> Salwrote:
You're missing the point. In keeping with the dumbing down effect
that is going on here in America. People won't buy cars, they will
continue to buy SUV and Trucks until they have maxed out their credit
cards. Then they will roll their credit card debt over into 2nd
mortgages on their over inflated house price. Then they'll roll the
maxed out mortgage debt into first second and third bankruptcies.
It's the American way.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Except that I have excellent credit and can still not qualify for any
home loans. Due to a disability with which I was BORN, I often find
employment and even daily functioning difficult. Yet I always try to
continue my education and strive to find my niche and become gainfully
employed. As such, I need a vehicle to get to and from school and
work. I live in a climate that does get winter snow and ice storms.
An SUV is beneficial to me for many reasons. Cars are very low to the
ground, difficult for a tall guy like me to get in and out of, and
often there's not even enough space to sit up straight. Also, I have
better visibility, not just on the roads, to better see around big
vehicles, that's impossible, but rather to see around obstructions to
my view when, for instance, pulling out of side streets, and so on.
Now, I think Hummers are disgustingly obese and as such can see
virtually no situation where anyone would need one for any reason.
My SUV is a Chevrolet Blazer ZR2. It's from the early models of SUVs
that were built to handle tougher conditions, and not drive around
like passenger vehicles, built on an S-10 pickup truck frame.
Pickups have very valid uses in work conditions. Also, ever notice
when moving from one house or apartment, the people you know with
pickup trucks suddenly become your best friends?
> Salwrote:
You can't put a gun to someone's head and tell them not to buy a SUV
or Truck. So many of the people you see doing the above are from
generations after the boomers. They weren't old enough to have had to
wait in line for gas in 1973 and were probably a sperm in their
fathers testes during the recession brought to us by Jimmy Carter in
1982. They live from paycheck to paycheck but it costs $140 to fill
it up. They'll have to pry the SUV keys from my dead cold hand!
Well, you COULD put a gun to people's heads, but would that be
EFFECTIVE? Would that be freedom? Freedom of will, freedom of
autonomous decision making? If the government passes a law that the
people request, then we can put a gun to people's heads, legally,
perhaps literally. To have freedom you must accept that people will
make bad decisions. You can't have it both ways, and forbid people
to make bad decisions, because then they make no decisions.
I think that it is futile to adopt the mindset that you must control
the size and type of every vehicle everyone drives for every reason.
There may be more effective ways to manage the decision making
processes. make laws that will assess fees for larger vehicles
commensurate with the added strain on the environment, resources, and
infrastructure, so that people are free to make their choice, but have
a very simple way to gauge the consequences of their decision. Such a
system would likely be susceptible to the perversions of big business
and politics, and may be rendered meaningless and unfair in short
order.
How about focusing more energy on REQUIRING the responsibility of the
MANUFACTURERS of MASS-PRODUCED vehicles. GM used to create a vehicle
called the EV1. It was hugely successful with the owners of the
vehicles. Yet GM insisted it was a failure, and fought with congress
to not require them to ever make an efficient vehicle ever again.
Congress agreed. GM forced their customers to "AGREE" it
was a failure as they did not rest until ALL the EV1s were
"stolen" (technically not stolen, as they never allowed
customers to BUY them, only LEASE them) back from the customers and
shredded in car destroyers, not even to be recycled for components,
or for metals or plastics, for fear that someone might steal the
technology of these vehicles. GM even flatly refused to let owners
disclaim all liability of manufacture or maintenance responsibilities
if they just simply let the owners have the vehicles. GM vehemently
refused. GM went on to create 3 versions of the Hummer.
Instead of fighting the inevitable, society's desire for larger
vehicles, we must concede this reality. We can make plans to
intelligently manage production of vehicles for diverse uses besides
transport of 1-5 small adults. Uses of new materials such as carbon
fibers, aluminum alloys and metallurgical techniques (molding or
pressing in various ways to enhance the strength while using the same
or less material), can lighten the SUV to weights less than most cars,
therefore nullifying some of the arguments that it's too
big/heavy/fuel inefficient. Utilizing power sources that are
electrical in nature, and further creating infrastructure that can
rechage those systems with fully renewable energy sources (for
instance: wind, water, solar, tidal, geothermal) and further
enhancing the techniques of nuclear power to minimize wastes (the US
uses a technique that creates high-powered wastes from processes that
yield higher power on the first use but no reuse, producing half-lives
in the tens or hundreds of thousands of years, versus the Canadian
method, which yields lower power the first time, but is more easily
reprocessed and reusable for a few times, with the resultant wastes
of half-lives thousands of times less than the US method).
We've barely begun to scratch the surface of fully utilizing all of
the known physical principles, chemical properties, and existing
manufacturing capabilities for the mass-production and mass
distribution of all manner of more efficient means of locomotion and
eco-friendly means of production.
Yet we have this incomprehensible duality, the simultaneous admission
of the problems and rejection of larger inefficient vehicles, and the
closed-mindedness to refuse even the consideration of the feasibility
of doing anything different to address such problems.
The US government has funded materials science studies to research
better ways to utilize carbon fibers in the construction of
multi-material vehicles. Yet what do they do? After 20 years, they
find out a few ways in which carbon fibers break. A smaller group of
3-4 intelligent individuals with no governmental funding and no
political strings could likely produce results in a weekend and a
viable prototype within a week. So why these incessant delays of the
utilization of current knowledge of materials science? Why even ask
why? Why not just do it!
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