I Want to Give up Driving: 2 Jun 06

Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download


"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving hypocrite,
Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can he persuade the
rest of the planet to give up, too?"

Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:
Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download


"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving hypocrite,
Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can he persuade the
rest of the planet to give up, too?"

I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range Rover
Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation about the
risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the environemental
factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We like it was their
excuse. What hope!!

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Tony Raven wrote:
Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:
Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download


"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving
hypocrite, Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can
he persuade the rest of the planet to give up, too?"

I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range
Rover Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation
about the risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the
environemental factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We
like it was their excuse. What hope!!

What a dire level of self-knowledge, too. If at least they could have said
something along the lines of "it makes us confident", there'd be a smidgen
of hope that they'd realise that the confidence is due to intimidating other
road users and blocking pedestrians' sight lines, etc.

A

Ambrose Nankivell came up with the following;:
Tony Raven wrote:
Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:
Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download


"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving
hypocrite, Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can
he persuade the rest of the planet to give up, too?"

I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range
Rover Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation
about the risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the
environemental factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We
like it was their excuse. What hope!!

What a dire level of self-knowledge, too. If at least they could have said
something along the lines of "it makes us confident"

Maybe they didn't say that because most people who have a vehicle like this
don't actually think along the same lines you think they do.

there'd be a smidgen
of hope that they'd realise that the confidence is due to intimidating
other road users and blocking pedestrians' sight lines, etc.

They didn't say it possibly because it doesn't "make them confident", as you
seem to think. I also don't think these vehicles actually do intimidate
others, or block sight lines, any more than any other large vehicle, like
vans, buses, trucks, MPV's etc which also use the road system.

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

Tony Raven wrote:
Ambrose Nankivell wrote on 21/06/2006 19:47 +0100:
Tony Raven wrote:
Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:
Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download
"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving
hypocrite, Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can
he persuade the rest of the planet to give up, too?"
I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range
Rover Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation
about the risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the
environemental factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We
like it was their excuse. What hope!!
of hope that they'd realise that the confidence is due to intimidating other
road users and blocking pedestrians' sight lines, etc.


They had an excellent person who disarmed that excuse beautifully by
telling them that they may pride themselves on being safer inside but
they were more likely to hit and kill someone in an SUV and he
guaranteed that if they did they would never forget it however safe they
were inside.

Thing is, that my understanding (which is quite franky
pretty ill informed) is that SUVs are quite a lot more
dangerous for their occupants than ordinary cars.

This is due to their proponsity to roll over. I will
have a look to see if I can find anything authoritative
on the googly.

The sad part is that they truely do make the
occupants feel safer and it seems that they equally
truely actually make them less safe. Alternatively
maybe it is not actually that they feel safer per se
but that there is some other percieved benifit
which is expressed/justified as a feeling of safety.

I would guess that the roll over protection provided
by this class of vehicle will sadly be increased
as time passes.

Paul - xxx wrote:
Ambrose Nankivell came up with the following;:
Tony Raven wrote:
Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:
Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download


"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving
hypocrite, Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can
he persuade the rest of the planet to give up, too?"

I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range
Rover Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation
about the risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the
environemental factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We
like it was their excuse. What hope!!

What a dire level of self-knowledge, too. If at least they could have said
something along the lines of "it makes us confident"

Maybe they didn't say that because most people who have a vehicle like this
don't actually think along the same lines you think they do.

there'd be a smidgen
of hope that they'd realise that the confidence is due to intimidating
other road users and blocking pedestrians' sight lines, etc.

They didn't say it possibly because it doesn't "make them confident", as you
seem to think. I also don't think these vehicles actually do intimidate
others, or block sight lines, any more than any other large vehicle, like
vans, buses, trucks, MPV's etc which also use the road system.


Speaking personally they do intimidate me, and they do block sight
lines more than the more usual cars. They have much less excuse for
their size, than other more useful large vehicles. A bus needs to be
large, in order to carry a lot of people (hopefully!). Vans and trucks
need to be large to carry large amounts of goods, which allegedly we
all need. What excuse has the SUV for being large? Mostly it is going
to be empty, except for one greedy, tasteless, anaesthetised lump of
decadence in the driver's seat. SUVs are just the motorised version of
a gated development.

"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"

Squashme wrote:
What excuse has the SUV for being large? Mostly it is going
to be empty, except for one greedy, tasteless, anaesthetised lump of
decadence in the driver's seat. SUVs are just the motorised version of
a gated development.

"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"


The other day, there was a demonstration on the M25 that showed one of
two things:

1. A BMW X5 has better brakes than a Jeep

or

2. The Jeep driver's view of the brake lights of the car in front is
obscured when tailgating.

Either way, it was, as Stella would have it, "reassuringly expensive".

in message .com,
') wrote:

Tony Raven wrote:
Ambrose Nankivell wrote on 21/06/2006 19:47 +0100:
Tony Raven wrote:
Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:
Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download
"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving
hypocrite, Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can
he persuade the rest of the planet to give up, too?"
I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range
Rover Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation
about the risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the
environemental factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We
like it was their excuse. What hope!!
of hope that they'd realise that the confidence is due to
intimidating other road users and blocking pedestrians' sight lines,
etc.


They had an excellent person who disarmed that excuse beautifully by
telling them that they may pride themselves on being safer inside but
they were more likely to hit and kill someone in an SUV and he
guaranteed that if they did they would never forget it however safe
they were inside.

Thing is, that my understanding (which is quite franky
pretty ill informed) is that SUVs are quite a lot more
dangerous for their occupants than ordinary cars.

This is due to their proponsity to roll over. I will
have a look to see if I can find anything authoritative
on the googly.

Also because a rigid chassis does not crumple in a head-on impact,
therefore transferring far more force to the occupants. Generally much
less safe for the occupants than normal cars.

I would guess that the roll over protection provided
by this class of vehicle will sadly be increased
as time passes.

Mine has no less than three roll-over bars - built in, as standard. The
manufacturer obviously felt there was a need for them.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Friends don't send friends HTML formatted emails.

Tony Raven wrote:
Al C-F wrote on 21/06/2006 18:22 +0100:

Radio 4 Choice Podcast - an 11.6MB download


"Asthmatic Friend of the Earth and self-confessed car driving
hypocrite, Dave Cohen, wants to give up his car addiction. But can he
persuade the rest of the planet to give up, too?"


I Want it Now! just on BBC1 had a couple choosing between a Range Rover
Sport and a Merc Diesel Estate. Despite all the explanation about the
risk to other road users, the fuel consumption (3x), the environemental
factors etc they still went for the Range Rover. We like it was their
excuse. What hope!!

Added to which when the woman came to park the thing in a space large
enough for an APC she had to drive on because she couldnt see well
enough to get the car in after three attempts.
FWIW more people are killed in 4x4's on the road when they hit mountain
armcos as the 4x4 is the wrong height and tends to go over it I assume
the same when hitting armcos along motorways etc. The things should be
banned on public roads unless there's a good reason for having one. IE
better than the other jewel of the program 'taking the kids to school'.

Sniper8052

Sniper8052(L96A1) wrote on 22/06/2006 07:52 +0100:

Added to which when the woman came to park the thing in a space large
enough for an APC she had to drive on because she couldnt see well
enough to get the car in after three attempts.


And that was with those reversing distance sensors fitted!!!

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci