Comments: 1-15, 16-30, 31-45, 46-60, 61-75, 76-90, 91-105, 106-120, 121-135, 136-150, 151-161
Heres the mpg thing again. Drive a Hummer less than 10 miles round trip to work and/or actually live closer to work. Drive an hour or longer one way to work in the econoboxes and justify the lengthy commutes and even additional fuel than a large SUV that doesn't do the long treks. Somedays I ride a motorcycle too which is isn't the safest mode of transportation. In my opinion any vehicle can be deadly. I would rather be around a safe accident free cautious SUV driver than the Fast and Furious small street drivers, ones on cell phones, curling irons, applying makeup while driving etc. each morning.
Where I live in Minnesota it seems the car of choice is a truck or suv or minivan. People drive these things like the fast and furious and it really bothers me. Especially when you have a homemaker following you in an Excursion tailgating you when visibility is one quarter mile. It is not just people in cars who drive dangerous; people in Suv's are just in number as those who drive little cars dangerous. I saw a roll over today involving a F-350 towing a trailer... was just blown over with its trailer in a ditch. Sounds safe to me!
Must of been a tornado. Sure it wasn't a smaller truck? I frequently tow a dual axle boat trailer carrying a 20 ft Wellcraft. I love people passing in front and then hitting their brakes on you for a traffic light.
""I would rather be around a safe accident free cautious SUV driver""
Sorry, but if the vehicle itself is inherently unsafe due to design (as SUVs are by their nature) then no matter how "safe" the driver is it's not going to matter.
And I would love to find such a driver, but they simply don't exist.
American driver training is the worst in the western world. In Germany you can't take ANY vehicle on the autobahn until you're at least 18 and have 2 years of driver training (and that's REAL WORLD driver training).
In America it's just a short test involving parallel parking (if that, mine was backing around a corner) and you can drive any regular vehicle on any road. And God forbid anyone learns emergency accident avoidance.
So you have ill-trained drivers driving SUVs that give a false sense of confidence.
Yeah, the laws of physics apply. You know, the ones that state lower center of gravity, less weight, superior brakes, a safety cell, and so on provide a much safer car.
If SUVs are such a superior design, you'll have to explain to me why Porsche, Ferarri, Lamborghini and the similar don't design their CARS with off road tires, high centers of gravity, truck frames, and inadequate brakes. After all, you people claim SUVs are incredibly safe, and part of safety is how a car handles driving situations.
I went to a high speed driving school drive a Viper and a Range Rover. I agree I would rather be around a safe accident free driver.
Other than being top-heavy I can't imagine what might be "unsafe" about SUV's. We've owned 4 and all were equipped with every conceivable safety option. About a year ago a kid in a tiny Toyota Tacoma ran a stop sign in front of me. I T-boned him and his little "toy" ota wrapped around the front of my vehicle like a pretzel. It had to be scraped up and hauled away on a big flatbed truck. My vehicle had a broken headlight, busted grille and two (VERY EXPENSIVE) deployed air bags. It was totally drivable and didn't even have a busted radiator. Fortunately the Tacoma driver did have on his seat belts and was not catapulted into the passenger side door and squashed like a bug. In an incident a few years earlier a local woman was hit from behind in her mid-sized sedan so hard that the rear bumper was pushed up behind the front seat. She survived, and the person who hit her not only survived, but led police on an 11 mile chase at speeds up over 100 mph in the full-size GMC pickup he hit her with. The tremendous crash had not even punctured his radiator. He was finally apprehended when he hit a tree (which was a bit more solidly built than the car he had hit). Amazingly he was not hurt at all in the crash with the car even though he was NOT wearing his seat belt, and his older truck did not even have air bags. He did receive a broken arm when he hit the tree ending the chase. To argue that large trucks and SUV's are more dangerous to their drivers and occupants than tiny little imports is about as logical as believing in the tooth fairy!!
