The Paris SUV Vigilante’s
October 10th, 2005I’m not sure what to make of this article I read on yahoo’s newswires… Cliffnotes: French vigilantes that hate SUV’s let air out of the tires (not slash them), and throw mud all over the car, as well as other non-destructive vandalism. They leave you a note stating that they’re dangerous and pollute. The scarier part is that they have the support of the local governemtn. As much as I hate SUV’s and thought this was somewhat funny, as a car owner I’m also kinda disturbed. How far can this go? Anti-Japanese cars like in the 1980’s? Anti-non-hybrids? This has huge room for abuse is the local government supports this sort of behavior. I agree that SUV’s are dangerous (they heavier and have more mass to move in an accident, as well as roll over easily and gives the driver a false sense of invincibility), they pollute heavily (SUV’s are considered trucks and have truck engines with lenient emission rules), do damage to roads (SUV’s now curb-weigh at over 3 tons now, and some 5 tons) where most delivery trucks of this weight are banned from most roads since they do damage to roads and create potholes. But there’s ways to combat this through high tax levies, as well as killing the tax break that the SUV manufacturers get for selling each SUV. As a commuter I see tons of idiots in huge 4 ton SUV’s driving ALONE, tailgating the car in front of them, talking on the cell phone, doing their makeup or drinking coffee. Anyways the article is an interesting read. Press MORE if you want to read it from my cache, as yahoo’s articles tend to die after a few weeks.
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