The joke about owners of sports
utility vehicles being in constant readiness to invade Poland became all the
more poignant recently, with reports that Russia had deployed ‘peacekeeping forces’ to Georgia. With
the distant echo of Russian T90 tanks reverberating from the TV news report, I
watched the familiar ritual of my neighbors, ‘the Guzzlers’, as they loaded their own immense vehicle with a drinks
cooler and two small children. Their
destination was not the strategic Georgian port
of Poti on the Black Sea but Jones Beach
on the south shore
of Long Island.
They are, the Guzzlers that is, apparently amiable, even likable non-combatants. A
while ago I asked Mr. Guzzler why he
drove such a huge beast. ‘We just like
the fact that its four-wheel drive’ he answered. Although, given the
catalog of extras such as individual seat-back DVD players, refrigerated glove
compartments and enough cup holders to stage a tea-tasting convention, this
particular conveyance probably has the four-wheel drive agility of a fully
loaded supermarket shopping cart. ‘You
never know when you’re going to need the off-road capability’ he smiled
innocently. Hmm, this is Manhasset not Montana
and the only time this particular leviathan is off-road is when Mrs. Guzzler parks it on the sidewalk while
shopping because it’s too big to leave on the street. He could obviously tell
that I wasn’t convinced and that I was still struggling to understand the
rationale so he delivered his coup de
grace. ‘It’s really a question of
safety. I just feel better knowing that they’re up high and protected from the
other hotshots on the road, particularly when I’m not there’. This, I
suppose, seems an acceptable motive for owning such a monstrous contraption.
Encasing Mrs. Guzzler and the Guzzletinis in a two-ton steel box
lined with plastic and foam may offer them some protection but at what price? And
before I’m accused of penny-pinching in respect of personal safety, I’m not
talking about the cost of gas or any other expenses incurred by running such a colossal
machine, which is ultimately the Guzzlers’
private business. I’m concerned about the cost to everyone else’s safety.
Like many of us, I’ve become
accustomed to arrogant, tail-gating bullies in high-sided, bull-nosed SUVs
attached to my rear fender as if they are coupled by steel chains. In fact, a
couple of months ago I had the misfortune to find myself in peril from
ever-encroaching, chrome-plated bull bars. In my mirror I saw a familiar sight;
huge vehicle at perilously close quarters with what appeared to be a pixie
driving it. I couldn’t move over so I sped up. Unsurprisingly, so did the
pixie, which actually made her proximity even more dangerous. So I slowed down
again which merely engendered several pro-longed bursts of the monster’s horn.
Eventually, we came to a wide intersection so I moved out of the way and
watched as the pixie, which had now morphed into a demented goblin, whooshed by
with horn still blaring and offering me ‘the
finger’. That goblin was the sweet and petite Mrs. Guzzler who is five feet four inches tall and probably weighs
less than a hundred and twenty pounds when dripping wet. I should add here that
I grew up in Britain,
which means that by my wife’s description; I
learned to drive a stick-shift, too fast, in the rain, on the wrong side of the
road. I mention this only to emphasize that I’m not usually intimidated by
driving or traffic, even in small European sub-compacts. My wife and I had been
talking about buying a smaller car for local journeys. We’d even thought about
the two-seater, micro vehicle from Mercedes, the somewhat ironically named ‘Smart
Car’. But the thought of Mrs. Guzzler
and her ilk, cocooned in a mountain of steel, arrogant indifference on full
throttle as they literally look down on the rest of us is just too horrifying. It
seems that size really does matter after all, at least in terms of feeling safe
on the roads, but how much bigger can these things actually get?
Relief could be near in that the
love affair with ‘big iron’ is possibly
beginning to sour. Recent trade reports conclude that the big manufacturers
have vastly increased their inventory of SUVs. The glut has been attributed,
unsurprisingly, to the rising cost of oil since many of these vehicles return
pitiful, if not contemptible, gas mileage. Big discounts and other enticements
by the manufacturers have led to massive declines in resale values and lease
residuals, placing burden on owners and makers alike. Ironically, the industry
analysts are proclaiming that due to price reductions there has never been a
better time to buy as the increased cost of gas will be offset over the
vehicle’s life. This appears dangerously similar to the inept rationalization used
by frenzied fashionistas when spending thousands in a sale to ‘save’ a few
hundred.
A personal concern for me is that
to avoid or defer taking a big loss, the
Guzzlers will be tempted to trade in their current model for an even larger,
more expensive, and possibly combat-ready version. As the events in Georgia
demonstrated last week, we are living in dangerous times but; is it really
necessary to deploy an armored personnel carrier to accomplish the school run?