Comment 15:52 does present some unwelcome truths: We ARE a very spoiled nation with no consideration for our planet, the poor, or our children's future. I don't like it, but that is the truth. On the other hand, being part of a very wealthy family that does own Hummers, I feel a bit of a need to come to the defense of these very fine vehicles. First of all, as has been pointed out, everyone who owns Hummers also owns other much more sensible vehicles that are used the majority of the time. My Hummer-owning kin also own Mercedes C-class sedans and convertibles, Porsches, Jaguars and Ford F-150's. I can't imagine a "Joe 6-pack" type being able to afford a Hummer. A Hummer is like a fine piece of art in the home. It says "I'm rich, here's proof". Is it an "ego thing"? Absolutely. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Is it a great vehicle? Definitely. It is an incredibly solid, well-built vehicle that offers incredible versatility and a surprising degree of civility as well. Being made by GM it is unquestionably reliable. As for safety, I'd much rather have an accident (ANY type of accident) in a Hummer than in any other vehicle on the planet. To call such vehicles unsafe is the silliest statement I have ever heard. As for the comment that special taxes should be levied against these vehicles, I will AGREE with that. No real argument can honestly be made that they are not harmful to our dwindling resources and contribute to an unhealthy addiction to foreign oil. Those are indisputable facts.
To 14:50; that was my comment, and thanks for actually admitting the truth, but Hummers being like a fine piece of art? No. GM's unquestionable reliability!?! What planet do you live on? GM's gradual, slow, but steady decline is because of their notoriously sloppy quality and their poor workmanship. QUALITY is the key word, and it has been long lost in GM plants. It gave way long ago to the curse of mass production, where cutting costs and corners allow more quantity, which ALWAYS means less quality. Again, I appreciate your honesty; most people who drive those things would be too insecure to admit that they are a status symbol. That's the funny part though! There's nothing special about them! I can see buying a Mercedes or a Porsche to show off, but a Hummer says to me that the person driving it doesn't normally make good decisions, or at least not when it comes to choosing vehicle.
The reliability of Ford and GM now exceeds the reliability of ALL Japanese makes. The myth that they are unreliable is as silly as the myth that little cars are safer than big cars. People need to look at real world experiences, not fantasies of Japanese ad departments. To refer to the "unquestionable reliability" of a Hummer (or GMC or Cadillac) is totally valid. My brother-in-law traded his totally boring Toyota Sequoia for his Hummer because the Hummer was a vastly superior vehicle, not because he was stupid. He didn't become a millionaire by making dumb decisions. Most of my clients are millionaires several times over, and I can't think of ONE that drives a Japanese vehicle. Virtually ALL of them own one or more Hummers.
Where people keep coming up with these silly (and blatantly FALSE) statements that "GM quality has been declining for years" is an interesting question. It surely doesn't come from facts. J.D. Powers has rated GM cars as higher in customer satisfaction than Honda or Toyota for years, and the spate of safety recalls and massive mechanical problems with Toyota would seem to indicate that quality decline is a Japanese car issue, not an American one. Consumer Reports now rates Ford ahead of Toyota and Honda in reliability, and even the lowly Ford Ranger is rated as equal in reliability to the over-priced and over rated Tacoma (and has been for YEARS). Apparently people don't read much these days, otherwise they wouldn't be making such wild and unfounded claims.
Lamborghini DID make an SUV, the LMOO2, and you will see my review in that section.
Sorry guys, Honda and Toyota have always been better; I know it's hard for some people to accept, but that's just how it is.
Who said Lamborghini didn't make an SUV?
As for this ridiculous talk of Hummers being "works of art" and the "choice of the rich", just goes to prove new money has no taste or self esteem.
<<To argue that large trucks and SUV's are more dangerous to their drivers and occupants than tiny little imports is about as logical as believing in the tooth fairy!!>>
Funny, they said the same thing about tobacco, asbestos, radiation, and the rest. And the facts proved them wrong, just as they do with SUVs.
I care too much about my family to subject to them to a deathtrap in the guise of a "safe" vehicle.