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+--- Thread: Why SUVs must be outlawed! (/thread-13095.html)
- Botafogo - 09-11-2003
An hour ago, for the THIRD time in nine months, a woman driving a large SUV (this time it was a Range Rover) with the back window not only four feet off the ground but obscured by a spare tire backed right into my PARKED Alfa Romeo in broad daylight in the parking lot of our store!
She immediately started whining about how she could not see my car because it was "too low". Had that been a four year old or a fire hydrant or a gas meter it could have been really tragic, not that breaking a $350 Ferrari tail light lens and scraping up my $4,000 custom paint job (paid for by the LAST two people who did this) isn't tragic enough...
This is a DESIGN defect in these vehicles. The NTSB needs to recall every last one of them...
Pissed off in Santa Monica, Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 09-11-2003).]
- hotwine - 09-11-2003
Sympathies, 'Berto. Now if you'd drive a beat-up old truck instead, everybody would figure you probably don't even have insurance, and give you a VERY wide berth. I did that for years, although I'm in an '02 F150 now.
- Botafogo - 09-11-2003
Hot, the joy of my Alfarari (an 86 Alfa Romeo with the rear panel and tail lights of a Ferrari and painted a resplendently irridescent shade of green modeled after the Brasilian flag) is that everyone (even Verne) says it is one of the coolest cars they've ever seen and I have less than $7,000 in it.
I wasn't driving, she backed right into it even when she had at least ten feet to spare. AND, she knew it was there as I had run her out of our dedicated parking spaces fifteen minutes earlier...
Arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh! I am becoming entirely too friendly with the guys at H&H Body Shop, Roberto
- Botafogo - 09-11-2003
On a related note, did anyone see the lovely Daryl Hannah on Bill O'Reiley last night explaining how she drives her STANDARD, UNMODIFIED GM Diesel Pick-up fueled with used french fryer grease and alcolhol, gets comparable milage to normal fuel and doesn't pollute as much????
go to
www.grassolean.com for more details
- Georgie - 09-11-2003
I agree with you about those huge SUV's, Roberto. I drive a Ford Taurus wagon which is not an especially small car. It's very difficult to back out of a parking space with one of those monsters next to you because you can't see through their mile-high windows to view oncoming traffic. Hate 'em! Sorry about your car.
- winoweenie - 09-11-2003
What a BUMMER Robo-Baby! Even CB said what a cool lil' topless job that was when we pulled in. That's the very reason I drive the Envoy. The dealor has tried putting me in a Yukon for the last 2 trux and I tell him the same thing. WAY too big. WW
- winedope1 - 09-11-2003
sounds like an awesome car, Roberto. sorry it got messed up again. Hotwine- gotta tell you drivin a truck doesn't seem to make a difference. My poor pickup has been whacked three times in the past year!!! Oh well...save us all from the rotten drivers of the world. WD
- Bucko - 09-11-2003
As a proud SUV driver, I say a pox on you. My Mountaineer likes to eat those little woosy cars for breakfast. Aarrhh, aarrhh, aarrhh........
- winer - 09-11-2003
Too bad about the car, Roberto, but I'm glad no one was in it when it got schmucked. I hate SUVs myself, (they guzle gas, and they DO tend to roll over) but I have to say its not the SUVs themselves that are the problem, it's the idiots who drive them. SUVs are hugely popular here in BC, (the weather thing, I guess) but there seems to be a mind set that goes with buying one. Many SUV drivers seem to think that the rules common courtesy don't apply to them anymore. Maybe its because they sit up so high, they figure they are a little closer to God than the rest of us.
- Botafogo - 09-12-2003
I sincerely believe that, if you cannot see anything shorter than four and a half feet out of the rear window, then that is a hazardous design defect worthy of recall and criminal liability to the manufacturer. Bucko, call me after you run over your dog, your kids bike or a neighbor's kid.....I know MANY top shelf lawyers.
Roberto
- Drew - 09-12-2003
You all crack me up...I've had ALL little cars smash into my Explorer and Dodge pick um up so what's the reason there?...the big cars look like a vortex and you think you're Capt. Kirk? Personally, Boto, I think it was retaliation for running her out of that spot! [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]
Drew
[This message has been edited by Drew (edited 09-12-2003).]
- Thomas - 09-12-2003
Must be our week Roberto. On Monday a sizable truck ripped off my rear bumper on the passenger side as I inched my way out of a construction lane and into the only lane available that the SOB felt belonged solely to him. He did not see my four-foot Honda Electric Hybrid; why else would he hit and run? The truck was at least one hundred feet TALL!
Incidentally, I drive an electric hybrid because at 35,000 miles a year, I need to conserve and not to pollute, but I would love an Alafa Romeo, or even a 1956 Thunderbird, if only to look at...
Oh yeah, Roberto, thanks for the referral; she is coming to see me today.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 09-12-2003).]
- wondersofwine - 09-12-2003
In my childhood days in Lincoln, Nebraska we had a next-door neighbor, Air Force officer, who worked on foreign cars in his driveway on the weekends. He owned a white Alfa Romeo and I remember MG's and Spiders being worked on. It all seemed pretty exotic for the Heartland.
I'm with Georgie in that I usually end up parking my Chevrolet Cavalier between monster SUVs and can't see if anything is coming when I go to back out. I don't have one of those automatic beepers for reverse, but often honk my horn before starting to back out and it has saved a pedestrian from walking into my path when I couldn't see him around the SUV.
- ShortWiner - 09-12-2003
Ach! Put me in the "Hates the Monsters" camp. Awful things. Apologies, Bucko, but they make me angry.
Good for you, foodie, and your hybrid. I would really like to make one of those my next car, if I can afford it.
- Auburnwine - 09-12-2003
The lad and I were two cars in front of a Tahoe whose brakes failed while the driver was chattering on her cell phone. It was like having a dump truck slam into the car behind us.
The damned amount of time I had to spend with insurance people and car rental people and repair shops!
And when one of those dump trucks parks to your right and you want to back out into the street ...! One shouldn't need a periscope to park.
- Glass_A_Day - 09-12-2003
When a drunk driver runs a red light and rams into your little toy... um, I mean car, we'll see if you wish you had a big SUV wrapped around you. Then again, you would be dead, so you prob wouldn't be wishing for anything... The roads are way to dangerous of a place. Until the world is a perfect place, I'll keep my full size pickup.