Why some people drive pickups and SUVs

[SectorOne]

Never seen this option before,

[MOWOG]

That option is available only in the great state of Texas!

[SectorOne]

All in the name of safety

When he collides head on the upper body will dettach due to the impact and sail over the golf with it´s now instant-dead people inside and will eventually come to a stop safe and sound further down the road.

[blahblahblah]

in reply to the comment about ford expeditions... drive one before you comment on it. Ive had many vehicles and the expedition is the easiest to drive. incredibly easy to park in the tightest of lots because of its short wheel base... has an incredibly smooth ride and handles twice as good as a minivan i had before. i only registered to defend the expedition, there are plenty of --- box tanks on the road to be afraid of but in all honesty the only down fall the expedition has is MPG. i pulled multiple people from the ditch in our recent snow storm. its a large vehicle but it incredibly versatile and has many many luxury features... should have said Hummer or something of that sort... expeditions have loads of safety features and I have amazing viewing angles... have you ever driven a chevy cobalt? you cant see a damn thing behind you the rear dash is so high and you sit so low... im sure ill get flamed but i just wanted to post my point.

[donskar]

If you look closely, you'll see the vehicle is wearing a handicap plate. Might refer to mental handicap in this particular case.

[Jersey Tom]

That option is available only in the great state of Texas!

Look like Florida plates to me.

[Agenda_Is_Incorrect]

They also don't spend too much time trying to view things from someone else's view. A person who is hell-bent on saving the environment doesn't consider that the Landrover Defender may be necessary to carry bulk materials, supplies etc. They are usually too disgrunted by the fact that they are "suffering" with a small car in order to live up to their principles, and therefore believe that everyone else should too.

[-o<

Finally! This seems so obvious but no one says it and it is even harder for someone to admit it. Thank you for that and for being more considerative than the average "activist" and the average "german activist" (people who will run over you with a bike and feel proud of it because they are "saving the world"). Those people, they think of themselves as being so superior and so much more intelligent or informed (and some times they are) but they end up playing a really dumb role. Most just can't see things other than their annoying cause!

I'm actually a bit surprised how many people down vote my musings and I believe that there is a big dose of bad conscience involved if people cannot deal with the realities and have a proper discussion where they can make their points in writing.

I guess the constant feeling in like 80% of your posts of being just the negative stereotype CBeck113 perfectly and finally described is the reason for the downvoting. You see, this kind of attitude is a lot common these days. Partially because richer countries and more influential universities/research centers have a lot of interest on it and have huge interference on the opinion/media and partially because this dumb way of acting seems to be "cool" nowadays. Everyone must have a "good" cause (read, environmental or socialist), it must be right, it must be the only way and it must be imposed for everyone else.

This is goddamn annoying, I can assure you. You can't see it because of some character flaw and because you are in the side who actually gets moral/financial/power incentive to act like that. Most people happily don't and for all of them this is hugely annoying. If you could see it one day you will be ashamed of yourself. Why happily? Well, because there are reasons your way of life can be bad and don't have to be imposed for every being in this planet! Just like almost everything else, but the annoying part is not being able to realize that!

I personally hate SUVs, even if I needed the extra space or offroading I would take a saloon/wagon 4x4 before any SUV. I hate big cars that aren't SUVs because they either drive like sh*t or they need huge and heavy breaks and tires to drive ok. I hate most diesels because they take out any joy of driving with the vibrations and the poor power band. If I could I would only have sports cars (with the most horsepower possible, because I like it, I want it and I can decide were the f*ck I can spend my share of natural resources) and maybe a nimble normal car that drives well for other uses.

The thing is, I can see why people would drive any of those cars I hate and I can see there are VERY RATIONAL NEEDS for them. Therefore I don't blame anyone for that and don't try to impose my needs or likings to those. Ok, many SUV owners really just own them for stupid reasons, and they waste fuel and steel and space with that attitude. But the way you put it, it is like every SUV owner is stupid and has no reason/right to own that car. THIS IS WRONG AND ANNOYING!

When Pup mentioned that I had a bit of an unbalanced view in my opening post I have changed my position. That did not stop the heavy car fan brigade to down vote the other more balanced posts as well.

It is no surprise. It's the annoyance effect again and given what you said earlier and your history I can't say I don't hope for more downvotes. I believe most SUV users and defenders here are people that have them because they need it and know where to use them. They are not your average SUV owner and all those things together you deserve the downvotes.

To all the fans of nuclear energy I would recommend an excursion to Chernobyl or Fukushima. The damages from such a catastrophic failure by far outstrip the cost of converting the national energy economy of a mid sized country to run on 80% renewable energies until 2050.

And a trip to EU is recommended if you think it is feasible for every country to just follow Germany and abandon their energy sources (nuclear included) in favor of a 80 to 100% "renewable sourced" energy. Economic crises that ruined the second large World economy is beyond any accident repair of Fukushima. And that includes the social cost, because maybe a couple thousand lifes were affected in Japan, as opposed to Europe were millions are experiencing being very close to death and poverty.

