Here's my side of the story and many other antiSUVer's opinions and insight. In the 1970s, oil dependence and pollution were serious problems. Laws were made to improve both of these. Cars got smaller, but also became less safe in many cases. New catalytic converters and better fuel efficency helped the air quality. Having the exact same trends in Europe and Asia called for more efficient engines, smaller cars, and higher fuel prices. From those, public transportation increased, pollution drastically decreased, and hybrid and fuel cell engines are becoming huge musts for energy independence and reduced pollution. A pollution free, hydrogen based transportation system is being heavily invested in Japan and Singapore. They also fully understand that oil is nonrenewable.

Back in the US, a loophole existed for these SUV light trucks to be developed without regard to fuel usage or pollution. Automakers make a fortune from these things, and Americans buy them due to heavy advertising. Small cars are being pitted against large trucks and tragically losing in accidents. America's foreign oil dependence is well over 60% now and climbing. We can't produce enough oil here because it is already gone or rapidly depleting. Pollution rates along with respiratory health problems are at increasing rates due to the increase in carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxides from the big SUV craze. Government is very concerned about our oil dependence and the role the US must play in oil rich countries to protect our oil interests. They don't want to forbid SUVs, but want to encourage people to understand the problems and buy hybrid engine and fuel cell vehicles once available. Bush's energy plan reaches everything from responsible vehicle tax credits to research on nuclear fusion to renewable energy to reducing the global warming problems.

No matter much extra work one does on recycling or garbage pickup, transportation consequences are overwhelming on many facets. They affect our national security, our air quality, our respiratory health quality, our national resources and parks protection, and our highway safety. This SUV craze is a complete backward and dangerous trend for America! Owning an SUV condones environmental destruction, reduced national security, inordinate resource depletion, and reduced highway safety.

For more information, visit www.fueleconomy.gov which further details this serious problem. Many government groups, health organizations, respectable environmental groups, and world scientists and coming out on this issue, and would like the American consumer to know the truth about the many pitfalls of these vehicles called SUVs.

Let us know your thoughts. Thank you.

 

You're wasting your breath here. Noone believes any of those lies and exagerations. It's survival of the fittest when you talk about big cars against small. How do you haul a 5 person family safely in a Honda Civic?

 

It appears that Fedup may have been frightened by an SUV as he was holdiing up traffic doing 50 in the hot lane with his three kids and the dog in his ricer . . . !

 

WOW

I'm convinced, I'm gonna sell the Expy, Lightning, Mustang, Boat.....

ya right

 

I agree with him, Chevy should stop making those ugly Avalances....that was his point right?

Go hug a tree fedup

 

preferably a tree that's about to be struck by lightning. (not the truck)
this guy is probably one of those that runs around tagging peoples vehicles with those "i'm a gas guzzler" stickers.
go put emissions systems on volcanoes instead
europeans driving smaller cars may be true, of course they also have smaller roads and they tend to drive at much greater speeds. of course we all know that driving at a high rate of speed makes for less emissions from vehicles right?

 

boy did he pick the wrong website!
hey fedup, why don't you try over on explorer4x4.com? We REALLY love the tree-huggers over there! LOL.
If you were quoting your babble for some hollywood gala, you'd probably get a round of applause, but thats because you'd be surrounded by morons like hillary clinton and richard gere and Al Gore. Good ol Al Gore. He was anti-SUV too. Anti-wasting gas too! Which is why he took air force one across the country wasting thousands of gallons of gas to give a 30 minute presentation to a college group, then took air force one back to washington dc at the rate of another several thousand gallons of gas and who knows what kind of pollution. He also used range rovers as rolling advertisements during his campaign.
Typical liberal attitude, that its not ok for me to do something but ok for you. I bet half the people in your anti-SUV organization have an SUV themselves, or at least a minivan or pickup. Why? Because I'm willing to bet that 90% of them are democrats.
Why don't you go protest in DC or something? You're almost guaranteed to get news coverage. Oh and people really appreciate your protests if you do like the one recently, where all these people came from around the country to protest the world trade organization but in less then a day changed the entire protest over to a protest to keep america from using force on other nations.

 

Fedup, I'm sure you are just bored and wanting to get stuff started. Maybe you enjoy starting a thread and seeing how many replys you can get! It is no accident you picked this site, all you want to do is flame. If you don't like SUVs then don't buy one and MOVE OUT OF MY WAY. I'M COMIN THROUGH.

