US roadways will look like Europe soon...

Me too, MsDaisy. When I drove the Explorer I would park way at the far end of the parking lot away from everyone else for that reason, because all my cars before that one were small and I knew what it was like to try to pull out of a parking space when you can't see around the other cars parked next to you. Now I park that far away because I don't want the doors dinged and scratched.

 

And our roads will be boring places and it will be a sad day when all you see are compact transportation appliances.

 

At 1.47EUR/l it is 5.56EUR/US gal, which translates (wih the latest exhange rate) to $8.57/US gal. Twice the US price!!

No wonder people are slowing down.

 

Regardless of the vehicle, how much fun can a routine commute really be? It is not as if people really relish the thought of sitting in traffic on their way to and from work, and, lets face it, the majority of driving is commuting, not for pleasure.
If a person can afford to go ripping around in a sports car or SUV for pleasure, they probably care little about the price of fuel, as this is something they likely do occasionally but not day in and day out.

 

True, it all depends on what people can afford. I think you will notice smaller, more fuel efficient cars, I know I have already. People will buy what suits there needs. As another poster wrote, many people in Europe drive wagons, or estates as they call them, but there are people who drive the large Range Rovers and GL550's.

 

Well that may have been a function of where you were and/or what your definition of "SUV" is. There are most certainly "SUVs" in Europe that are owned by the "locals" (OK, most are owned by people who live in the country, or have a great deal of money, but they are there.)

No we're not talking Expeditions or Yukons here, but we are talking Land Rovers and the DB equivalent (can't remember what it's called.) There are other brands/models that are popular as well.

I think the difference here is that the really huge, honkin' SUVs that we crave here don't exist there. However, frankly you can't get much more SUVish than a Land Rover; heck, Land Rovers really are the original SUV.

That doesn't make the European outlook better, just different. Remember, the folks across the pond have a different set of rules and constraints by which they have to play. Try living that close to other people, or parking on a very narrow street, you wouldn't want a great huge car either...

 

well, this took a while. even had to call a few people...but about SUV's and conjecture on why people drive them...

heck with it... why guess. let me talk about people I DO KNOW

ok. only talking about people i know well enough to know their basic driving situation:

ok... 24 people, 27 vehicles.

11 small or decent mileage vehicles. (about 30 mpg or better)

that leaves 5 trucks (2 are 2nd vehicles) all solo drivers

4 large cars (mileage around 25 and down) two of these are older models. late 80's

and finally 7 SUV's.... out of these, 5 drive solo nearly 100% of the time. 3 are older and have no children at home...one drives an Explorer and only thing she hauls around is a dog.

the two vehicles that dont drive solo most of the time drive as couples leaving their more than capable small cars at home. (the other does carpool with another for their 100+ mile commute, but insists on driving as well when out with the SO)

so, now, i may know a lot of wasteful people, then again, i may know about the same mix of people as most of you do. i believe the latter...

now this is where the phone calls come in. wondering why some, including some who can easily afford (im guessing) to get something else are driving gas hogs needlessly.

4 of them had SUV's for children who recently got old enough to not want to go with them or have moved out and are "thinking" about getting something smaller... one has been thinking about it for 4 years im guessing, since their son did graduate from Western WA university last week.

3 more say they cant do anything until their current vehicle is paid off. (not sure why, unless they have some massive debt somewhere, they should easily be able to afford to get something else...one couple just spent probably $20-30,000 on backyard improvements, hot tub, gazebo, deck, etc...)

3 others say, they want the extra carrying capacity for those special times they need it. granted, 4 with the trucks do have campers, boats, etc (in Puget Sound region, boating is very popular)

after all that... i found, only one has SUV to haul extras around ost of the time... a dog... big dog granted, and pretty sure i would not want that dog in my car... but others here haul a dog around in their Pri... another with an SUV has 2 kids, but primary use of vehicle is single commuter according to owner... i guess as family they dont go out much...

i do know one family with 4 kids. 2 families with 3 kids and and 4 with 2 kids. there is 2 mini vans in this group but also 8 of the small cars... LOL... oh well. guess that kinda messes up the formula a bit. (on the mini vans, its primarily driven by hubby alone, because wife doesnt like to drive it... she hauls her 3 kids around in honda civic...)

so there ya know... real life... doesnt really clear up much does it...

i would be interested in seeing an analysis of your real life acquaintances.

