I recently decided to do a little research study. While driving my little 4 cylinder car to work each day I began to keep count of the number of SUVs I passed that had only the driver in them and no one else. The results were more staggering than I imagined they would be when I started. But before I give you the results I should describe my criteria for the study:
1.The only vehicles counted were SUVs (obviously)
2.If I couldn’t clearly see if there was anyone else in the vehicle then I didn’t count it either way.
So what were the results? A ridiculous 92% of SUVs that I saw on the road had only one occupant, the driver. Most of the other 8% only had one passenger, which is still an impractical use of an SUV. All but a couple of them were late model SUVs without a speck of dirt on them and most of them were on the interstate. You never know there might be a pile of rocks you might need to drive over on the interstate!
I’m sure the statistics mentioned in the last paragraph are enough to boil the blood of the environmentalists out there but this article isn’t about the environmental impact of these over sized vehicles. What I think is crazy is how impractical they are and how rarely SUVs actually get used for things that they are meant for. I’m sure a few of the people that I observed probably were on their way to pick up their kids from somewhere, or their car was in the shop, or they were wealthy enough to not care about being practical. Sure a 4 wheel drive vehicle can be great in the snow, but it’s July and in the 90s today. Someone could just as easily buy an inexpensive used SUV and a used car and leave the SUV sit at home during the summer months if they really need to have one for weather related problems in the winter. They would probably still be saving themselves a good amount of money over that brand new gas guzzler they drive every day.
The really sad thing is that some of the people driving these $20-30,000 buses probably can’t afford them at all and will be making payments on them for years to come. Americans are all about buying things that we can’t afford just to have the appearance of wealth. Vanities such as that will only land you in the poor house my friends.