Interesting video on why these large SUVs have become the most popular new vehicle to buy, using clever marketing tricks to convince people they need the more impractical and unsafe option.
Interesting video on why these large SUVs have become the most popular new vehicle to buy, using clever marketing tricks to convince people they need the more impractical and unsafe option.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
This is a deflection of the issue, attempting to blame consumers for the faults of the bourgeoisie. As well, this entertainer’s solution seems to be to shame and/or outrage people into accepting what he believes to be a solution to the issue of pollution while misrepresenting why people drive large vehicles in the first place.
He seems to be one of those who believe large vehicles are bought solely by people who have a Napoleonic complex and wish to arrogantly waive their wealth and/or privilege in the face of those who don’t. This is a mischaracterization of who drives SUVs and trucks and their purpose.
SUVs and trucks are among the most safe vehicles to drive. Safe for those who drive them and to the detriment of those who do not yes but this is the same argument as those who are against firearms and for the same reasons their logic is impractical. They maintain use value within our material conditions and so their existence is necessitated by them. I will explain this in a minute but first some more topical discussion.
SUVs and trucks are higher off the ground which offers greater protection against most collisions between vehicles as well as obstacles.
Front-over can be solved via grill cameras and automated alert systems. I said this exact concept in my head before hearing this entertainer’s argument that the industry also came up with this solution as well. He attributes this to the industry adding features to increase profits, and although that is true these are still viable fixes as he has fundamentally ignored the (actual) reason why people drive such large capable vehicles.
4x4 actually expedites the braking mechanisms, the road conditions are what cause delayed braking. If you need a visual guide, go on YouTube and watch people drive in the snow down hill. Trucks are the only ones capable of braking and this is due to 4x4, and yes despite their weight. And yes, many do overestimate their abilities with 4x4 and indeed still end up in ditches or sliding because of this, but this is the case with any tool which overcomes a great obstacle, for example power tools which when used by an untrained person have been often overestimated in their abilities and lead to broken tools and/or personal injury.
Station wagons such as the Subaru Outback generally handle snow well due to their all-wheel drive but they are unreliable when camping/off-road and are prone to getting stuck in the mud. This is due to the fact that all-wheel drive spins all wheels at once whereas 4x4 systems sense the road and vehicle conditions and optimize which wheel(s) should spin and how much power should be applied. This also happens with “crossovers”.
In rough terrain one requires 1ft ground clearance so as to protect the underside of the vehicle from damage due to change in angle height via suspension. As well, there is a lot to say not only of traction on tires and the system of governance for those tires (4x4), but also the amount of weight applied to tire treads which increases traction.
SUVs and trucks have greatly improved since the 80s when they were known for rolling and killing their occupants. Now not only are rollovers increasingly rare, typically only happening when the distribution of gravity is disrupted with the assistance of centripetal force for example by being struck behind the rear wheel while turning, but they are also increasingly survivable.
Now for why someone drives a truck or SUV. In fairyland where everyone is still living the social democratic American Dream, of course one can choose which vehicle or rather vehicles one owns and for what purposes, but in reality choices are already predetermined by conditions. Farmers, construction workers, plumbers, handy people, carpenters, and countless others require a vehicle capable of hauling loads in order to make a living.
Others live in an area without sufficient public transportation or drivable roads in the winter and/or live in areas of which distances between destinations surpass the capabilities of bike or foot travel, which disqualify bikes or one’s feet as a legitimate source of transportation. In rural America many roads are not maintained, necessitating 4x4 vehicles. Many states’ snow clearing services are incompetent with little funding being allocated towards the common good, leaving many in these areas with 2 choices: drive through or lose their jobs. And then there are these virtuous imbeciles who preach that if one uses the appropriate means they are immoral, evil, selfish, arrogant, and “literally killing us all”.
Attributing rising pedestrian injuries to car sizes as opposed to, say, idk…the decay of American society due to decrepit late stage capitalism and moral decay within a society which is predicated upon war and genocide to exist, is ridiculous as well. A stretch to say the least.