 

I do not have a judgmental attitude that no one needs to drive large SUV's and vans. I think there is a reason and place for it. The interstate stretch was between two industrial city areas separated by 60 miles! The people in those vehicles had not just dropped off the kids, and in those numbers, they are too large to be "coincidental." I'm not going to respond to any more rebuttals because I wasn't stating that to be mean, I was merely expressing my road census. I have done more than that, and a lot of them are in that same neighborhood. It is a trend here, not limited or isolated to any particular time or occurrence.

I don't see anything in my post that would constitute calling me uninformed and ridiculous. It is the replies like that that really ruin this site sometimes.

 

I was once told or read somewhere that a large part of the reason the roadways in Europe are so well constructed is the way they handle the maintenance. I was told (or read) that when a roadway is built, the contractor that bids for the job is also responsible for the maintenance on said roadway for the life of the roadway. Therefore, the contractor has a vested interest in seeing that the roadway has the best materials, uses the most modern construction procedures, etc. so it will hold up well and not become a maintenance nightmare.

Does anyone have any firsthand experience with this being true or not?

 

My husband the engineer does not know whether or not that tidbit is true, but he does say that their standards are also different. Their standards for road building include a longer lifetime (say 50+ years) whereas ours are bid out to last only 20 years- hence they don't need to be as beefy, because they are expected to be repaired/relaid/whatever sooner than our European counterparts. Even our bridges are built only to withstand about 50-70 years of use, and most of them are way older than that.

:humble:

 

I beg to differ on your attitude. Your original post stated [FONT=&quot]

That means for the average of 5.3 or so seats, there is one person. Usually the driver. There is absolutely no excuse for that! That is over 2 tons per person!

Without knowing each of the people whose cars you counted and took the time to look up vehicle weight, etc. your comment is uninformed. Just because you saw them on a specific stretch of road does not mean they do not have kids, or a business that requires they haul whatever, or any other extenuating circumstances. I'm not saying that all of them do, and you may be right for up to 50% of them or even more. My point is that YOU are judging THEM without knowing each of them personally- which you have no right to do.

If I have noticed one thing about Prius driving people (at least those who post on this site) it is their smugness and superiority. THEY are the ones who are helping the planet, and THEY have done this or that. As a proud Prius owner myself, while I congratulate myself that we could afford to own this car (and it wasn't cheap) we still gave up other things to have it- like trunk space to haul things. We're currently remodeling our house, and cannot fit the supplies from the hardware store for the job in the Prius. You can't haul things (boats, trailers, etc.) with a Prius, and it certainly wouldn't be a car I'd want to cram 6 people into for a long drive- it's just not big enough for that. Realistically, there are things we never would have thought about before that have to be planned carefully now because we just cannot do it in the Prius. That's just being realistic- it's in no way putting down my Barcelona red beauty. So trucks and SUV's do have a purpose, and just because you don't know what each person's reasons are for owning one doesn't give you the right to say they shouldn't have it.
[/FONT]

 

Yep-I've been perusing the website Historic Bridges of the United States. Amazing how many 100+ year old bridges are still in use!

 

I did read an article about German road construction a few years ago. I seems that the Germans build a moving "tent" over their paving sites. This allows for slowing down the concrete setting time (heating by the Sun). Also, they use a much "stiffer" slurry when they pour the concrete. It takes a lot of work to beat the poured concrete into shape, but it has a much higher level of strength than U.S. standards.

Here is an article about Euro concrete paving standards. Chapter 3: Concrete Pavement Design - Long-Life Concrete Pavements in Europe and Canada - International - FHWA

It might be interesting to compare these with U.S. practice.

 

Not a real car guy, eh? (And that's OK, but there are still many of us left. I have my premium fuel burning sports car I drive once a week and it is way more fun, even in rush hour traffic, to drive than my FEH.)

 

Even if we implement such a protocol here in the U.S., it would have no impact. Contracts go to the lowest bidder. If the lowest bidder is just looking to make a bunch of money and retire in 10 years, then what does he care what happens to the roadway in 15 years. It will be just too bad, so sad for the users of the roadway... pretty much what we have today.

