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I've noticed a large increase in what I call "idiot cars" in Denmark too, these giant monstrosities that seem impractical in every way except for driving throug
by dusted 3y ago
I've noticed a large increase in what I call "idiot cars" in Denmark too, these giant monstrosities that seem impractical in every way except for driving through smaller cars and making sure the driver survives whatever incompetence lead them to buy it in the first place.
I feel it might be time to legislate this, there are perfectly legitimate reasons to drive a very large car, like, you live 100 miles from the nearest town and there are no roads, only swamp, marsh and desert between you and the grocery, or you haul around your pet cow all day.. Good, have your car, you need it.
In every other case. You don't and you're an idiot helping to accelerate the problem as this now becomes a weapons race on the road, nobody with a normal-sized car will want to drive it surrounded by idiot-cars, as they're simply too dangerous to be around in anything besides an idiot car.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Aromasin 3y agoSame in the UK. SUVs and large off-road vehicles are taking over. The Range Rover seems to be the car of choice for every wealthy middle-aged mother on her morning school run. Just recently, one of them managed to careen hers into kids outside their school, killing a number of them [1]. Low emission zone are becoming more ubiquitous, which combats the issue to some regards, but I question why anyone but a farmer needs to own anything that large anywhere. This isn't the US, where pavements/sidewalks are a pipedream for anyone outside of New York. Nobody should be solo operating tanks just 5m away from someone walking their dog or on their way to school. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wimbledon-car-crash-victim-dead-b2370550.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wimbledon-ca...
- sw104 3y agoRange Rovers are a disease in the UK. A brand which had it's origins in the military and farming, which has now been repurposed to drop kids off at a school. It's also the most frequent car I see which is sped around and overtakes with zero concern for other road users. The people driving them seem to not understand the size of their car and either pass over-cautiously or tunnel through everybody else whenever the road is partially obstructed (parked cars in towns and villages). The modern Range Rovers no longer even work for their original purpose. They're not sturdy enough to last on a farm, just fashion symbols. When I question if humanity will tame itself and step down from destroying our world in the pursuit of comfort and consumerism at all costs, the first thing I think of is a white Range Rover Discovery.
- cpursley 3y agoLand Rovers are a disease anywhere they go just based on their quality ratings alone. They are consistently rated as the most unreliable vehicles on the market.
- NullPrefix 3y agoA status symbol. Like BMW. Breaks all the time, but you're showing off to other people that you can afford to fix it and keep it running
- cpursley 3y agoBMW is a much more reliable brand than Land Rover and you can get them in non-tank size. But yeah, still an overpriced status symbol in my opinion.
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoThe interesting thing to me is that all the 'rational' arguments given by SUV buyers (more storage, easy of entry, larger interior space) are without exception much better in any family MPV instead of SUVs that invariably are also pretty shit off-road vehicles. Literally just more weight and waste, zero function other than satisfying the buyers reptilian brain.
- Aromasin 3y agoAgreed. I've been a passenger in plenty of them; many of them don't seem any bigger on the inside than a hatchback, with very similar boot space. It's all pointless, superficial bodywork that makes the demand for them seem even more egregious to me.
- GoToRO 3y agoBecause the space is under the car, between the wheels. I was surprised too.
- neuralRiot 3y agoHave you been on a BMW X6? I swear there’s less interior space in it than in a 3-series, the trunk is almost at armpit level and a mazda 3 can load bigger things. Same for the mercedes GLC. They’re the contemporary version of the hummer.
- arethuza 3y agoCoupe style SUVs like the X6 must be one of the stupidest car design fashions ever. And I say that as a recovered X5 owner....
- arethuza 3y agoI recently had my car written off (a small SUV) and due to lack of availability of replacements I replaced it with a similar sized hatchback. Now I find myself thinking why on earth I had an SUV - I'm unlikely to purchase another one as the hatchback is cheaper, roomier inside and handles much better.
- FridayoLeary 3y agoInstead of punishing the middle class by slapping ulez on them, it would be far more effective and fair for the london mayor to offer free school buses like they do in some parts of America.
- kolektiv 3y agoI'm not sure the middle classes are likely to be hit by ULEZ anyway - it hits vehicles older than a certain age, primarily - not many of those Chelsea Tractors are likely to fall foul of it. While I agree with ULEZ, I will admit it's quite regressive - the people with old/polluting vehicles are, in many cases, those least able to afford anything better and/or the charge. Public transport should be much better, but that's way beyond the scope of something the mayor can quickly impact.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoSchool children already have free bus travel in London.
