[Shotimes] Almost death by SUV

[Ron Porter]

On a more serious note, I don't totally agree with your statement about "No
telling how many deaths could be prevented if every car was as capable and
responsive as an SHO". Good-handling cars can cause as many problems as they
solve.  Bad driver scan screw things up with an SUV or an ordinary vehicle.

It seems almost weekly where there is a crash where someone drops a wheel
off the pavement, then overcorrects and flies across the road to doom.  With
a good-handling car, you cross the median and get into a head-on bloodbath.
With a top-heavy SUV, you roll over soon after getting back on the roadway
in your direction of travel. No one may even get injured with the SUV
rollover, but a head-on is gonna be ugly, This is pure driver incompetence,
everyone is taught to not crank the wheel when this happens, but they do it
anyway.

As has been said, there is nothing wrong with SUVs, Talking on the phone,
etc, but it's how you deal with it as a driver.

Frankly, I'm very tired of the SUV bashing, particularly when it's done by
car enthusiasts.  They are very useful vehicles that serve practical needs.
Of course they don't handle like a Porsche.........but neither does a SHO, a
Saturn, a minivan, or a Buick LeSabre. Drivers who aren't aware enough to
adjust to their vehicle and driving conditions deserve what they
get......it's called "thinning the herd".....the only downside is that
innocent people get taken out with them. But, there's also a couple of terms
that explains this phenomena: (1) Life's a bitch, and then you die, and (2)
Life is not fair.

Today's SUV's handle and brake better than many sports cars from 30+ years
ago. Doesn't matter, as driver capabilities have not gotten any better.
Studies were done years ago that show that most drivers never corner harder
than 0.20 Gs, as that's when they start to feel "uncomfortable". Pretty much
shows that they advances in vehicle handling are well beyond the bulk of the
drivers that we share the roads with.

Ron Porter

-----Original Message-----
From: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net
[mailto:shotimes-admin@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of BJamesjr@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 6:10 PM
To: shotimes@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Shotimes] Almost death by SUV


>The manual for my wife's '99
>Rodeo (which isn't even a "big" SUV) reminds the owner that SUV's "do not
>handle or brake like an ordinary vehicle" and "have a high center of
gravity
>for off-road use".

I don't think people will ever catch on to this.  There are countless deaths
every year that could be prevented if they were driving an ordinary car
instead of an SUV.  No telling how many deaths could be prevented if every
car was as capable and responsive as an SHO.  Just a couple of months ago we
had an accident here in the city where some teens were driving a big SUV,
tried to swerve on the freeway, rolled the thing and killed several of them.
Just yesterday I was sitting in the local "fast lube" waiting on my car to
be
inspected and overheard a woman telling another person about her daughter
totalling her 2002 pickup the first day she drove it.  Again she tried to do
something with the car and it couldn't do it so she lost control.  In
situations similar to the 2 above the SHO would have just done what the
driver asked without any problems.  The result- 2 fewer accidents and
several
fewer deaths.
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