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To: medved
The problem is that if SUVs were the occasional vehicle here and there, they would not obstruct everybody's vision in dangerous ways but, when one out of three or one out of four vehicles in the daily rush hour is a van or SUV, then nobody including the SUV and van drivers can ever see further than one or two cars in front of him, and that is dangerous.

If you're driving close enough for lack of forward visibility to reach the point of being "dangerous", you are too damned close to the driver in front of you. There have always been full-sized pickup trucks, vans, buses and assorted other vision-blocking motor vehicles on the road. When the SUV became popular, all that happened was that the ride height of the average "station wagon" was lifted to be more equivalent to that of the pickups and vans. Small cars have always been at risk of being squashed (Gee, go figure...). If the roads were still chock-full of Ford Country Squires and Oldsmobile Vista Cruisers, the small-car advocates would still be out there, crying: "Unfair! Unfair!" It is by pure happenstance that the SUV turned out to be the automotive "whipping-boy" of choice.

The question is not individual rights. The question is, do you and other SUV owners have some sort of a group right to endanger yourselves and everybody else in such a manner?

That question has been posed to motorcyclists many times. The answer is that everybody makes their own choices, no groups are involved. FWIW, it could also be asked of drivers who prefer sub-compact cars, sports cars, or drivers of older cars with no anti-lock brakes, etc. and so forth. Take your pick, each of them is at risk and is a risk to others. Each of us is, too - every time we pull out of the driveway.

Like I say, the guy driving an SUV off road, on a hunting trip, to the beach or whatever does not bother me. It doesn't consume that much gas or cause that much danger. The guy driving an SUV with three or four people in the HOV lanes does not bother me either. The guy driving an SUV as a commuter vehicle with just him, which appears to be most of them, I would tax into tommorrow.

Who are you, the watchdog for Approved Vehicular Usage? The guys who you see "most of the time" might have dropped off the kiddos at school a few minutes earlier, or be hauling something in the back for a co-worker, or be leaving after work to hitch-up the boat for a weekend at the coast. The truth is, you can only guess at how the vehicles that you see are being used by their owners. Do try to mind your own business when it comes to other people and their money, Mr. "Tax-'Em Into Tomorrow".

207 posted on 08/13/2002 3:49:28 PM PDT by Charles Martel
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To: Charles Martel
You beat me to the response! But mine took longer to type. I can't wait to see what U.N. commission he approves of to determine vehicle usage and assignment.
209 posted on 08/13/2002 4:00:15 PM PDT by Nuke'm Glowing
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To: Charles Martel
If you're driving close enough for lack of forward visibility to reach the point of being "dangerous", you are too damned close to the driver in front of you.

You've obviously never driven around the Washington D.C. area. "Too close" around D.C. is all the room you'll ever have for much of the day.

212 posted on 08/13/2002 7:05:33 PM PDT by medved
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