August 05, 2004

• *capers, dances* But yeah, this is something that bugs the hell out of me. In New Zealand, a Class 2 license is required to drive heavy vehicles, with many 4WDs hovering on or around that, depending on laden weight.
• *snorts* All the "exclusive" neighbourhoods in Christchurch have those "No heavy vehicles" signs so they don't get trucks rumbling through their pristine streets. And who owns SUVs? The same people who lobby for those signs.
• Should we start a campaign to enforce the law? I suspect all it will do is get the law amended so that vehicles with X amount of passenger space will be excluded (or something like that).
• I wonder if that law includes tractor-trailers with photos of mangled fetuses on them.
• oh please, please, please enforce the laws. PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE. If communities can have assinine laws against lawn decorations, they can enforce the already existing laws against overweight vehicles.
• My beef is not with weight, but size (i.e. width). Given some of the narrow streets here in Austin it amazes me that those damn Escalades and Excursions don't get into more scrape & scratch accidents. I just ignore Hummers -- those owners prize their vehicles so much that they WILL move aside if I'm too close.
• I say ban them all, and let God sort it out.
• Presumably people can take this into their own hands by laying a complaint with whichever body enforces this. And tracicle, that whole "good neighbourhood" thing is one of the things that's always scare me about Christchurch; my ancestors left the UK to get away from that sort of class bullshit. *shudder*
• I think the author of the piece has the right answer - enforce the 6K limit. If you feel the need to drive a truck bigger than even a Ford Explorer, then you have to abide by the same laws the truck drivers do. And weight is a serious issue, for road maintenence as well as for safety in the case of accidents. Of course, the world would be a hell of a lot safer if they were just banned outright. And I don't buy that "rural people need to move things" argument (which I have heard strenuously argued elsewhere) - you can move just enough stuff with a small truck that weighs less than 6k as with an SUV. The name says it all - they're call "Sports Utility Vehicles" not "let's haul some wood or hay trucks". And I bet a simple truck would be a damn sight cheaper.
• My biggest beef is with the fact that they are lethal. Get hit by a behemoth, and you'll probably be killed: the higher chassis and squarer nose tends to push a pedestrian under instead of over the front as in the case of most cars. After all the improvements made to cars with respect to safety, efficiency, and emissions reductions, SUVs are a huge step backwards.
• I ride a bicycle. It has metal pedals. I love pushing SUVs out into the road as they pass me. But yeah, ban them all!
• The article would be more persuasive if it didn't deliberately conflate vehicle weight and GVWR. (The sidebar is wrong. GVWR is the maximum load for which the manufacturer certifies its vehicle.)
• I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!
• goetter raises an excellent point and one that suggests the author is either an idiot or trolling the SUV haters. For example, my Toyota Tacoma four-by (20 mpg in the city, 25 highway, ~8,000 miles annually) has a GVWR of... *walks to driveway* 5,100 lbs. Actual weight of the vehicle last time I made a dump run was 4,200 lbs with a full tank of gas, me, my dog, a topper, and a couple hundred pounds of assorted crap in the tool box. It's probably a 3,600 lb truck fully empty. I will also mention that there is an exemption for local deliveries on GVWR restrictions on everything but bridges, IIRC. That's how come movers and delivery folk are allowed to drive their big-assed semis into residential neighborhoods.
• Monkeys delighted when California does it ... Monkeys rather less impressed when Paris does it? Me ... I think this is cool ... sooner or later we'll get the idiots who drive these things off our city streets. C'mon Ken, congestion charge £1000 for SUVs ... it's got a snappy ring to it!
• Actually, stet, the author nicely dissects both your and goetter's objection: if you're happy to take the tax and regulatory breaks, you have to accept the restrictions. You can't call "truck" when your car violates emissions and fuel consuption standards, and then call "car" when driving it down the street.
• No, Rodger, that's not my objection at all. My objection is that the author bases his argument on a fallacy. A not fully loaded GVWR 6000lb vehicle is not banned by a "Max 6000" sign. Second example: my work truck has a GVWR of 10300 pounds. Its empty weight is 6100 pounds. While I'm careful about 6000 markers on bridges, I never worry about the 10000 markers, since I've never loaded the truck that heavily. (Two tons is a LOT of rocks.)
• My objection is that the author bases his argument on a fallacy. A not fully loaded GVWR 6000lb vehicle is not banned by a "Max 6000" sign. The author specifically addresses the gross/curb weight issue, and claims that in the case of California, at least, weight limits are indeed based on GVWR. Are you calling the author out as mistaken on this specific point? In any case, as discussed on MeFi, the heaviest of the SUVs, like the Ford Excursion and the Hummer H2, break the 6K limit even unloaded, so confusion about gross weight vs. curb weight vs. actual on-road weight isn't a refutation of the basic argument: That there are quite a few private vehicles out there that break the weight limit.
• Are you calling the author out as mistaken on this specific point? Yes. I also accuse the author of misleadingly summarizing the CA DMV in his own gloss, and of misdefining "gross weight." It takes a lot of "cargo" to bring a proper truck up to its "loaded" weight limit. heaviest of the SUVs No argument there.
• I'm going to buy an suv so big it'll be banned from every road in the country.
• dng, a Union Jack-waving, beef-eating Alvis Stalwart would make a great platform to start. If you wish to annoy the neighbours this is the machine to buy. 9,000kg unladen!
• I don't think I saw the French thread - but way to go, France! I've only been in Europe for a few months, but all the roads already freak me out. Too many were made too small for a horse and buggy, let alone an SUV. (I also finally understand the inspiration for the insane bus-driving in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (esp the movie) - it looks just like a London double-decker hurtling through traffic. It's frightening - heck, half the towns I've visited in the UK so far have banned all cars from their downtowns. And it's wonderful).