- r_hoods_ghost 3y agoUmmmm under sixteens have had free bus and tram travel in London for years. Or do you not want them to interact with members of the public and live in a sanitised bubble consisting solely of you and your nanny?
- ranko 3y agoChildren under 16 already get free travel on buses and trams in London, though they have to pay discounted fares on the tube and they'll need a photocard if they are 11 or over.
- datavirtue 3y agoIn the US nearly everyone drives their truck like it's a car. This is very dangerous. Hence the pedestrian death numbers soaring. I have a 4x2 F-150 as my daily driver that is also my tow rig and work truck. I drive like a grandpa because I dont want people/pedestrians to be threatened by my vehicle. Nor do I want to hit anyone or anything. You would not believe how popular it is to make the truck even bigger. People are obsessively doing 3" lift kits with aggressive stance rims and 40" tires. It costs yet another fortune to do this and causes otherwise fuel efficient trucks to suck gas like a 1977 Dodge 3/4 ton. I'm in a truck and I have to dodge these fucks. Edit: Part of this is due to the tax code. People can form an LLC and write off the truck and any "expenses" (cough... lift kits and superchargers) and still use the thing as their daily driver.
- leokennis 3y agoSame in The Netherlands. In the last year I’ve seen several micropenis-compensating huge RAM and Ford pick-ups appearing in my neighborhood. They don’t fit a standard parking spot. For small businesses they carry less than something like a Ford transit. Horrible noise. Terrible visibility from the wheel. Terrible fuel economy. I’m severely hoping that our government imposes a 1000% tax on them or something.
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoThey already get taxed disproportionately based on weight alone. But this meme import needs some form of EuroNCAP curbing not just emissions related. Something like an F-150 in Dutch cities is (in my view) an unacceptable risk for any child on a fietspad or a pedestrian. The visibility is shit, and the chances of survival on impact are close to nothing. A lorry is literally safer than that non-sense.
- DiggyJohnson 3y agoI feel like the "compensating" joke about large SUV and truck drivers has really run its course by this point.
- leokennis 3y agoExcept for some edge cases, what else is the use of a 3,000kg 6m truck when it is transporting between 1 and 4 people except to compensate?
- eindiran 3y agoThe point is that the compensating / micropenis jokes have been beating a dead horse for at least 10 years at this point. It's boring, it's embarrassing and it takes away from your message when you pepper them into your speech.
- leokennis 3y agoI disagree. At least in The Netherlands, these vehicles are a classic “mid life crisis mobile”. People compensating for something by buying an outrageous vehicle. So the “compensating joke” I’m making is in my opinion at least 50% truth.
- Stranger43 3y agoA lot of this is that anything electric needs to be an order of magnitude heavier and significantly large to achieve any range due to the much lower energy density of batteries. It's possible to have small electrics but those often have short ranges and most of the big ugly things you see on the roads in DK is kinda hybrids or follows the trend set by the hybrids. The real way to deal with the SUV nonsense and not hurt the rural areas where you might need range is to just charge double for parking for large cars and cap the speed of large almost trucks to the same as lorries.
- kolektiv 3y agoI've got a Tesla Model 3, which a) has a perfectly decent range, up near the top of the general class, and b) isn't a huge car. It's not a small car but a sensibly mid-sized car - significantly smaller than the ridiculous SUVs I weave in between. Electric is a non-factor here; in fact, one of the fundamental things that Tesla gets right, which other manufacturers of electric vehicles studiously ignore, is aerodynamics (not all, clearly). The very worst size and shape for an electric vehicle is "huge and brick-like" as it is for all vehicles - it's much more apparent with EVs, though, where the range is so easily comparable. (N.B. I got it before Musk went so spectacularly off the deep end, it was a motoring choice not a political/fandom one).
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThe model 3 and BMW i4s are both classified as compacts in the American system (same as Honda accords). The leaf, bolt, and i3 are sub compacts (civic class). I have an i4 now, and I really feel the extra 2 inches in width it has over my previous Acura ILX (basically a fancy Honda civic). None of the sub compact EVs have very good range yet.
- pjmlp 3y agoThankfully there are many European roads where those monstrosities would just get stuck, and would be full of scratches when pulling them out.
