4x4s

And not just ANY 4x4, because I have no problem with a 4x4 being driven by somebody who actually NEEDS a 4x4, as part of the work, if they're a farmer for example, or a forest ranger, or if they live half way up a mountain, or in the middle of deserted moorland. What I DO object to is stuck up, middle-aged, middle-class British women driving their 4x4s on the school run - of no more than two miles - guzzling up enough petrol to keep MY car going for a week, ploughing their way through or even OVER other road users, whilst they check their makeup in the rear-view mirror and talk on their mobile phones. These cars are BIG, they take up more room than is necessary, fill the roads with their obnoxious fumes and generally PISS.ME.OFF.

Tax the bitches! Put their road tax up by 200...no wait 500 percent! Let's see how many of them choose to ferry their one sallow child to school in the back of TANK then! Wuhahaha.

lol!

That debate was in high swing for quite a long while here in the 90s and the early part of this decade. But rising gas prices here put a squelch on those types of people.

I personally don't care if people want to drive them. But the part that pisses me off (besides the waste in gas) is the usage of them. I drove 18 wheelers for over 20 years and most people driving these big SUV's (as we call them) don't know what they're getting themselves into because of the size of them. I prefer a mid-sized pick up myself. This is mine. I've owned it since 1995. Bought it brand new back then.

Just from looking at your picture one thing strikes me immediately. THE SIZE OF YOUR ROADS! You have HUGE roads, big and wide, they can accommodate those things. In British towns and villages, sometimes the roads are just about big enough for two cows to walk down side to side AND THAT'S IT! So when one of these things is parked at the road side, or trying to pass something else that is, it causes tail backs. And considering the average parking space in Britain is about the size of a match box, that's a problem too. They really do clog up the roads and they are SO unnecessary. Rush hour is horrific enough without having to dodge these things. They are a status symbol and nothing else. And that really makes me tetchy.

BecMacFeegle wrote:Just from looking at your picture one thing strikes me immediately. THE SIZE OF YOUR ROADS! You have HUGE roads, big and wide, they can accommodate those things. In British towns and villages, sometimes the roads are just about big enough for two cows to walk down side to side AND THAT'S IT! So when one of these things is parked at the road side, or trying to pass something else that is, it causes tail backs. And considering the average parking space in Britain is about the size of a match box, that's a problem too. They really do clog up the roads and they are SO unnecessary. Rush hour is horrific enough without having to dodge these things. They are a status symbol and nothing else. And that really makes me tetchy.

That's actually a parking lot in that picture (car park to you guys). Modern roads are built with lanes that are between 10 and 15 feet in width (3 to 4.5 meters).

American roads are much bigger than European roads, as are parking lots and parking spaces of course. Here in KY, it's "the cool thing" to drive a truck and make it guzzle as many gallons of fuel as possible, whether it's by jacking it up, putting unnecessarily huge tires on it, or anything of that sort, the bigger and more inefficient it is, the better. I never saw many trucks in the suburb of Detroit, but here in KY I'd say about every 5th or 6th car is a truck or pick up. A lot of times, the drivers of the big, tuned up trucks are the ones that think they own the road which is why you hear about another casualty in a car crash almost daily.

Road width varies from city to city in America. I spent most of my life in Albuquerque (population 500,000) and the main thoroughfares are six lanes (three in each direction) and a median in between. So it's quite easy to navigate. By contrast I'm now in Houston (population 3 million) and a lot of the major roads here are two or three lanes in each direction, but with no median. So making a left hand turn without a light can be quite difficult - or even impossible during rush hour. And it's like that throughout the city.

i_luv_miley wrote:Road width varies from city to city in America.

This is true. I forgot about this; a few trucking friends of mine had traveled quite a bit on the east coast and say that the roads there are narrower than most other states here.

TexasBlue wrote:

i_luv_miley wrote:Road width varies from city to city in America.

This is true. I forgot about this; a few trucking friends of mine had traveled quite a bit on the east coast and say that the roads there are narrower than most other states here.