Another issue is time management in our society. Workers are expected to be available at a moments notice to arrive at work quickly, work an extended shift often surpassing the previously agreed upon 8hrs, and then in this hypothetical scenario travel back home by manual labor. Yes this seems feasible in time in some circumstances as we have done this before, but this would take time to implement, it cannot be rushed as our society must re-tune itself towards travel to and from work via manual labor. However, the first part I mentioned, the being at work on a moments notice part, this will take restraint and in most cases shrinkage of the bourgeoisie in order to implement a realistic policy of laxing the amount of travel time accepted for workers. This again is possible but not immediately. Trying to rush this transformation in this case where this change is viable is ultra left.
Due to the massive size of my criticisms for this entertainer’s content, I have to cut this comment short and so it only covers about half of the video.
These attributes of origin and prevalence of trucks and SUVs are facts not simply points of advertisement. Advertisements can do all they want and they do, however what determines an objects use is it’s use value as it relates to the economy. Low quality commodities now a’ days conform to this as well as the use value is maintaining velocity of capital so the actual material benefit doesn’t matter (Low quality materials high number of commodities produced, manufactured obsolescence, etc…) This is a characteristic of neoliberalism.
Social democracy functions on the principal of competitive populism, a perversion of merit instead of the most appropriate and qualified who leads it is who out competes all others while espousing unity with all others. It leads a popularity contest of sorts under capitalism, and in such conditions, especially pre-neoliberal economics, seeks out to determine leadership by the following: Those with the highest quality commodities, most successful careers (determined by salary not happiness or fulfillment), and the most loved by the highest number of people (a contradiction often balanced by propaganda). This is what lead to the creation of such vehicles upon material necessity.
So although they started from necessity of trucks, and evolved into the depiction the entertainer stipulated, it has since shed that definition within the new economic necessities. Trucks are now lighter, cheaper, lower quality, but they still (and must) conform to their material use value which in rural America is to address viable needs (such as hauling and defeating weather conditions) not for social stature as it may be in cities.
Many cities have buses, subways, trains, trollys, and even bike and scooter hubs, generally reducing the necessity of personal vehicles to a minimum.
It is ultra left to expect our society to abandon the use of SUVs and trucks at this current time and hinders the cause as well as isolates rural workers.
A viable alternative must be put into place first and then one could reasonably expect the phasing out of all personal modes of transport including trucks and SUVs but doing so beforehand would simply harm workers, the economy (assuming we gain control of this at some point), and ultimately the movement because we will be blamed when workers are left without work due to being left without viable realistic means of transportation.
TL;DR: His overall point of less large vehicles in cities is based but he uses shitty arguments, misconceptions, lies, and a lot of arguments that target legitimate use for SUVs and trucks which actually undermines his aim which is (I believe) to reduce the number of SUVs and trucks in cities but to be honest that isn’t exactly clear either based on his specific arguments.
(I do apologize for the format of this comment. I am not feeling well today.)
Oh and I love how he casually propagandizes his viewers towards his bourgeois sponsors by blending his record with their product (“I love using x site, it’s wonderful and addictive, go to their website!”), not a labor aristocratic tool at all. /s
I agree that the guy is putting a lot of emphasis on attacking SUV drivers and spends comparatively little time taking about how capitalism brought us here… but you do know those types of drivers exist, right? I mean the arrogant, selfish, boastful people that use their vehicle as a status symbol and couldn’t care less about whatever harm they’re causing. Not every SUV or truck driver is like this, but they’re definitely out there, it’s not a strawman.
Anyway, are you seriously advocating for SUVs as a safety precaution? You know what’s safer than SUVs? Vehicles that are less massive and less rigid. And yeah driving in the snow is easier with 4x4 but most of the USA isn’t snowy and the parts that are are only like that for a few months. And keep in mind that northern Europe gets just as much snow as the US, but they don’t have the same SUV usage as America does.
Also no one is saying that we should get rid of personal vehicles that can haul loads. Farmers and tradesmen need them, no contest, but the type of trucks that this guy takes issue with aren’t the type of trucks that workers want. They’re big and expensive with small beds and poor fuel economy, a far cry from the trucks that were commonly produced a few decades ago and hardly representative of what manual laborers need.
And what gave you the impression that he wants to stop all SUV usage right this second? Of course it’s going to take time to move away from them and alternatives need to be put in place to facilitate the transition away from not just SUVs, but driving in general. You and me and him are all in agreement on this.