Germany wouldn't have the needed money to do this switch from nuclear if it didn't have the economical domination of Europe and it it wasn't an economical power before that. No mid size country with an average economy has the money for all that green babble. And the way Germany got to this position of dominating Europe economically is nothing to be proud of and nothing reachable for your average country. Lets not forget Germany has bought its ways with most countries of the EU block to be able to force its policies and the Euro. This included turning blind eyes to the current crisis (it was know that some countries simply wouldn't make the ends meet way before and that was conveniently ignored) and managing the crisis with sometimes the most brutal liberal and austerity policies there are. Governments were overturned by the call of EU (in the name of we all know who... the one that owned the debts).

Therefore no, you aren't as an example as you think you are. FAR FROM THAT. I rather more countries on the nuclear way than on the "let me take your money so I can become even more rich and waste on green energy" way. Less cost by any means on that, if you do the minimal safety measures (which only trash URSS failed to do, another "country" that liked to force policies because it was "better").

That btw is the plan in Germany and we are well on our way to achieve it. The target wasn't selected willy nilly. We need to achieve it in order to fulfil our commitments from international treaties and to do our part to contain the projected heating of the atmosphere to a reasonable degree.

You do it because you want to sell it. And you promote EU laws to force people (WHO ARE IN CRISIS) to buy it and spend money on it. You keep doing SUVs and cars with unbelievably big weight. And guns.

To rely on nuclear power is contra productive to our goal.

Much of the technology we are developing will become nice exports for countries which still have no focus on the use of renewable energies and will find themselves in difficulties soon.

Ok, even you admit it. Can you start to realize it now or you will keep the hypocrite and blind self righteous attitude forever? It's an export product, you want to make money with it. It is financial suicide for most countries and empirically has been demonstrated to be a created necessity, a created danger, just another cause.

We have wonderful scientific studies on that which the general public in Germany only took to heart after Fukushima

Because that's another demonstration of the fear mongering involved and how much you depend on fear and on pushing dumb activists to approve unreasonable measures like that. You keep selling SUVs, big inneficient cars and guns tough. And keep using "non green/renewable" sources like coal and gas. It's like France forbiding that new kind of oil extraction, but they sure will go to your country and exploit it. And conveniently, you will only shut down your nuclear power plants when you are ready to use and sell your "green" alternatives. And you keep buying nuclear generated energy it from other countries. I could go on forever.

Back on topic, everyone has different needs and wishes. Every choice has its impacts. Don't be a douche!

[Blanchimont]

Today, the German environmental minister Gabriel announced that he wants to decrease the government aids from an average of 17 cent/kWh down to 12 cent/kWh for renewable energies. And in Bavaria the federal government wants to ensure that new wind turbines have to be further away than 10 times the total height from the next buildings, what would mean that there will be almost no new wind turbines. My impression is that the public opinion in Germany is changing and that, unlike in the recent years, bigger parts of the society are critical about the renewable energies and their costs.

On the average fuel consumption of newly registered cars in Germany, here are some numbers showing the l/100km for the recent years:

[hollus]

...And in Bavaria the federal government wants to ensure that new wind turbines have to be further away than 10 times the total height from the next buildings, what would mean that there will be almost no new wind turbines.

That ensures that there will be no very, very tall new wind turbines (and yes, very large wind turbines have obvious issues with noise and visual pollution). Why is everybody assuming that wind generation and solar generation will always look like it looks now?
The cars of today, while recognizable in their general features, have almost nothing to do with those from the 30s and quite little in common, both material and performance wise, with cars from the 70s.

Right now, to be economically sound, a solar cell has to be at the current limit of efficiency, made from reasonably expensive and advanced materials. A wind turbine, to be competitive both in terms of incentives and relative to other turbines, has to be as tall and large as possible, to get the extra wind up there. This makes each turbine a (multi?) million dollar proposition, meaning that only big companies can play the game. I'd argue that big companies are only interested in it because each turbine is so expensive, meaning that there is big money to be made and a few players willing to invest in that range to make big money for themselves.

Give it time, and cars will reach 50-100MPG (we are already there in 2014).
Give it time, and solar cells with 8% efficiency will cost 50$/m2 (Those with 16% will remain expensive).
Give it time, and wind turbines will be cheaper, lighter... maybe even grow a mass market.

Then, we could stop using the current 200m tall turbines and instead install little armies of turbines only 10-20 meters tall, costing 5000$ or less a piece. Single users could afford those. Single users (with land) could plant then in their properties. They could be installed using more of less standard construction equipment like cranes. Maintenance would also be within the reach of the average Joe. Structural constraints would be much less demanding, so one could have double blades both ahead and behind the mast, or more blades, and place many turbines close to each other. Energy could be produced where it is needed, like in the roof of a factory (large factories should all be covered in solar panels and mini wind turbines). Visual pollution would be automatically reduced, and with clever placement, could be almost eliminated by solutions like, dare I say say it, a line of trees.

The obvious downside: much less wind that close to the ground. Can be largely made up by numbers.
The less obvious upside: blades that move, at their tips, at 100Km/h, not close to the speed of sound (the current factor limiting turbine size). And just like that, the noise is gone.

This is how I see the future in, say, 30-50 years from now, with less than perfect machines that don't need to be selfish to justify their own existence. But this can only happen when prices fall low enough, which is slowly almost here!

Large turbines will still be the optimum for engineering and economical efficiency, and be in isolated places, shore lines, etc.
Don't believe me? How many people owned a car in 1930? How many of your daily cars are near either the engineering or the economical optimum?