Gojirra99

Link HERE

mmarshall

This is another classic example of French ignorance in motion....and there certainly has been no shortage of that in the last couple of years.
SUV's come in many shapes, sizes, and weights....from small Foresters, RAV4's, and Outbacks all the way up to Suburbans, Excursions, and Hummer H1's. Some are truck-based body-on-frame design and some are unibody car-based. Their gas mileages range from the quite frugal high-20's all the way down to single digits. And there are gas-electric hybrid and diesel designs coming that will get better mileage. and pollute less as well.
So for the morons in Paris to come up with a blanket law like this to me just makes no sense at all.
And as for the argument that Parisian SUV owners don't take their vehicles "off-road"....well, what do they expect?....Paris is nothing BUT roads.

Gojirra99

If you know what parking is like in Paris, I bet you won't say that. They even discourage driving cars into the city & urge people to use public transport instead. Have you even been there.?

adidosc

yep... been there myself. parking is a mess, and unless you drive a car no bigger than what you need to sit, you'll never find a spot to park. i can see why they are doing this. sorta makes sense when you think about it. the streets of paris (when first designed) were NOT meant for anything of this size, so when you have huge SUVs coming down the road its easy to see that a 4-wheel drive problem is coming down the road. i don't know if that is the solution for every city's traffic problems, but it could solve some of the problems facing paris.

LexusLuver

how the SUV ran over automotive safety
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

LexFather

Sigh....

SoCalSC4

I must admit I am not a fan of SUVs myself... (I call them "Stupid Useless Vehicles")- especially when I am driving my MR2 and a gargantuan Suburban cuts me off.

Do those things even come with turn signals or mirrors? Or maybe it's the drivers- do they come equipped with a clue or a little courtesy?
Have fun paying $2.50 a gallon at 12 mpg. Enjoy that.

Maybe the French aren't so bad after all...

link13

I think there's a point in the purchasing process where the SUV buyer's brain is partially deleted. It's a natural side effect of paying $36K for a vehicle that cost $22K to build. Lining someone's pocket with $14K in profit on one vehicle is suspected to directly effect the part of a person's brain that can move the left hand to the turn signal wand, park in a single parking space without being over the line and check rear view mirrors. There is also evidence that deleting this part of the brain will cause people to brake very erratically resulting in an almost constant flashing of the brake lights (until one or more burns out).

vedro

I live in New York and I can completely relate to the Parisian drivers. SUVs have become a major pain in large cities. With ever growing traffic and limited amount of space to park, SUV should be banned from inner cities. Last year, a moron in a Suburban smashed by front bumper as he was maneuvering to park his rig in from of my car. SUVs over 6,000 pounds should be given commercial license plates and restricted to park with trucks and buses.

It would be a good idea to send a few specialists from NYC MTA to learn how French enforce this restriction and duplicate the same in NYC.

SUVs

mmarshall

Yes, many large cities....including New York and Paris...are indeed a traffic mess.....but New York would be much worse than it is now if not for its huge public transit system. In a free society, however, people have to be free to come and go and drive as they see fit...and what they can afford. It would be a dangerous precedent to start banning one class of vehicles....where would you draw the line? Eventually, using that philosophy, you would end up like Beijing or cities in India.......tens of millions of people on bicycles. And how would you even DEFINE what SUV's would be banned....and how many passengers each legal one could carry ? SUV's are anything BUT easy to define....they come in all sizes, classes, power levels, and configurations....from small car-based RAV4's and Outbacks to huge truck-based Suburbans and para-military Hummers.
Sorry, guys....I just simply don't buy this....this, in my opinion, is French arrogance at its worst.
The best and most efficient way to cut down on traffic problems in a free society is to increase people's choices, not decrease them.

lex400sc

Good, SUVs are the dumbest thing to happen to the auto industry. At first I looked at them as a tax on the stupid, but now I'm just annoyed by them. I hope more countries start banning these glorified pickup trucks. There is absolutely no purpose for this wasteful product to exist, every other type of vehicle could replace its every use.


mmarshall, I feel I have the right to drive my mil-spec half-track and my 20-ton tractor down the road. I feel I should be able to line both my rides with 10-ft-long k-bar spikes front and back to protect myself from collisions. You think I should be able to do this because it is my undeniable right to drive whatever I want wherever I want completely unregulated. Most people here think that's laughable... An SUV is easily definable if you know what one is: a passenger vehicle built on a truck chassis with truck standards and truck emissions.

mmarshall

No...I didn't say completely regulated......and I didn't say you had the right to attach iron bars either. ALL vehicles are regulated to some extent....speed limits, inspection requirements, licenses, taxes, etc...... But the fact is, in a free society you DO have the PRIVILEDGE , not the right ( driving in the U.S., in all 50 states, is considered a priviledge, not a right, though it is usually treated as a right unless you screw up and lose your license ) to drive an SUV anywhere you can afford to on a public road, or off-road in some cases. However, people like Arianna Huffington have an equal right of freedom-of-speech to criticize SUV's as well. I strongly disagree with her philosophy...I think she is completely misguided...but I respect her right to criticize SUV's even if I don't agree with it. I don't particularly like conventional truck-based SUV's myself ...their handling, gas mileage, and braking isn't worth a damn...but If some people want them for heavy loads or for any other reason, that is THEIR buisness. They're not trying to tell US what to drive...we need to show them the same courtesy. And the French are going to start a bad precedent here
...makes me all the more glad I'm an American. And we just got finished honoring and burying a great man who gave much of his life to help defend those freedoms.
I also think it is very interesting that Californians...( Arianna Huffington's home state).... one of the most ecologically-minded states in the country....just elected a Governor who personally owns and drives not one, but several Hummers. That alone tells you something.

lex400sc

Your last post sounds a lot more rational than your first, which stated...

Frankly, I see no dangerous precedent in banning suvs. They are bigger, heavier passenger vehicles that do not conform to passenger vehicle safety or emissions regulations (what the hell is the point of safety and emissions standards when half the autos in the country don't follow them???), they are a lot more deadly to all parties involved in a collision, they raise the safety risk on the road when you can't see in front of or around them, they are heavy gas guzzlers in a nation that can ill-afford to guzzle gas, they are primary used as single-passenger cars and if lucky as vans, and they are almost never used to their advantage (off-road, towing, hauling). So again, suvs do nothing but bad for all of society---can anyone produce a single reason in favor of suvs to counterbalance all the negatives (besides the 'choice and lifestyle' argument)? Hell what if a two-lane wide car suited my lifestyle? Does choice alone warrant me the right to buy and drive it around? The government has long banned and regulated consumer products in this nation seen as unsafe to public saftey. Just look at assault weapons. If they can ban assault rifles because a microscopic minority abuse them, then why not suvs when a majority misuse them?

mmarshall

I think that the auto-buying public is a better judge of what it wants and can afford than a bunch of bureaucrats.
But we'll just disagree and leave it at that...have a nice evening.

lex400sc

Sounds about right.... but wait...

I think that the firearm-buying public is a better judge of what it wants and can afford than a bunch of bureaucrats.

Nope, that's not how this society works.

Touche...