Posted on 05/09/2005 6:52:14 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
It's a Saturday morning on San Leandro's Marina Boulevard auto row, and the big SUVs have been sitting on the lots, waiting for someone to come in and start that dealer dollar dance that ends up with the customer slightly bewildered but paying a lot less for that vehicle than he thought he was going to.
Once in a while, there are takers, although the dealer has to discount the SUV heavily just to get it moving.
Salvador Sotello, for example, recently paid F.H. Dailey Chevrolet in San Leandro $41,000 for a new Chevy Tahoe LT (yes, with leather) SUV that had a sticker price of $58,000. The sale was an anomaly in what is otherwise a pretty dismal selling season. "It's been pretty quiet," saleswoman Crystal Gonzalez said the other day. "Been pretty slow."
At Broadway Ford in Oakland, the grilles of the Mustangs, SUVs and the lone Thunderbird smile at the passing traffic, but the showroom is empty, it appears, of customers; several salesmen are in sight. Up at Albany Ford-Subaru, salesman Myers Howard, sitting a few feet away from a big Ford pickup truck, says things on the Ford side of the showroom "are slow." That might be the understatement of the day.
Just this past week, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. underwent the humiliation of seeing their credit ratings reduced by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services to the status of junk. The reasons are becoming clear -- the two big companies can't sell much of what they produce.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
LOL! True. Jeep on O)|||||||(O
All I was trying to convey was that the whining (other peoples' opinions) about SUVs on this thread seems based on principles not generally associated with a conservative base. That's all I was saying (my opinion).
Every vehicle I've ever owned (other than the two-wheeled variety) has had a cupholder in the same spot.
Right betwixt my thighs.
No, what I'm saying is that you shouldn't be allowed to drive a vehicle without having the proper skills and training to do so. And yes, I think the same rules should be applied to a quad cab extended bed truck as a suburban, as it should apply to a honda civic, or a geo metro or a moped. If you lack the skills and/or training necessary to safely operate it without being a menace to every other driver on the road, you should not be allowed behind the wheel.
A co-worker decided a few years back to purchase a motorcycle. He went down to the Harley dealership, pulled out his checkbook, and purchased the most powerful bike on the lot. He made it about 300 yards down the access road from the dealership before he crossed over 3 lanes of highway into the center median, and across the 3 oncoming lanes and laying the bike down in the ditch. He had never even been a passenger on a motorcycle before, yet he felt it was perfectly acceptable to put everyone on the road at risk due to his lack of experience and training. That's the wrong answer in my book.
I have absolutely zero problems with anyone who can afford to purchase the biggest, most gas guzzling vehicle on the road, if that is there choice, they should have the right to do so. But learn how to operate it before you get out on the road and put everyone else in danger.
Hopefully that will clear up any confusion you might have in what I'm saying.
Correction: That accident was caused by following too closely.
http://www.gm.com/automotive/innovations/altfuel/vehicles/suv/
It's all an advertising gimmick. Anything can be labeled as either "cool" or "uncool". These labels change as frequently as the weather. One day something is "cool" and the next day it suddenly becomes "uncool", and vice versa. Anybody who buys something because it's supposed to be "cool" is simply giving in to the advertising pitch, and the advertisers love it when that happens.
LOL! THAT'll show THEM!
"I never blamed it on the SUV. Once again, you people are reading stuff into these posts that is not there." - Junior.
Your words say otherwise:
"I know of at least one fatal accident caused by blocked line-of-sight; the SUV in question suddenly changed lanes and the car behind him plowed into the vehicle stalled in the lane." - Junior.
You said the accident was 'caused' by the SUV blocking the line-of-sight.
I've got a problem with people being allowed to effectively arm themselves with mass, while I have no similar right to arm my own car with machine guns and flamethrowers.
Yet by buying an SUV, you are dictating that all other drivers assume a greater risk. So that line of argument doesn't fly.
I see this comment all the time on Free Republic from extremely uptight non-SUV owners, and can only help but wonder where the hell this idea comes from??? Almost all SUV drives I see, because of the added weight, and sluggishness of stoping and going, actually drive the way a car is intended too. Its always the guys in small economy cars that go 90 on a crowded highway switching lanes (even breakdown lanes), and its not always some punk high school kid either.
Another thing ive noticed: A pet peave of mine is when your pulling out of gas station or something and you have to cross trafic to get to the other side of the road, and the oncoming traffic will have a red light and NOBODY stops to let you cross. They're all sitting their oblivious to the world around them as they rush down only to stop 20 feet later, and all the cars blocking you in. Anyways, i've noticed that 9 times out of 10, the car that does stop to let you cross is an SUV. And ive noticed that before i joined the SUV club.
"Hopefully that will clear up any confusion you might have in what I'm saying."
Not really. You danced a lot but you didn't really answer my specific question: do you believe that any one who drives a pick-up truck should have a commercial driver's license? I asked this question because you said anyone driving a suburban should have a commercial driver's license. The suburban is nothing more or less than a pick-up truck. So do you think a commercial driver's license is required to drive a pick-up truck? BTW, there's a lot more to a commercial driver's license than driving skills.
A station wagon would do the job, too... but it's not the folks with three small kids that tick me off, it's the solo commuters/cruisers in SUVs that do.
The greater danger of SUVs on the road is self-evident - so evident, in fact, that it is one of the top stated reasons for buying SUVs in the first place.
Where do I buy?
It was a statement of fact. LOS was blocked by the SUV. No one blamed him for the accident, least of all the Georgia State Patrol which investigated. I'm sorry if you felt the statement was an indictment.
"Yet by buying an SUV, you are dictating that all other drivers assume a greater risk. So that line of argument doesn't fly."
No, the argument does fly since I've not dictated the size of car you drive. You have the freedom to drive any thing from a go-cart to a five ton commercial rig so you do get to choose the risk level you desire.
You see, you've choosen to drive a smaller car with a greater risk. But rather than accept the consequences of your decision, you wish to force me to accept a greater risk to reduce the risk inherent to your decision to pursue a high-risk course of action. If you do not like the consequences of your decisions, then make other decisions. But do not attempt to limit my freedom to limit my risks.
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