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 ...
If it were up to me, the license - much like the plate and the insurance - would be specific to the vehicle.
I can drive my manual Saturn SC1 much better than I'd be able to drive my best friend's big automatic truck.
Take the test in a certain vehicle, get licensed for that vehicle only. Wanna get licensed to drive your husband's behemoth? Then you gotta pass the test in IT, not just in your Prius.
LOL. SUV's resemble passenger cars of yesteryear more so than that of modern sedans.
Looks are worth a certain amount of money to me. There's no way an Element would save me enough in gas to overcome its powerful uncoolity.
And the skill of the driver. So that if my car is tuned out for performance and handling, and I have tested and qualified at a higher level of skill, I am permitted a higher speed limit.
Cuz only SUV's zip around cars on the highway. Smaller passenger vehicles would never do something like that.
Maybe it's a regional thing. In PA, I just don't see the trouble.
I'd be down with that.
However, if you're driving your teenage son's beater instead of your Corvette, and you forget and flip the thing, under my system you'll get a helluva ticket.
All those vehicles require a different class of license to operate them. If SUVs were subject to the same license - and road - restrictions, I would have less objection.
see 309
Of course. Double or triple.
C'mon down to Houston. If we see one - just one - SUV drive more than two blocks without invading someone else's space, I will eat your hat.
I am THAT sure I'll not be on the Hat Diet.
The Dems must be pleased with the high gas prices. It will put a fast end to the glut of large vehicles. (sarcasm intended)
Once again, the market works better than government regulation. I love capitalism.
Now, it's time for some more nuke plants.
We just might be on to something here.
But they still block your line of sight. Can't have that, they've got to go.
I'm thinking that if you and the missus a) have all the family cars with one company and b) qualify on every family car, y'all should get a discount.
In this part of PA (as I imagine in Texas), pickups and SUVs are everywhere, even the giant ones.
And yet, I have more issue with the teens in rice burners who think they're fast and furious.
Yes, if that is the case, it should apply.
Of course the insurance companies will want the opposite: "You want to drive faster? What? PAY UP."
It's just hillarious to me that people will go out and pay $10-20,000 for a new car... to get better gas mileage. Did you ever stop to calculate just how much gasoline you can buy with that $10 grand? I'd bet you could run your Suburban for quite a while on $10K, even at $3.00+/gal.
they take up more space. endanger those in smaller cars. have larger blind spots, tear up the road more quickly and block the view of other drivers. bumpers are intentionallyl designed to run you over and crush you if you are in a passenger car vs. suv accident.
Might as well install an elevated custom bumper on your car, with spikes and nails on it so you can puncture their tires and penetrate their passenger compartment, just as they do cars like yours in an accident.
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