RE: Gas Prices Protest Letter (SUV related)

["Brian Honnold" <bhonnold@pac-cap.com>]

While there is much merit to your argument you are still missing that one
basic point that leads many of us who own the large SUVs to buy one.

They are the perfect vehicle to suit the needs of a large family.  We can
all travel comfortably together.  In my case the Suburban allows me to
separate the children so that travel is actually enjoyable, Avants won't
take a family of 5 to Tahoe for the weekend and pull the ski boat.  Sure we
could have a beater truck and take two cars.....but then the question
becomes one of storage.  Not everyone lives in three car garage +barn land.
I agree that you can do most of it with an Avant and a full roof rack.  Or
perhaps a nice minivan but for what I and everyone I know that owns a
Suburban do (and that's around 10 people) they are the solution.


>    I'm up to my eye balls in Cub and Boy Scouts already there.

Glad to hear it, kids need all the outdoor experience they can get.

> Actually I fixed the ski gear problem by renting a full time locker in
West Portal
> at Winter Park

Doesn't work for me......10 ski areas nearby means that we can pick and
choose the mountain we go to and thus have to haul the gear every time.

>In my case instead of the boat I've got an PCA legal Group I racer that is
street legal. Took a
> second in my class at a PCA event just last weekend, my wife won her
class, and we drove it
> home.

It's a brave and trusting man that lets his wife drive the race car.  In my
case however, I live 5 minutes from the ramps at Folsom lake, it would be a
waste not to have a boat.


>
>    Now take a moment and go to a junk yard, and look for
> yourself, it doesn't
> take long to see what vehicles best suffer the stupidity of man
> or woman kind.
> Most people I see on the street scare the hell out of me. I've be
> SCCA road
> racing for almost 20 years in FVee, FFord, and now Porsche Club.
> The more time I
> spend on the track the more I'm convinced that the average soccer
> mom with a
> cell phone to her ear driving a SUV is much more dangerous that
> any kid in a
> Honda out there. They not only need to learn how to drive but be
> in a machine
> that support pro-active safety, not pop culture marketing
> departments idea of
> "passive saftey".

I hardly think that the Suburban, which has been in production for nearly 20
years on the same basic platform is promoting pop-culture marketing.  Your
digressing back into the driver skill argument that we can all agree is
something that is terrible wrong with the American Driver.


> Mass velocity (squared) does play into the equation, but with
> a lighter more maneuverable machine one can work on missing the "event".
Let
> face it the CG of any SUV is much higher than that of a car. Suspension
are just
> truck so body roll and suspension jacking are very great, getting one on
its
> lid doesn't take much, just trying to avoid a indecent one can easily flip
one.

Absolutely, Fortunetely my wife is an excellent driver with no accidents or
even tickets.  She understands the limits of the vehicle and doesn't exceed
them even in emergency situations.  Of which there have been many out here
in the driving hell of California SUV land. :-)

>
>    By the by you really need room for 5??? I could get 5 in the
> Audi, don't need
> to but maybe if you looked at ... say a A6 Avant, or even an old
> 200 Avant with
> a Yak rack. Again trucks are for towing race cars or maybe boats,
> so then by a
> cheap truck to tow the boat and put your loved ones in the safer car.


Yes, I need room for five.  My clan consists of Renee (wife) Nick (6.5)
Tyler (4) and Jacob (1).  Two car seats and a booster means that any back
seat must be very wide for all of us to go somewhere.  And we have to take
at least one stroller, the bag of kids stuff and probably the backpack for
Jake.  Hell, when we camp we put the Thule Box on top of the Suburban.

I don't want to perpetuate this off topic discussion much further but I will
re-emphsize the point that we choose our vehicle carefully and decided that
the Suburban was the best choice out there for our family needs.

Brian H


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