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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
For 10+ years my job has required me to use a minivan to haul huge boxes containing lab instruments. The Dodge Caravan gets 20-25 MPG, can swallow anything, and does not give a false "rugged" look. Although the latest Dodge/Chrylser issue does look like a bread truck.
It also doubles as a pickup...I have had a 275 gallon oil tank in the back, a motorcycle, and 4x8 sheets of plywood...all things no SUV could swallow.
The "read between the lines" in this story is how desperate the dealers are....they will sell at whatever it takes these days.
It would have the added advantage of incredibly uncomfortable back seats, serving as a perpetual hair shirt to salve your conscience.
You didn't really need that big car. You just wanted it! Come on, admit it.
I wanted a bigger car, too - that's why I bought an old Forester. As a compulsive Craigslister, I haul a LOT of crap.
Well, if anybody was wondering who's been talking out their ass in this conversation, Xanthro's little declaration above should clear things up nicely.
Thanks for the LOL, though.
Dear Mr. Benjamin,
Far from finding enlightment or even mild amusement, I found this essay in tortuous self-justification painfully irritating. You have a choice; we all do. If you do not live in an unpaved area where challenging routes are a regular/professional necessity, you did not need this SUV--not even with a pack of kids and a dog.
Without having to go vegan and live fully off your own harvests, you, and everyone else, can make reasoned choices about what really constitutes need. Your children will bear the longterm consequences of that car and other products you consume. Just as importantly, any sense of moderation (which means much more than getting a good deal on your new car/appliance/gadget!) will be inherited from you.
But, hey, at least now you can get them all to the ballgame while looking "cool," in a dinosaur kind of way.
Instead of half-hearted hand-wringing with a wink or two, please expend your energy to push and help enact legislation that places the real cost of gas and SUVs up-front, so that we don't leave that environmental debt to our children. Yep, I am telling you to shoot yourself in the foot (you know, the one on the accelerator pedal).
If all this seems rather harsh, please remember that as soon as you wrote this article (you did, didn't you?), you made yourself open to some pretty obvious criticism.
Because carpooling to events with a full SUV is more efficient than 2 or 3 cars going to the same place. We bought our SUV specifically for carpooling to our kids events - swim practice, dance classes, to and from school. It makes so much more sense and even more lovely getting some free time on your off days (when your other friends with SUVs take their turn).
Kill yourself before we have to do that for you.
It's OK, I make up for him. I drive a huge Silverado (so I can tow my 25 foot, twin 250 HP outboard powered offshore center console fishing boat). The wife drives a Suburban. One daughter drives a Tahoe and the other daughter (the environmentally conscious one) drives a Trailblazer.
We make it a point to always go alone. We make frequent trip to the store for only two or three items at a time. I have made it my objective to leave as large a carbon footprint as is physically possible, consistent with my budget.
Conspicuous consumption is my life.
We are a family of four stuffed into a Honda Civic. I see the day coming when we have to get a larger family car. I can't get an SUV. I just can't. Too obnoxious. We'll go with the decidedly utilitarian minivan when the time comes. We are hoping for some hybrid options in the not-so-distant future.
First of all Mark, don't you feel like an idiot writing this after writing (and getting paid) for your boastful article about bikes titled "My family car is an SUB and I love it"?
Second of all, by writing an entire article about this, you have fulfilled every stereotype about the asshole leftist white guy. After self-indulgent statements about your environmental habits, you compromise them for minor personal convenience and make more self-indulgent statements about them. You have a job in media, and used that to talk about getting a good deal on an expensive, non-essential luxury item (which was still a costly purchase).
Your reasons for getting an SUV are self indulgent bullshit. You claim a station wagon is too small for two kids and a dog. Really? Maybe someone who has never seen a station wagon might buy your crap, but that's a weak empty excuse.
A station wagon has plenty of space, it's just configured slightly different - and slightly more efficient way.
As the photo with the article shows, you bought a polluting, fuel inefficient vehicle so you could put your bike in the trunk without turning it on its side.
I am so tired of people using "family" as an excuse for their privileged, excessive notions of auto size. It's a vehicle, it's not your home (although maybe you're anticipating that eventuality).
You're also being a jackass for even mentioning low gas prices as even a marginal reason to go anti-green. It's satisfying, however, to know this dip in prices is temporary at best and soon you'll be paying out the ass for being weak about principles, then writing a whimsical article about it.
He would, however, do the environment a favor, and still have to alter his lifestyle very little, if he went back to being a vegetarian. The global meat industry pollutes the environment way more than all the planet's car, trains, boats, and planes put together.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And thank you.
I drive an 'SUV'. It's over 10 years old too.
I am also very careful to keep it tuned up and running right. I only drive it when I have to but honestly the room is unbeatable. It holds our bikes and can haul around my dogs, skis and a weekends worth of luggage too and not blink.
Sure it gets 14MPG and I would max out the filling quota on one of my credit cards and have to start filling it again when gas was so high but it was at the time I bought it the safest SUV on the road (although maybe that was because it spent so little time on the road those first 2 years. Mercedes quality? BAH!). And, in this economy, it's paid for... Biking isn't an option in my very bike unfriendly town. I've almost been hit twice while riding. 'Almost' is enough for me...
How to live with the decisions that you have made...
If I had it to do over, I'd probably have chosen a different car but at the time I needed a vehicle and that one was available cheap (dealer demo) and I liked the safety and at least the perceived 'quality' PR spin.
I have thought about getting a Prius but the idea of taking on a car payment in this economy sounds deranged... I'll keep it running as long as I can and turn it over to be recycled...
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