SUVs

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Mick F
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Re: SUVs

Post by Mick F »

Sort of back on topic ............

I was driving back from Tavistock today ......... after visiting the recycling depot, and had Sailor-the-Dog with me and we stopped off for a good long walk ............. I was behind a single decker bus. No doubt it only had a few passengers, like they all have round here, and a small mini-bus would have been more than adequate.

Why are single decker busses so huge?
Narrow lanes, rural, few passengers, tight corners, hills, miles between stops.
Mick F. Cornwall
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al_yrpal
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Re: SUVs

Post by al_yrpal »

Up until last Easter we were served by Firstbus with a normal single decker half hourly subsidised by the Govt due to the pandemic. When the subsidy ended Firstbus dumped us and the council took over with a nice smaller 14 seater hourly which made more sense. Big buses are a hangover from the days when buses were used more. The big bus struggled with the width of our village roads.

Al
Last edited by al_yrpal on 25 Nov 2022, 5:37pm, edited 1 time in total.
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grufty
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Re: SUVs

Post by grufty »

We have single and double decker buses serving our local communities. The drivers are almost without exception, highly skilled and extremely patient.

It's the inconsiderate drivers, often in SUVs and campervans, that are the problem!
pwa
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Re: SUVs

Post by pwa »

I wonder if "proper" buses are better equipped for people with mobility issues, and maybe that is why they are sometimes retained instead of narrower minibus type vehicles.
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PedallingSquares
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Re: SUVs

Post by PedallingSquares »

al_yrpal wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 12:56pm Having been to a 'Dubbers' meet once I can confirm that there are lot of knuckle draggers who own VW Transporters. Lowered suspension and the 'rat look' are considered cool. Doesn't surprise me in the least to hear of bad behavior.
As for mine, getting to 60 can be a bit worrying :(
Why are they 'knuckle draggers'?
Customising cars is as old as cars themselves.I don't particularly like the stupidly low and rat paint look but calling someone a 'knuckle dragger' for doing so seems a bit odd.I've been to VW meets and these 'knuckle draggers' spend an absolute fortune achieving the 'rat look'.Calling someone silly names because they do something you don't like is a bit childish is it not?
As for bad behaviour that is open to interpretation.Most mobile homes are plodders so someone overtaking in a VW Transporter isn't bad behaviour it's just someone driving a vehicle capable of doing so.Why sit behind a snail if you don't have to?
There's a stigma regarding Touring caravan and motor home owners clogging up the roads and VW Transporter owners break that by driving normally :wink:
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Cugel
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Re: SUVs

Post by Cugel »

PedallingSquares wrote: 26 Nov 2022, 11:20am
al_yrpal wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 12:56pm Having been to a 'Dubbers' meet once I can confirm that there are lot of knuckle draggers who own VW Transporters. Lowered suspension and the 'rat look' are considered cool. Doesn't surprise me in the least to hear of bad behavior.
As for mine, getting to 60 can be a bit worrying :(
Why are they 'knuckle draggers'?
(snip)Calling someone silly names because they do something you don't like is a bit childish is it not?
Second childhoodish, I think it may be. :-)

Cugel, heading that way myself.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
pwa
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Re: SUVs

Post by pwa »

PedallingSquares wrote: 26 Nov 2022, 11:20am
al_yrpal wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 12:56pm Having been to a 'Dubbers' meet once I can confirm that there are lot of knuckle draggers who own VW Transporters. Lowered suspension and the 'rat look' are considered cool. Doesn't surprise me in the least to hear of bad behavior.
As for mine, getting to 60 can be a bit worrying :(
Why are they 'knuckle draggers'?
Customising cars is as old as cars themselves.I don't particularly like the stupidly low and rat paint look but calling someone a 'knuckle dragger' for doing so seems a bit odd.I've been to VW meets and these 'knuckle draggers' spend an absolute fortune achieving the 'rat look'.Calling someone silly names because they do something you don't like is a bit childish is it not?
As for bad behaviour that is open to interpretation.Most mobile homes are plodders so someone overtaking in a VW Transporter isn't bad behaviour it's just someone driving a vehicle capable of doing so.Why sit behind a snail if you don't have to?
There's a stigma regarding Touring caravan and motor home owners clogging up the roads and VW Transporter owners break that by driving normally :wink:
My own opinion about the less well behaved VW Camper drivers is coloured by the young mother who races past our children's play area in hers, noticeably faster and less worried about other people than most of the car drivers. Knuckle dragger sums up my feelings about her. But as with other forms of transport, it is the person in charge who deserves the criticism, not their vehicle. There are responsible VW Camper drivers too. It is simply that I have noticed a significant proportion who drive them recklessly.

My own motorhome driving is sedate, so as to be safe, but not gratuitously slow. And I do create overtaking opportunities for pateint drivers who might occasionally get stuck behind me. I consider it civilised use of the roads.

The stigma regarding motorhomes and caravans clogging up the roads is usually also applied to cyclists. Anyone, in fact, who goes a bit slower than the driver who thinks the road belongs to him/her and anyone slower should get out of the way. Not a philosophy I subscribe to.
Jdsk
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Re: SUVs

Post by Jdsk »

Practical action by the Mayor of Paris:
https://www.paris.fr/pages/plus-ou-moin ... rier-25381

"La Ville de Paris organise le 4 février prochain une votation sur la place des SUV dans la capitale. Le vote sera ouvert à tous les Parisiens inscrits sur les listes électorales."

Jonathan
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Re: SUVs

Post by Pebble »

Jdsk wrote: 15 Nov 2023, 8:04pm Practical action by the Mayor of Paris:
https://www.paris.fr/pages/plus-ou-moin ... rier-25381

"La Ville de Paris organise le 4 février prochain une votation sur la place des SUV dans la capitale. Le vote sera ouvert à tous les Parisiens inscrits sur les listes électorales."