 

That's what surety bonds were made for.

 

Road durability - as we grapple with "Peak Everything" we must shift to long term actions. Just as rail roads in Europe use concrete ties, rail roads in the US use wood ties that must be replaced more often. We must take on "least cost, end use" (long term) to minimize cost for the long run. Electric and high speed rail require rails constructed to high standards. We in the US have been "spending" and "coasting" on our infrastructure with no eye toward replacement or longevity. The Paradigm is shifting.

 

Au contraire. I used to be a real gearhead until a couple of years ago, but, alas brother, I have lost the faith. Sports cars and SUVs are not going to go away, they will just be used more appropriately (i.e. for fun and sports/utility). They will be used for occasional (like your once a week sports car commute) cruising or wheeling instead of as daily drivers.

 

The fact that some people need an SUV/truck does nothing to diminish the fact that most people don't. Through the 70's & 80's we had a very steady 10-20% population of trucks, SUVs and Vans. I think its fair to say that represents the number of people who really need them plus a small number of people who just really wanted one. In the late 90's early '00s the population grew to about 50%. Did everyone suddenly move out into the woods and need a 4WD? Not so much. People were convinced by automakers that the vehicles that happened to make them the most money, were also the safest and coolest vehicles to drive. A lucky coincidence, eh? By those numbers, if 10-20% actually need one, and 50% are/were buying one we can conclude that roughly 60-80% of the trucks and SUVs out there are driven by people who don't really need them.

Fair play to them you might say, who are we to decide what other people drive? They are free Americans and have the right to drive whatever they damn well please! Thats all well and good if it doesn't affect me. Unfortunately it does. An SUV is 2-3 times more likely to kill me in an accident. A full size pickup is 4-5 more likely to kill me. What about my right to not die? I suppose if SUVs were much safer for you then you could at least argue your right to protect yourself at the cost of others, but they aren't. You're still 2-4 times more likely to die in an SUV than a minivan. The prevalence of absurdly large and under utilized vehicles easily accounts for an extra 20-30% of light duty vehicle fuel consumption, which has helped drive up gas prices. What about my right to be able to afford to drive to work and provide for my family? These vehicles are clearly responsible for a substantial increase in light duty vehicle emissions, because they're "work" vehicles, not passenger vehicles don't you know. We wouldn't want to hurt businesses by restricting emissions on "work" vehicles now would we? What about my right to be healthy, or not have children with breathing disorders? What about my right be able to safely go outside on days when Phoenix looks like this:

Instead of this:


Unfortunately the freedoms our grandfathers died to protect are being squandered to justify our right to do stupid things at the cost of others. We're fine with the government torturing, wire-tapping, domestic spying, watching what books we read, what we talk about online, putting people in prison for 4-5 years without charges, killing hundereds of thousands of arabs and 1000s of our own soldiers, but try and take away our guns or our gas guzzlers and watch out!

I freely admit I'm a hypocrite. I love fast cars, and I love off-roading. Secretly I even love guns. I've just finally come to realize that their are societal costs associated with these activities and that those activities are mostly not worth those costs.

Sorry if this got a little too FHOPy, it just drives me crazy. I finally figured it out, why can't everyone else?

Rob

 

(In relation to the two or so replies to my writing) I agree you both make good points. I should have worded things a bit more nicely in both of my replies. I just felt a little upset over being called out on it, and the whole ridiculous and uninformed thing. I have to tell you though, when I see this happening all the time, I mean like a lot, the numbers are just too great for it to be coincidence or that people need these vehicles. I drive through the newer section of town, with all these little suburb houses, with like 1 or 2 bedrooms and they have SUV's parked on the driveway. Not vans, or cars (2 kids would mean 5 seats is plenty imo) well.. anyways Its not my opinion that matters. They can get whatever vehicle they want. I just hope that those who don't need them wake up. I was simply trying to show some results of some study I did in this local area for anyone who was interested. I respect their rights, but I am alarmed at what I am seeing. I am not smug by driving in a prius (sometimes I joke about being so) I currently own an SUV, and did have 2 of them before the prius. [Maybe that is why I am so hard on others.] guilt.