its called a van.

 

LOL they get about the same amount of FE!...lol Whats the difference...lolKEVIN

 

i had a funny thought about my own post...wouldnt it be funny if only certain people were qualified to buy SUVs and it turned into something similar to the medical marijuana debates.

People who did qualify for SUVs end up buying 13 of them each year and start living in columbian mansions and such...lol...just a thought.

 

ok- now I'm going to get lynched for admitting this...
I have a suburban. in fact part of my reason for getting a HCH is guilt over that monsterous gas guzzler- BUT, I drive it with 8 girlscouts, piled to the roof with tents and coolers, OR 2-4 kids (varies with friends) again piled to the roof with camping gear, tents, coolers AND towing the SAILboat (no gas guzzling there), OR hauling crap from home cheapo or the lumberyard. we don't commute with it or drive it without a bunch of people. and NO WAY will a van (unless you're talking the 13 passenger airport type) carry the amount of gear my big red truck carries.
sometimes you just need a different tool to do the job properly.

 

I totally agree, that's a perfect way to be using an SUV of that class, however there needs to be some way to penalize the use of these beasts as simple single occupant commuter vehicles and definitely must get rid of the $15,000 you can get back from taxes for buying them (as a business) because it's more costly (in more ways) than subsidizing hybrids.

 

and you would pass the licensing requirements...lol...its just those single occupancy drivers that **** me off.

 

KLC, if only all SUV/Maxi-van owners were like you.

I personaly rent large vehicles when the need arises, but that is a personal financial consideration that will vary from person to person. For medium size lugging from Lowes etc, our Subaru Impreza does a fine job

 

I agree that a complete ban on SUV's would be stupid, but restriction wouldnt be bad. It just plain scared me sometimes going to school to look over and be head level w/ the bumper of some SUV that a kid from school was driving. I sure as heck know that he doesnt use it for offroading or hauling, and the pollished crome accents were a sure sign of it too. The thing that bothers me most about SUV's is not so much the weight, fe, or pollution but the pure danger of the height of some of them. If i'm gonna have a wreck w/ something that weighs a heck of a lot more than my car, i atleast want it to hit my bumper so my airbag will deploy and the crunch zones of my car can take some of the energy. I really support Volvo and other car makers that are now putting a second lower bumper on some of there SUV's to keep OTHER drivers safe. Licensing for an SUV is not a bad idea i think, atleast for some...explorers and other SUV's of like size (unmodified that is...dang people jacking those bumpers up even higher) are no real problem, but larger SUV's like Excurtions should require a licence to use, just IMHO.
KLC and Kevin, i'd like to thank ya'll for actually using your SUV's for what they're worth, i wish there were more people like you on the roads.

 

Why isn't anyone caling for sports cars to be banned? They're no different from SUV's in most cases. In fact the Mercedes SL65 gets WORSE fuel economy than quite a lot of SUV's.

 

I agree, but I think it has something to do with their safety, and that they have less impact on the roads they travel on.

SUVs are both unsafe and have a larger impact on the roads they travel on.