Jonathan
does it say what the criteria is for it to be considered a SUV ?

There is calls for such measures in Edinburgh, but I think it would just be restricting parking permits based on weight and size. (they already charge more for these parking permits for higher CO2 producing cars)
https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/ ... es-4373961
Jdsk
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Re: SUVs

Post by Jdsk »

As far as I can tell there isn’t yet a definition.

Jonathan
simonhill
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Re: SUVs

Post by simonhill »

After the banning of hire scooters (ONLY HIRE SCOOTERS) apparently, the number of private scooters shot up.

The means of transport was popular, it was all the discarded ones that people objected to. Although apparently very few people bothered to vote.

With SUV ban, I read that very few central Parisians have them, it won't affect them anyway and it's only them that'll be doing the voting. Probably an easy win.
mattsccm
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Re: SUVs

Post by mattsccm »

Like many of these posts this is a touch pointless. You get good and bad drivers of all sorts. Around here the buses tend to be poor and the SUVs fine. The holiday makers are suspicious as they can't seem to cope with rural roads.
Either way we are merely dealing with personal preference. Some people hate being "held up" by cyclists and some people hate the existence of SUVs.
All a bit moot as in a hundred years we'll be in Mad Max conditions anyway.
Carlton green
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Re: SUVs

Post by Carlton green »

mattsccm wrote: 20 Nov 2023, 8:43am Like many of these posts this is a touch pointless. You get good and bad drivers of all sorts. Around here the buses tend to be poor and the SUVs fine. The holiday makers are suspicious as they can't seem to cope with rural roads.
Either way we are merely dealing with personal preference. Some people hate being "held up" by cyclists and some people hate the existence of SUVs.
All a bit moot as in a hundred years we'll be in Mad Max conditions anyway.
In a hundred years we here will all be dead and likewise our children and (those already born) grandchildren. I’m not sure how many years I’ve got left but whatever it is I’d like it to be undamaged by motorist stupidity.

Mad max, haven’t seen the film or know much of the story but post apocalypse they’ll be few to no cars. Cars need spare parts and fuel and post apocalypse both of those will be not available because only functioning societies can manufacture stuff. How will society go? I’m not sure but locally it’ll temporarily go back several centuries - ‘till civilisation gets re-established - and death rates will be in the high percentages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Hors ... Apocalypse
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Jdsk
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Re: SUVs

Post by Jdsk »

Our response to SUVs isn't only a matter of personal preference.

In the multiple threads in this forum discussing this there are several quite different issues, including:
• External costs incurred by users of big car-like objects
• Why people are buying and using bigger CLOs
• Othering of other people who choose different modes of transport
• The origin and history of the name.

The first of those clearly affects other people and there is occasionally some discussion of practical countermeasures that are available. That should be part of any transport strategy.

Jonathan
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Cugel
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Re: SUVs

Post by Cugel »

Jdsk wrote: 20 Nov 2023, 9:37am Our response to SUVs isn't only a matter of personal preference.

In the multiple threads in this forum discussing this there are several quite different issues, including:
• External costs incurred by users of big car-like objects
• Why people are buying and using bigger CLOs
• Othering of other people who choose different modes of transport
• The origin and history of the name.

The first of those clearly affects other people and there is occasionally some discussion of practical countermeasures that are available. That should be part of any transport strategy.

Jonathan
It's tempting to focus on this and that particular efflorescence of much bigger phenomena, trends, evolving entities or whatever. SUVs and their increase is perhaps just one effect amongst hundreds of others of the major trend centred on the unholy alliance between big human brains and their evolved & installed human nature with the rise of that second evolutionary entity, the meme - basic constituent of evolving patterns of essentially metaphysical stuff (designs, languages and the like) that manifest via genetic humans into physical stuff such as technologies, economic processes and social institutions et al making up the complex entities of human civilisations.

One particular permutation of human nature + technology memes gives rise to modern capitalism, with its tendency to create hierarchies of human technology maker-users. One aspect is that described in this article found in today's Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -rich-poor

"Today, we reveal the main finding of Oxfam’s report: that the richest 1% of the population produced as much carbon pollution in one year as the 5 billion people who make up the poorest two-thirds."

"Climate anxiety means different things to different income groups. At the bottom, it means fear of heat and floods. At the top, it means fear of increasingly desperate people. Billionaires often live in protective bubbles maintained at a considerable cost in dollars and emissions. Some are preparing for “the event”, with plans for doomsday bunkers in New Zealand, Nevada and other remote areas. Others blast off the planet in private rockets and talk of colonising space. Instead of making every effort to reduce emissions, the rich increase their carbon footprint by putting more distance between themselves and the masses."


SUVs can be seen as a rather pathetic means for the middling group of consumers to obtain feelings of greater power, control and safety from "those others" and life in general. "I'm in my mobile castle, with the doorbridges closed". Its a delusion perpetrated by the advertisers driven by the 1% of big business & their major shareholders keen to accumulate even more wealth in the equally pathetic hope that buying a bit of land in New Zealand or a rocket to Mars will save them from becoming dead of weather like all we hoi-polloi.

A piddling little law here and there to "ban the SUV" will have no meaningful effect at all on the momentum of that major trend towards a doomsday that modern capitalism is set on. What's needed are major changes of law to stop modern capitalism and all its deleterious effects right now. There's zero chance of that happening. The evolving memeplexes of such "systems" control we humans, not vice-versa. Those memeplexes know our nature and employ it to grow like Topsy.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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