on the binders at 65 on black ice and turn sideways, four-wheel drive will not keep you from flipping over when your high-center-of-gravity SUV hits dry pavement.
I've told the story about my encounter with a moron in an SUV; it's serious business:
As for safety, figures show that when an SUV gets into a collision, its occupants are more likely to die than if they'd been in some other type of vehicle, with rollovers a big contributing factor. For every 100,000 registered SUVs in the United States last year, 16.42 occupants died in accidents, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The comparable figures were 15.17 for pickup trucks, 14.85 for passenger cars and 11.2 for vans.
That last figure is especially interesting in light of last week's U.S. Census Bureau report showing that SUV use has surged more strongly in Minnesota than any other state in the last five years, while the state fell from first to fifth in the ratio of vans to licensed drivers. In broad terms, you might say we seem to be trading the vehicle most likely to save us from roadway fatality for the one most likely to kill us.
Not to mention the folks we collide with; when an SUV hits a sedan broadside, the sedan's driver is 22 times more likely than the SUV's driver to die. Some take this grim statistic as evidence in favor of buying an SUV in self-defense; in truth, it argues better for a sedan with state-of-the-art passenger protections, on top of its naturally superior maneuverability.
Maybe. It does seem to suggest that a lot of incompetent drivers with "better you than me" attitudes are screeching blissfully down our icy, crowded highways.
Posted by Mitch at
December 14, 2004 11:37 AM
| TrackBack
Oy, gevalt.
I may be a good conservative, Mitch, but don't even get me started on this one. And believe me, it's no better over here in Wisconsin.
I dread winter for this reason alone--time to play ping-pong with the SUV Suicide Squadron.
One SUV driver my ex knows once explained how she was safer in a SUV because "you're sitting up so high." (I doubt that she ever passed Physics 101...)
Posted by: Pete (Alois) at December 14, 2004 02:32 PMIs it possible she meant that she could see better because of how high up she was? Because that actually is a benefit, especially on the highway (even more especially on cloverleaf ramps).
That said, I can definitely do without those pinheads who think 4-wheel-drive is a "get out of accidents free" card.
Posted by: Steve Gigl at December 14, 2004 02:54 PMSteve--
RE your query, nope, I don't think such an advanced notion ever entered this lady's addled mind. (Later she did manage to overturn her rig--an original shoe-boxy Isuzu Trooper--on a corner while arguing with her husband. Both survived.)
Posted by: Pete (Alois) at December 14, 2004 04:50 PMI drive an Explorer because my son's wheelchair fits nicely in the back. Hey Mitch, have you been living in the city too long? These lefty-like rantings don't become you.
Posted by: Michael at December 14, 2004 09:01 PMUp here in the far north (Lake of the Woods) we have the same idiots. Lots of them are in 4-wheel drive pickups and SUV's which they apparently think are invincible. They cruise on down an icy highway doing 65, 70 or more...passing everybody....apparently they never plan to have to stop suddenly or even gradually! I want nothing more than to see them in the ditch...alone, taking nobody else down with them. I will not stop, I might use my cell phone to call the cops, but that's about it...HA! I'll yell as I drive by (slowly)....HA!!! Oh, and they must be the people who drive in heavy rain, heavy snow, and near-dark without their headlights on...as if it will cost them extra on their light bill if they use them or something.
Posted by: Colleen at December 14, 2004 09:50 PMHow do people this stupid manage a checking account and daily life?
First Mitch attacks the the Hardee's Thickburger, saying it looks . . icky. Now, this?
Mitch, say it ain't so!!!
Posted by: James Ph. at December 14, 2004 09:59 PMMy "overweight" SUV, a '95 Pathfinder, weighs 3860 lbs. per the manual. That's roughly the same as the new Ford 500 sedan and probably the Taurus and comparable Chrysler and Chevy sedans.
The brakes are better than some car brakes. The Pathfinder has 15 inch wheels which gets me the big brakes that fit inside a 15 inch wheel. Cars like the Ford Focus with 13 inch wheels have smaller brakes 'cuz the brakes have to fit inside the wheels. The footprint of the light truck tires I have on the Pathfinder is substantially greater than a car tire on a smaller wheel.
And yes, four wheel drive helps the SUV stop better in crappy conditions. Engine braking works with all four wheels.
I have hit black ice and turned sideways. I was driving North from Milwaukee into freezing rain and high winds. I found that transition point where wet road became black iced road. The twenty mile cross wind weather vaned the car and I spun 360 and into the center swale. Nice soft landing in snow. I shifted to four wheel drive and drove out and home past about a dozen cars in the ditch that didn't have that option. Four wheel drive on black ice worked a lot better than I thought it would.
I could slag car drivers for their bad habits but, what's the point? Bad habits are a driver function and not a function of vehicle type. That said, I have never had another SUV tailgate me the way cars do.
Posted by: Fred Boness at December 14, 2004 10:11 PMfred is right; crappy drivers are crappy drivers, and if they weren't drving crappily in an SUV, they would be driving crappily in a car. If the point is that an SUV requires more skill and attention to drive competently, you may be right. I don't own an SUV, by the way, but I have driven everything from sub-compact cars to moving trucks across the country, in all types of conditions.
I remember driving from Madison to Minneapolis in a minor blizzard during Thanksgiving Weekend traffic , and there wasn't any discernable difference between the cars and SUVs, as far as the percentage of clueless drivers. The majority of the drivers sucked, regardless of vehicle. I was an idiot for not getting a motel room, thereby avoiding the other idiots, but when I got home, I had to pry my white-knuckled hands off the steering wheel.
Posted by: Will Allen at December 15, 2004 01:53 AMMy point, so we're clear here, is not "SUVs are bad", or that SUV drivers are worse than other types of drivers.
It's about the crappy drivers who get behind the wheel of an SUV and think they're suddenly ten feet tall and armor-plated.
Posted by: mitch at December 15, 2004 04:56 AMMitch, that's fair enough. And I think the Star Tribune's point is, "The way you live is wrong and we don't like you.''
Posted by: dan at December 15, 2004 11:16 AMimportant point to remember is that when you see them in the ditch, they should be in the ditch *upside down*, otherwise they may be able to get back out.
Posted by: Elizabeth at December 15, 2004 04:57 PM568 http://baseball-betting-mlb-odds.yourbestbet.org baseball betting mlb odds
Posted by: baseball betting mlb odds at June 30, 2005 01:05 AM