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Old 11-21-2015, 05:52 PM   #55 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf View Post
Sure, but the question is (or should be) what's a reasonable response to the chance of stuff that just happens happening to you. Is it reasonable to e.g. wear body armor 24/7 just in case of a jihadist attack?

Seems reasonable to balance costs against benefits. With the typical oversized SUV people are trading money, convenience, and pleasure against the perceived safety benefit, when statistics show that it's often a false perception, and the SUV is actually less safe than a smaller vehicle.
I'm old enough to remember before 'Sport' Utility Vehicles became popular, and were simply known as 'trucks'.
If you wanted one, you had either a Ford Bronco, a Chevy Blazer, a Suburban, a Dodge Ramcharger, and one or two others.

Women hated them.

Vans were semi popular - and I mean vans ...not minivans ( they didn't exist yet ) , but not because they were safer, but because they could fit a full size bed in the back.

Women hated them.
(Young men loved them.)

I don't remember Ford Thunderbirds being bought by soccer moms because they were 'safe. A 1975-79 T-Bird was a monster of a car. Ten feet of hood in front of you, and over two tons of dead weight.

Station Wagons were the SUV of the era, but I doubt they were sold on 'safety', and more for their 'space'.
In the 1980s, the minivan took over where the station wagon left off, and station wagons were looked down on in shame.
The 1990s and 2000s replaced the minivan with the SUV, and suddenly family men didn't have to be ashamed to drive a vehicle that branded them as a man that was no longer a playboy.
These things looked like trucks, and trucks were rugged without the frills that family men had to have in their vehicles.
Yes - trucks were vehicles that real men drove ... because women hated them.

But something happened to these trucks- they became soft, and feminine.
Now we have the SUVs that are nothing but jacked up cars.
I wonder what the next progression is, and I still wonder what the catalyst was that made these people want to buy trucks...I mean SPORT utility vehicles.
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