 

Isn't it amazing that the tree-huggers & Berklyites always blame icons that represent Freedom, Corporate America, & a free market society? This guy is now trying to pin the attacks in NY & DC on SUV's for crying out loud! Listen up, Fedup, you Environmentalist Wacko, take your drivel and go share it with your weed-smoking wacko buddies around a giant pine tree somewhere. You're not going to find anyone here who will listen to it. I'm not even going to waste my time explaining how the market here in the USA works in comparison to the semi-socialist states in Europe, which lead to very different outcomes. (Insert chainsaw sound here!)

 

Fedup,

You couldn't have picked a worse place to post that garbage. Some of what you espouse has a slight ring of truth to it, to give it the "appearance" of being based on something "legitimate"; unfortunately, having lived in many places overseas for the better part of 2 decades, I find it's badly misstated, exaggerated & extrapolated for your own distinctly deliberate purposes, which are obviously to point the finger at SUV's as a major source of today's ills. What poppy****!

Sure, it's true that there has been a loophole for some time regarding "light trucks". You need to remember that you are in America, which is a capitalist society ruled under a representative republic governmental structure. That means, the people make their voices heard to their elected representatives, who are charged with forming our legislation. Is it perfect? Nope, not by a long shot. Are your rights being infringed upon because of the presense of today's SUV's? Hardly! If there were no SUV's, there would of course be other vehicles to take their place, or perhaps you do not remember the station wagon of yesteryear that was effectively replaced by the safer SUV? What do we go on to next, minivans? No, wait, pickup trucks are next, the F-150 of course.

If you want to complain about this from an environmental standpoint, you might want to try educating yourself with regards fuel sources and approach it from that angle, it would be far more accurate and to say the least, a much more honest approach. America is *always* going to have it's vehicles, we Americans will always have our distinctly American private vehicle choices. There are plenty of other fuels these vehicles can be run on but aren't, due to the hold that "big oil" has on this country. That's not to say that "the oil industry" at large is somehow "evil", they're doing what they can to protect their own self-interests, just like every other special interest group in this country, (ahem) including yours. We can easily pump enough oil out of the ground to supply all of our own needs, however, due to OPEC pricing, that isn't economically feasible. Known reserves of course do vary, and depending on whose numbers you look at, if you take a look at the known reserves back in 1970 and compare to the known reserves today, you don't see a lot of difference, thanks to continual exploration on the part of the oil companies. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the oil companies and/or fossil fuels are the best thing to ever happen to the world, there are better sources of evergy/fuel. The point is that we aren't running out of oil, known reserves do vary but have not seen any dangerous drop in known reserves over the past few decades. Do we need to get away from "oil" as the primary source of automotive fuels? Absolutely, I'd agree with that, and so would Henry Ford, who in fact for many of the early years insisted that all FoMoCo vehicles be able to run on either gasoline or ethanol right from the factory. Good 'ole Henry went so far as to find the fastest growing biomass on the planet for the most economical source for farmers from which to derive those alcohol-based fuels, which was, you may note with some interest, hemp. That's right, the pot plant, only the variety that contains little to no THC. Of course, this was before the sweeping changes in the laws governing that substance which happened, if memory serves, I think about 1938 or so, thanks in no small part to Harry Anslinger (sp?).

Trying to use Japan as any kind of example of air quality is an absolute joke, their air quality is among the very worst on the face of the planet! *That* is why they are taking some of the measures that they are, combined of course with their taxation structure. The vast majority of Europe, another example you used, bases taxes on vehicles based on *horsepower*, as does Japan, your other vaunted example, which has had almost a "ban" on vehicles with more than 271 horsepower. Their taxation structure is by far the single biggest factor regarding the increased prevelance of smaller vehicles and engines in Europe & many other places in the world. Look at their fuel prices, and once again you see that there is no basic difference in actual cost (P.O.E.) of gas just about anywhere in the world; they pay such high gas prices because of their *taxes*. All in all, it is their *texation* structure that causes them to have traditionally, not just recently, build & drive so many smaller vehicles with smaller engines, which have *always* been less safe in a crash than a larger vehicles.

I could go on forever, but this is too easy, and has absolutely no business whatsoever here on F-150 Online.

Though we are a Vendor and thus have a responsibility to be civil, every once in awhile a situation comes along that just has to be called what it is in no uncertain terms, and let people think what they may of us as a result. This is one of those times.

I'm think I might have to find a good surgeon, preferably one who drives a Performance Products-modified & therefore fast SUV to sew my tongue back on, as I may have to bite it off now in shutting myself up.

Sleep well, oh troubled one........................

 

I'm just, wow. I don't know what to say but I'm laughing in an strange way. Fedup, I appreciate your opinion but have to wonder what your motive is in posting such and opinion somewhere like this. Hmm, oh well, thank you for adding a little something, em, *different* to the mix.

 

Dear swampview,
I feel a lot better not polluting or wasting gas in my "ricer" than condoning environmental destruction in a big BUTTERBURNER.

Dear Frank S, I don't have a family of 5 because I don't like urban sprawl. I will stick with my 1 kid, maybe another. Having more kids than adults supports sprawl and its ugly consequences.

Dear wildchild, Volcanoes aren't in the cities, where all the big SUVs are polluting at uncontrollable rates. For fun, call your local hospital and ask to compare data on respiratory problems in 1990 and 2000.

Dear Greg Mc, "MOVE OUT OF MY WAY. I'M COMIN THROUGH" Don't be so pathetic. Have a good argument next time.\

Dear rons and mattadams, "take your drivel and go share it with your weed-smoking wacko buddies around a giant pine tree somewhere." Actually, I'm from a Christian right wing group that shuns language, drugs, and alcohol.

Offroading through water courses is equally disgusting. What about the fish habitat and if it was your drinking water? Would you drink it after someone ran a big SUV pollution machine through it? Vehicles belong on paved and dirt roads, not on wildlife habitat or town's drinking water supplies.

 

a lot of people claim to be from some sort of a "christian" group. Hell, even the Earth Libertarian front says they are christians (well many of them)

What I don't get about most environmentalists is this... they protest new houses being built, trees being cut down for houses, and around here the big thing to protest is prairie dogs being killed so they can put houses in big fields. Yet before they moved in there was prairie dogs that had to be killed, their house is made out of wood cut from a tree that was "brutally murdered", in a place that was once wilderness! Kind of the "its ok for me but not for you" liberal mentality.

I don't necessarily agree with the "respitory problems" claim because look at how many more people are driving in these cities. Here in Denver 10 years ago you could drive down the interstates even in rushhour traffic without being bumper to bumper consistently, and the city was about half the size it is now. While I totally condone public transportation, that is not an option for everyone, myself included. I once looked into it. I work at the far north end of denver and I live at the far south. In order to take the bus from far south to far north, not counting the 3/4 mile I'd have to walk from teh bus stop to my work, it would take about 3 1/2 hours every morning and approximately 6 bus switches. That's assuming all busses are on time and theres no unexpected traffics jams. If I worked in downtown it'd be different, all the busses go to downtown...

While I don't necessarily like seeing many great mountain views blotched with houses, I also realize that many peoples dream is to live in teh mountains, up in teh wilderness away from city life. That's even my dream to eventually own a house in the mountains, and if any environmentalists try to stop me, lets just say they'll have a tough time, other then resorting to what many of them do and just burn down the house ("In the name of jesus I demand these demons be cast out!")

SUV's don't get much worse gas mileage that many cars, which is why I can't believe your statement. True they don't get as good of gas mileage, but they have the same environmental restrictions on them as cars. My F-150 on a good day gets 18 miles to the gallon. I used to drive a Saturn SC2 (I'm 6' 8" so getting in and out was like fitting a salmon in a sardine can) and it only got 22, and I felt much less safe in there then in my truck. The lamborgini only gets 8 miles to the gallon, why not go bitch at those folks?

 

Fedup-
I noticed you didn't address Superchips_Distributor.

Great post, Mike.

 

Actually, fedup, the Bible says, "be fruitfull and multiply," So I know that you are not from a "right wing" group. Please don't insult the intelligence of everyone here. Not to worry about a created prolem called urban sprawl. The earth was designed alot better than the people that worry about so-called "global warming" give Him credit for. Man cannot destroy what can't be destroyed. One more thing, you never answered my question about how you move a family safely in a tin can car, i.e., cavalier, civic, corolla. These cars are unsafe if they hit each other head on, much less ANY vehicle that weighs more than they do. I value my loved ones more than I worry about problems created by junk-science. Regards.