- globular-toast 3y agoIf only. Unfortunately cars are considered sacrosanct in most places, for some reason. Your own body is worth less than a car and the safety of cars is high on police priorities. If cars don't fit down a road they'll just destroy the foliage or verge and we'll pay to widen the road.
- pjmlp 3y agoBuildings, villages,....
- redeeman 3y ago[flagged]
- FranzFerdiNaN 3y agoNo, they dont. Those same people also lived thirty years ago, most likely had a much more active lifestyle and did perfectly fine with much smaller cars.
- redeeman 3y agowell yeah sure, they lived, they used what they had. we also lived with computers of the 90ies, 00s, did mostly same things, Wanna go back? You want them to limit themselves to the equivelant in car tech
- earthling8118 3y agoRight, all of the innovation in cars has been the ability to make them larger. We absolutely didn't have the capabilities in the past, did we? It's remarkable what the current times bring: finally we have advanced car tech that can support my need for size.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sw104 3y agoVery defensive reply. Many people use Range Rovers to simply drop their kids off at school, to drive to work, or to transport groceries. If you're really for people leading active lifestyles, maybe those such people should get their kid to walk to school.
- redeeman 3y agoand you probably use an extremely overpowered device for checking your email, but perhaps you also use it to do other things?
- rocgf 3y ago> you're an idiot helping to accelerate the problem as this now becomes a weapons race on the road This is a very harsh take for something that is legal and widespread everywhere across the world (at least Western world). You have to try really hard to pretend you don't understand why this is happening. It's a race to the top of the safety spectrum, and for good reason. Traffic accidents are among the single biggest sources of preventable deaths and grave injuries, and getting a bigger car is one of the single most important aspects you can control in this equation. It's actually super simple. If this is truly a problem, and I guess it is, then there should be some form of legislative intervention against it. The people buying them are not the problem, the environment which encourages this is.
- FranzFerdiNaN 3y ago> This is a very harsh take for something that is legal and widespread everywhere across the world (at least Western world). No, he is absolutely right. 99% of all people do not need a bigger car, they need better driving skills. But hey, its capitalism so of course we solve our issues with money
- tsss 3y agoI highly doubt that safety is on the mind of SUV and truck buyers. Perhaps that is the reason they give after the fact, but really it is all about looks.
- masa331 3y agoIt's not a race to the top of the safety spectrum. That's just a disguise and also only for some people. It's a race to the top of the "social" and $ spectrum where you have to show how little you care about the others and the environment and also how much money you can dump on vanity and impractical things
- nateoearth 3y agoI think it's actually both. Some people buy bigger cars for looks/status, and then others (esp. parents of small children) feel compelled to buy a larger, safer vehicle in response. In the case of minivans, they are choosing a less cool, but safer, vehicle than smaller alternatives. Occupants of the largest vehicles on the road experience less than 1/10 of the fatalities than those in the smallest. We desperately need new regulations/legislation to address the vehicle size arms race. https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf/55/2 https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf...
- dybber 3y agoOften these big cars even have a quite small trunk, e.g. compared to a station wagon. Soon though, a few car makers will release electric station wagons (e.g. Peugeot e-308). Many danes already drives station wagons, so I hope people will start buying those kind of cars instead of SUV's.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoApparently, according to a guy trying to put in a higher offer on a car already sold, used estate cars in the UK are now selling at a premium because people who actually want such a car for its practical benefits, including farmers (a battered Volvo V70 and then XC70, which isn't a crossover like the XC60[1], is a common sight on a farm) struggle to find them because the market is full of shiny "wank tanks" with the boot space of a chunky hatchback coming off leases. [1] and now the ridiculous XC40, for which they discontinued the "actually a car" V40, three years after also discontinuing the XC/V70 entirely.
- reverius42 3y agoThere’s also the C40; perhaps less ridiculous?
- bzzzt 3y agoXC70 boot has 575 liter capacity, C40 419 liter. Even the new V90 has a smaller boot than an old XC70 (and a smaller hatch which is less convenient).
- rascul 3y agoMaybe calling everyone with a car you don't like an incompetent idiot isn't the best way to go about doing things.
- ChainOfFools 3y agoDon't get me started on the retina singing eye level headlamps that all these vehicles are starting to wear these days. Do the people who design and market these things not have families of their own, with kids in the back in rear facing seats whose 9 month old eyes get blasted with straight up stadium-level lighting by some dead eyed balding suburbathug in his lifted FU-150?