Some of those eastern cities have sh*t-for-roads! Boston is the worst I've been to. The city itself is tiny but within it are over half a million people (not counting the surrounding area) and as a result, the streets are narrow and just crammed. You can't get around. I'm sure it has to do with 19th century city planning. It's only my opnion of course, but I doubt that two-hundred years ago (when those cities were the most populated in the country), the planners took future growth into account. They just built the roads to fit their (19th century) needs. But of course, soon those cities became larger than what the roads and infrastructure could handle - and as a result, a lot of those cities began to deteriorate. It's like that in a lot of eastern/great lake cities. Their infrastructure just didn't keep up with their growth - which ultimately led to their demise. By contrast, by the time America spread to the west (west of Texas let's say), the city planners seemed to take future growth into account, which is why you have a city like Albuquerque (or Phoenix or Denver or Los Angeles) spread out all over hell, whereas the eastern cities are all crammed into a small area.

Yeah, i see that even in Minneapolis because the suburbs have surrounded the city (and St. Paul). But Ft. Worth (where i used to live) has open area to the west and especially the north. Lots of room for expansion and they doing it. One of the many reasons i got out of there. Too much bullshit.

i_luv_miley wrote:Road width varies from city to city in America. I spent most of my life in Albuquerque (population 500,000) and the main thoroughfares are six lanes (three in each direction) and a median in between. So it's quite easy to navigate. By contrast I'm now in Houston (population 3 million) and a lot of the major roads here are two or three lanes in each direction, but with no median. So making a left hand turn without a light can be quite difficult - or even impossible during rush hour. And it's like that throughout the city.

I probably should have made this clearer in my post, but I was talking more about the actual size or the lanes that make up the road, not the number of lanes. The number of lanes are about the same here as they are in Europe, IMO.

BubbleBliss wrote:

i_luv_miley wrote:Road width varies from city to city in America. I spent most of my life in Albuquerque (population 500,000) and the main thoroughfares are six lanes (three in each direction) and a median in between. So it's quite easy to navigate. By contrast I'm now in Houston (population 3 million) and a lot of the major roads here are two or three lanes in each direction, but with no median. So making a left hand turn without a light can be quite difficult - or even impossible during rush hour. And it's like that throughout the city.

I probably should have made this clearer in my post, but I was talking more about the actual size or the lanes that make up the road, not the number of lanes. The number of lanes are about the same here as they are in Europe, IMO.

I wouldn't be surprised if the American lanes are wider. I spent some time in England twenty years ago and I must say, driving there scared the hell out of me. It was bad enough being on the wrong (I mean left) side of the road, but I do think the actual lanes there were narrower - and it seemed to be worse in the cities. :silent:

i_luv_miley wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:

i_luv_miley wrote:Road width varies from city to city in America. I spent most of my life in Albuquerque (population 500,000) and the main thoroughfares are six lanes (three in each direction) and a median in between. So it's quite easy to navigate. By contrast I'm now in Houston (population 3 million) and a lot of the major roads here are two or three lanes in each direction, but with no median. So making a left hand turn without a light can be quite difficult - or even impossible during rush hour. And it's like that throughout the city.

I probably should have made this clearer in my post, but I was talking more about the actual size or the lanes that make up the road, not the number of lanes. The number of lanes are about the same here as they are in Europe, IMO.

I wouldn't be surprised if the American lanes are wider. I spent some time in England twenty years ago and I must say, driving there scared the hell out of me. It was bad enough being on the wrong (I mean left) side of the road, but I do think the actual lanes there were narrower - and it seemed to be worse in the cities. :silent:

Yeah, roads definitely are more narrow!

Yeah, they are environmentally unfriendly and they do block and slow down other road users. These are all good points. My personal objection is that they are anti-social to the point of sociopathy. I suspect the main reason people buy them is because the sense of security - at the cost of other road users. A child getting hit by one of these SOBs is not only likely to incur worse injuries or even death, but are more likely to be hit in the first place, given the high seating position of the driver. And don't get me started on those horrendous grails many 4x4 owners stick on the front!

The "security" benefit is also likely overstated; accidents are more likely to be caused by overly-confident drivers rather then nervous cautious ones, driving one of these through a city must feel like taking a BFG cannon to a fist fight. Not that they were designed with real security in mind, only the feeling of security.