I feel like because you dislike this guy, you’re taking contrarian positions just to dunk on him. Cool your jets, dude.
“but you do know those types of drivers exist, right? I mean the arrogant, selfish, boastful people that use their vehicle as a status symbol”
Yes: “in rural America is to address viable needs (such as hauling and defeating weather conditions) not for social stature as it may be in cities.”
“Anyway, are you seriously advocating for SUVs as a safety precaution? You know what’s safer than SUVs? Vehicles that are less massive and less rigid.”
^ This falls into the idea that the conditions of the cities are the conditions of America. As I explained, outside of urban and suburban areas these vehicles are necessitated, as if they must exist then within that same enviroment smaller less rigid vehicles are not safer for the reasons both I and the entertainer explained.
“And yeah driving in the snow is easier with 4x4 but most of the USA isn’t snowy and the parts that are are only like that for a few months.”
^ The top northern states not including Alaska are snowy for an average of 5-6 months, winter is much longer than in places such as southern Illinois, Virginina, Tennessee, etc… This argument does not address mud and lack of paved roads as a road obstacle however.
“Also no one is saying that we should get rid of personal vehicles that can haul loads.”
^ This is good and should be explicitly stated however the line-blurring jumping around nature of the entertainer’s arguments left me with an uncertainty of his views in this regard. He came off as idealistic, which is why I felt the need to address this point outright.
“They’re big and expensive with small beds and poor fuel economy, a far cry from the trucks that were commonly produced a few decades ago and hardly representative of what manual laborers need.”
^ This is an interesting argument. Currently in rural America, there is a splice between the ‘tried and true’ old vehicles such as the Dodge D-series pickups, 80’s F-150s, Broncos, Blazers, Gimmys, and the Tahoes and Suburbans before 2005.
Then there are the new aluminum so-called “super trucks” such as the new (post 05’) Ford F-series, Toyota Tundras, Chevy Silverados, Tahoes, and Suburbans, as well as these poorly made remakes of the above forementioned Blazers and Broncos.
All of which are as you have said, they do not represent the interests of the rural American worker. They are cheap, they fall apart, they are make of untried (by fire, known to be reliable and bugs worked out) technologies which are still glitchy and tend to fail such as vehicles with advanced computer systems and countless sensors which as well are predicated upon the import of microprocessors which China has a near monopoly on and we are aware of the contradiction between our comrades in the PRC and the bourgeois here.
When you say these are not the trucks targeted again this was unclear and so I addressed this too outright.
“And what gave you the impression that he wants to stop all SUV usage right this second?”
The fact that he did not explicitly state this while aggressively criticizing these vehicles from seemingly every angle based or not. This urgency and over the top tempo eludes to an interest in urgency. He did not even explicitly state (as far as I watched) that he advocates for this to happen in a logical manner.
“I feel like because you dislike this guy, you’re taking contrarian positions just to dunk on him”
^ I dislike his arguments and so I criticize his position, any feelings I developed from this individual were derived from his content. I had not even heard of this person prior to this post. What is of concern to me is his arguments and intentions. The specific interests of which he aims to assert (solutions and what things specifically are seen as problems for him, not financial or class interests) were not clear to me.
I find your criticisms strange because this video began by explicitly framing the issue of SUV ownership around building walkable cities. So I’m honestly not sure what your point is. Large vehicles have use cases in rural areas? Yeah man, I agree.
I think you should work on your listening skills because you’re arguing against no one. Here’s a quote from the video that illustrates my point:
“And if you do live in a rural area, you might need to drive a light truck and obviously that’s fine and I don’t care. But we’re talking about suburbia here and come on. You know as well as I do that the vast, vast, vaaast majority of drivers in these light trucks are carrying exactly 2 things: their briefcase and their fat ass. And most people don’t use a briefcase anymore.” (quote starts at 14:22)
My points were nuance, not being arrogant and disrespectful because it isolates rural workers from these policies, and planning out such large action not simply beginning without such a plan and fail to the detriment of those who advocated it. With a heavy emphasis on the second and third. There were many facts he was incorrect on and nuances he had not considered (the sub-points I made on large vehicles) not specifically that he treated cities as America which yes he did explicitly say this at the time you pointed to (I was mistaken) however the fact that I overlooked it and that this point of nuance came at the 15min mark after 14 mins of implying his conflation of the two this does little to improve the structure of his video IMO
I wasn’t referring to you as arrogant in my previous comment, I was talking about asshole SUV drivers. Sorry for being unclear.
