SUV ownership == sponsoring terrorism?

[Jeffi0]

That, IMHO, is incredibly stupid. What about all the people who are crazy about anti racism? She is saying that all the oil and gas owners in the Middle East are terrorists. If these people want to sell gas to America, then the Americans should be allowed to buy what they want. How about we all turn off our furnaces and sit here in the cold so that the people in the Middle East don't get money? Or maybe the factories that use gas to burn should be shut down. Bad ideas. Just because people don't use SUVs to go off road, they might still need the space and the towing power. Pickup trucks use huge amounts of gas mileage too. If people want to pay for gas then it's out of their own pockets.

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by MagiK: I am not in the top 5% but may be in the top 15% and No I don't take my GF's SUV off road...but it did save my life Christmas night when I hit the guardrail at 40 miles an hour.....My CAR had a totaled front end when a guy hit me in the parking lot at less than 10 miles per hour.

If you check the info on front end crashes you'll find that small cars do just as well in the type of crash you had. They are designed to have the front end 'smash' to absorb the kenetic energy from a crash, and transfer as much as possible to the frame surrounding the passenger compartment.

[The Hunter of Jahanna]

So if SUV's aid terrorists because they use a lot of oil from the middle east then Arianna Huffington supports RACISM by infering that everyone in the middle east is a terorrist. Way to go , Stupid. Nothing like fanning the fires of hate in America. With "activists" like this we will be at war in no time.

"The goal of the campaign is not to demonize people who drive SUVs," Huffington said. "We want to point out how our driving habits at home are fueling oil money to Saudi Arabia." One spot features a hapless SUV driver named "George" pumping gas into his vehicle while an oil company executive steps into a limousine and a group of turban-wearing soldiers fire automatic rifles into the air. "This is George," a child says in a sing-song voice. "This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV." "Oil money supports some terrible things. What kind of mileage does your SUV get?" the ad concludes.

[Rokenn]

Buried under all the silliness in this idea (the ads) is a valid point. The Oil drives a good bit of US foriegn policy. And low milage vechicles increase our dependence on foriegn oil sources.
It no more silly then this announcement from the Surgeon General:
Obesity 'a threat' to U.S. security Surgeon general urges cultural shift

Originally posted by Rokenn: quote: Originally posted by MagiK: I am not in the top 5% but may be in the top 15% and No I don't take my GF's SUV off road...but it did save my life Christmas night when I hit the guardrail at 40 miles an hour.....My CAR had a totaled front end when a guy hit me in the parking lot at less than 10 miles per hour.

If you check the info on front end crashes you'll find that small cars do just as well in the type of crash you had. They are designed to have the front end 'smash' to absorb the kenetic energy from a crash, and transfer as much as possible to the frame surrounding the passenger compartment.[/QUOTE]
Roken I don't need to check the Polls on what happens to small cars in crahses. My 1999 Pontiac Grand Am was hit in a parkling lot at less than 10 miles an hour, Air bag deployed, front end totaled and an $8,000 repair bill....VS Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with V8 ...spun out on black Ice and slush, hit guardrail at 40 miles an hour....no air bag deployment, and $3,000 total damages.....I was able to drive the jeep 200 miles home after tieing the headlights back in place with a shoe string...My Grand Am had to be towed.

Real life is all I need to make my descision thanks [img]smile.gif[/img]

Edit: I know I was doing 40 miles an hour when I hit because while I was spinning out of control, I had what seemed like a long time to think about life, death..the fact that it would be a miracle if the guardrail stopped us from plowing on through and over the very large cliff beyond and the fact that I may have just killed my girlfriend after meeting my parents...the temperature guage read green, the speedometer said 55 at one point, the oil pressure was good and the idiot light was telling me the tail light was out......it is amazing how time stands still during such an incident

Edit to my Edited post: The Jeep gets 20MPG on the highway, the Grand Am about 21MPG Americans buy what they want and no econazi is going to convice the majority of Americans they have to drive tiny, unsafe ecofriendly cars with no power or structural safety.

[ 01-09-2003, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Rokenn]

Not to get OT here, but hitting a gardrail (which is designed to absorb impact and arrest the motion of the vechicle) vs hitting another vechicle are two different thinks. Besides what hit you that managed to do so much damage as essentailly a human running speed.

Originally posted by Rokenn: Not to get OT here, but hitting a gardrail (which is designed to absorb impact and arrest the motion of the vechicle) vs hitting another vechicle are two different thinks. Besides what hit you that managed to do so much damage as essentailly a human running speed.

Both vehicles in my cars case had "Energy Absorbing bumpers" oh and lest you think hitting a Guardrail at roughly 75 to 85 degree angle at 40 is a gentle tap..I implore you to try it out....it is not a minor matter...Colleen still has bruises where the seatbelt grabbed her. I was braced on the steering wheel.

[Timber Loftis]

Look, some SUVs are safer and some cars are safer. SUV does not necessarily equal safe. Mercedes cars (e-class, s-class), for instance, are safer than most SUVs, and are safer than the Mercedes M-class. Volvos are moving tanks, whether SUVs or not. On the flip side (pun), many SUVs have rollover problems, etc.

As for the article, it makes me [img]graemlins/1pissed.gif[/img] because this tripe usurps perfectly sane reasons to argue for people to make the decision (note, USA = generally free) not to buy big gas guzzlers. On that note, large Lincolns, limos, etc, are gas guzzlers too. The only problem w/ SUVs is they avoid the gas guzzler tax that guzzling cars get hit with.

This particular platform though, that SUVs support terror, is as attenuated as silly as those frigging commercials saying that buying drugs supports terror. One is democratic BS made to tug our heartstrings rather than exercise our brains, the other is republican BS made to tug our heartstrings rather than exercise our brains.

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: Not to get OT here, but hitting a gardrail (which is designed to absorb impact and arrest the motion of the vechicle) vs hitting another vechicle are two different thinks. Besides what hit you that managed to do so much damage as essentailly a human running speed.

Both vehicles in my cars case had "Energy Absorbing bumpers" oh and lest you think hitting a Guardrail at roughly 75 to 85 degree angle at 40 is a gentle tap..I implore you to try it out....it is not a minor matter...Colleen still has bruises where the seatbelt grabbed her. I was braced on the steering wheel.[/QUOTE]I never said it was a gentle tap. I said gaurdrails are specificly designed to do exactly what they did in your case, keep you from going over the cliff. But you still have not answered the question. What was the other vehicle? Is there some reason for not answering the question directly?

BTW bracing your arms on the steering wheel is just about the worst thing to do in an auto accident. Glad to hear you both 'walked away' from it with minor injuries.

[antryg]

The only reason that I liked the ads is that they show the absurdity of the drugs=terrorists ads. Has anyone else seen the articles that show that the poppy production in Afghanistan is now back to normal levels? Kind of funny since all the terrorists are gone and U.S. troops are still running around the countryside. Yes, some drug money does go to terrorists. The same can be said about some of the oil money in the Middle East. Obviously the next set of ads will go to outlaw beer since so many IRA fundraisers in the USA have been in pubs and bars.

I think what we need to do is remember that a knee-jerk reaction means that we are a puppet, our strings being pulled by another for their reasons. Making our own, well reasoned decisions is what we should be doing.