SUVs -- WTF?

SUVs -- WTF?

According to news reports on the radio this afternoon, gas prices, after a short bump downward around the 4th of July holiday, are once again headed north. Yes, North, as in Ollie.

This newsflash came as I drove along the Harlem River Drive, amidst a slew of SUVs. SUVs! All over the highway, each with one and only one person in them. Were they toting sporting materials? Were they carrying cargo? Were they being used to transport items too large for a standard sized sedan?

Of course not.

They were carrying people home from work, given the hour of the day and the congested traffic on the highways out of the city.

Why would anyone need to drive an SUV into the city? Why would anyone buy an SUV, other than to use it to haul some stuff around like maybe an air conditioner or a water heating unit, back home from Home Depot, Lowe's or one of those places? What is the point?

Near where I usually park my car during the workday, out here in the suburbs, there's a Martial Arts school right next to a small gym. At varying hours of the day one can see gaggles of SUV-driving Soccer Moms, each picking up their kid to take them home from one place or the other. One rarely sees a bunch of kids in these SUVs, usually just one kid, sometimes two.

Most of the time it is one Mom, one kid. And one SUV. On the weekends it is more common to see one Dad, one kid, one SUV.

WTF?

These SUVs are gas guzzlers. Gas costs more now than in recent memory. Don't these people riding in and out of the city --all alone in their SUVs-- or these Moms with just one kid in the SUV, see the waste in having an SUV as their primary vehicle?

About twelve years ago we had neighbors living pretty close by. She was in the legal department at some huge company, and he was a salesman somehow connected to something in the film industry. As was the case for all of us suburbanites, they were a two car family. One day there was much discussion, he had gotten a new car. But not a car, oh no, better. Oh, wait until you see it. He'd gotten a truck.

Of course, silly me, when I heard truck, I would think semi, or maybe like a bread truck, or the kind of van or small truck of the sort that the plumber uses, or the landscape guy. Little did I know that truck would become a term of status and high regard.

Truck, translated into Yupspeak, meant an SUV. Or, as it seemed then, a scrunched van with some added trunk cargo space and a car-like seating design in the interior.

This fellow, the salesman, had always struck me as sort of a shlepper, a bullshit artist, and a schlemiel. But since I was worried that I might be too harsh in my judgment (and since the ex was very friendly with this guy's wife), I kept these sentiments under wraps. Also, for a guy who was supposedly in sales, he had the most obnoxious and offputting demeanor. His basic M.O. was to sit and gloat, act as though he was somehow a member of some superior order, and look down upon all others.

Also, for reasons never made clear, he was quite evasive about what exactly he did in the film industry. At one time, when I asked him just what, indeed, did he do, I was told I wouldn't understand, it was technical.

Well excuse the fuck out of me, I thought. I'd spent over 20 years in Broadcasting, knew a great deal about entertainment media, and the ins and outs of production, engineering, and so forth.

So I pressed the issue. What, I asked, tell me, and if I don't understand, maybe I can learn something.

The ex shot me one of those "don't make a scene" looks, which I promptly ignored. I'd hit my threshold, and had had it with this guy's superciliousness, and his whole personna in general.

Turns out the guy had been a "grip [1]" when they'd lived in California, and was now trying to sell various forms of equipment to film studios and related businesses in the NY area.

A grip, I asked, him, or the key grip, or the best boy?

As he seethed at such a demeaning question, his wife answered, rolling her eyes and giving him the sort of look that lets others know that the marriage is doomed. "No, he was a grip, never a key grip, and not even close to being a best boy. That's why he finally got into sales."

Turned out later on, like five or so years later, that he ended up with a job selling some computerized production equipment and did pretty well for himself. Never helped the personality, but it did enable him to meet the child support payments that came as a result of their messy divorce.

So a month or two after that unpleasant evening visit, I am out getting the mail one day and this odd looking vehicle slows down, almost running me over as I take the mail out of the box.

"Hey, like my truck?" asks the neighbor, with a shit-licking smug look on his face. "Uh, well, uh, I guess," I reply. (NB: I am the last guy one should look to for an oh wow response regarding a car. All I care about is whether or not it rides comfortably, and if it gets good gas mileage. And if it has cup holders, which are by now a standard item.)

He continues, with that smirk, snide look, and downward glance, "This is a Sports Utility Vehicle, a small truck, not a car. But you can have passengers, so it is a family vehicle, as well as a truck." He said this with such a sneer and so much attitude that I was moved to laughter.

Surely you can see, this guy and I were never exactly friends.

As he sat there with his smug look, although a little troubled by my laughter, I asked what I considered the key question about his new vehicle: "What kind of gas mileage do you get on it?"

"It gets about 16 miles to the gallon. For a truck that's excellent. And it is an automatic, so what do you expect?" And then he resumed full sneer and smug pose. As for me, I was stunned.

"You got rid of that Honda, the manual, for this thing that gets about half the mileage?" I was also surprised to hear someone refer to a truck, yet learn it was an automatic. At that point in my sheltered life, I was under the impression that if something was a truck, it had a manual transmission.

He then said something that proved to be prophetic. "These are the vehicles of the future, man. You just don't get it." Then he hit the gas (having been idling the whole time, wasting gas, as well as both his and my time) and drove off. Alone, of course, and without any cargo. Just him and his Sports Utility Vehicle, or small truck, to those not yet in the know.

So this bozo was correct, they sure did become the wave. And they are all over the place. Trophy vehicles. Costly ones, at that. Status symbols. Wasting gas, blocking the view of the road ahead when a regular sized car is behind them.

It might make sense if one was hauling stuff, or driving through terrain where a larger and more durable vehicle would be suitable. Or maybe for those going hiking or on ski trips. But to drive to work? To pick up the kids at the martial Arts School?

To go get a pizza?

What is the status boost in wasting natural resources, wasting money, and contributing to reliance on resources that are in either short, or costly supply?

As I drive to the city, or around my suburban haunts, it just makes no sense to me. SUVs - WTF?

Can anyone explain this to me? I am lost when it comes to this SUV thing.