I still don’t understand what you’re talking about though. The only policy proposals I see in this video are to 1) reduce/eliminate the import tax on light trucks 2) reclassify which vehicles count as light trucks 3) tighten regulations on the emissions of these vehicles 4) increase the visibility of the front-end of these vehicles 5) make these vehicles conform to the same safety standards as regular cars 6) restrict the use of these vehicles within cities.
I’m sincerely baffled by what you’re taking away from this. Rural America isn’t within the scope of this video or this channel and that was made clear by the very first sentence. You’re making it sound like he wants to purge all large vehicles from the country right this instant but that’s not what he’s saying. At all. 😵💫
“I wasn’t referring to you as arrogant in my previous comment, I was talking about asshole SUV drivers.” No I understood, you were fine. There are some asshole drivers, I think he inflated that into totality. That was my impression anyway.
Some of the regulations are problematic even if they do not include “in rural spaces”. For example tightening emissions is again deflecting the issue of pollution onto workers, consumers, and the pette bourgeois when in reality vehicle emissions are a much smaller issue than factory farms, factories, and misc production facilities which are driven directly by capitalism and it’s aspect of consumerism. This perpetuates that deflection. No that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue such policies but it’s the context in which it’s applied and of course the planning.
Wanting trucks to conform to car safety standards would force SUVs and trucks to become smaller and lighter, would allow them to be easier to integrate into neoliberal manufacturing (lower quality, higher quantity) thus assisting the bourgeois in making more profit as well as undermining the use value of these trucks as they would become less reliable and able to haul less. Most of the SUVs and trucks used in rural America aren’t modern, they’re pre-2005 models. Reliability is an issue as well as affordability which is creating this lag between the classically used models and newer ones.
As well it is my opinion based on what we know about capitalism and specifically it’s neoliberal form that it’s only a matter of time before propaganda is produced to assert that “4x4 is basically the same as all-wheel drive just more expensive. No one really needs 4x4” and then that is removed so they can make more money and have more liquidity of capital. It would be cheaper to have all 4x4 become all-wheel, it would be cheapest if we simply walked everywhere. So you see how our interests overlap but they do split, namely at the point of pragmatism in this case but in others they go in opposite directions.
It’s cheapest if we choose to believe Tylenol is equivalent to morphine and simply treat surgeries with that as the cost of production is lower. They tried this at the beginning of the revelation of mass addiction to opiates dubbed “the opioid epidemic” but it fell flat because the material necessity of morphine’s use value was evident. I believe this will happen here too, but the point is to not back the wrong horse. It is detrimental to the movement.
The only thing the capitalists care about is capital, they do not care how society functions under these decisions. When they shift towards electric buses we cheer. When they run Chinese factories to the point that it looks like coal is being used in China en mass to power production we gasp in horror. But the pursuit of profit does not care, it does this and will continue to do more horrors. Obviously the loss of 4x4 is not the same scale as air pollution, I am using hyperbole to demonstrate my point. Sometimes neoliberal decisions are beneficial to us, other times its to the detriment to us. As I’ve stated I believe we must first further develop these areas so as to make the removal of SUVs and trucks non-detrimental but beneficial.
These proposed regulations wouldn’t be a problem if they were confined to cities but that is not how regulations have been formed or used historically in the US. It will be uniform.
#6 infers that #'s 1-5 apply across the board. If we are to simply ban SUVs and small trucks from cities what is the point of the first 5 regulations? Who are they referencing, which SUVs and trucks? The only ones left by process of elimination. I’m not sure if this was your structuring of what the entertainer said or his words exactly so I won’t draw a conclusion from that I simply wanted to point it out.
SUVs are the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions since 2010. We don’t have the time to pick and choose which polluters to target, we need to be targeting all of them. And SUVs are a growing problem that we need to address before they become even more of an issue.
And because I’m confident that you didn’t watch much of this video, THESE are the vehicles that he and I take issue with:
This picture compares an SUV to a station wagon, a cheaper, smaller, safer vehicle with more space. What use value does an SUV have that station wagons don’t? Besides running over pedestrians.
Also, if you’re concerned about pickup trucks then it’s in your interest to regulate them too. Because they have gotten larger and more expensive with much smaller beds, the thing people ostensibly buy them for.
I’ve said enough already and I don’t want to continue this conversation anymore. If you don’t see the issue with people driving tank-sized cars for everyday travel then there’s nothing I can tell you to convince you otherwise.
The initial link I provided linked to multiple sources, the primary of which was broken however I have found it (https://climateaccountability.org/carbonmajors.html).
The key word is increase, not total. They are not the second overall contributors to pollution, only the second highest contributors to the increase of emissions. The highest overall contributors to pollution are still industry, however even if it were SUVs #1, the person to target is the bourgeoisie. The entertainer’s argument seems to be to shame and/or harass consumers, but this is also ultra left as it fails to address the cause of why these vehicles are purchased as well as taking into account economic inter-connectivity. Just telling people to not drive them isn’t an answer.
Yes station wagons are a more reasonable vehicle to drive in terms of size but not necessarily in terms of usability. However, this is again addressing the issue in the country side and not in the cities which is likely insecurity exacerbated by the police state in them as well as the bolstering crime rates of which the police do nothing to solve as that is not their function…“If you can’t have a gun why not an SUV” some may be thinking. This is speculation. It is also likely status-based which is directly linked to the economy and the extravagance portrayed by the labor aristocracy and pette bourgeois.
As well, how are these machines created? In a factory. How is power produced? Via gas and oil production. So even if SUVs are a mechanism for this pollution, it again should be accounted towards the owners of these means of production and those who craft and direct the economy (their tools) not the workers who work on these mechanisms or use them to make ends meet. That entire argument is liberal. The issue with pollution is overproduction for the sake of commodity production to make insane profits to off-set a constantly falling rate of profit. It’s systemic, if all we had to do was just stop buying SUVs and the problem would be solved, such a problem wouldn’t exist in the first place as it’s immeasurably smaller than such a problem of mass pollution in the first place. It is such a threat because it is systemic, otherwise it could never get this big is what I’m saying. So not only is this barking up the wrong tree, it’s blaming the kid with matches for starting the fire as opposed to the conditions which necessitated such deviant behavior in the first place. Do you understand what I’m trying to say here?
If you live in rural, isolated parts of the US and are a worker you still don’t necessarily need a truck. The people with trucks are usually land owners, ranchers, or business owners in my experience. The workers drive company trucks or they work at a diner or something that has no need for trucks at all. Or the community is dying and people are forced to move to a city, but that is a seperate issue.
As for snow, you just put chains on your tires (sometimes required by law) and only make the trek into “town” very few times during winter. Trucks or SUVs are not actually the most important part, in fact the larger vehicle can make it more difficult in narrow mountain passes. Also many residents in isolated areas are actually wealthy, especially ranch/business owners, and they are most certainly at their winter homes not dealing with snow while working people basically just drink alcohol all winter. None of the businesses I worked at were owned by legitimate residents of the area, but instead also owned property in other states like Texas or California, or in the “nearby” (like 300+ miles away) major metro areas.
Anyways I don’t think it is always true accross all rural spaces that workers specifically need large vehicles. In fact I’d say advertising, and corporate currated identities play a big role in how people choose their car- especially when it leans on outdoor lifestyle branding which is a major fixture in the US settler imagination and of US nation building. It’s not true in the isolated mountain towns I have lived in, nor in the forgetten parts of the desert. It was usually business owners that needed trucks. Poor people were crammed into shrinking small towns while the rich lived on tracts of land. I think people forget that rural often means landed and thus not always poor, not always working class.
However, ultimately I appreciate your skeptism of the narrative of the video. It is easy for yuppies to say what is good for everyone and it is much less possible for people outside of the big city to just let go of their vehicles, big or small. I ended up getting an Outback Subaru because I had to commute 50-70 miles to work from a desert valley to various mountain towns and did not feel safe in a smaller car driving so much but had no need for something bigger. Gas prices are too high for a truck to be an option and I mostly worked in restaurants.
Yeah that’s understandable. The chains on tires is a great point for snow but for dirt roads that become muddy the ground clearance is still an issue. A perfect solution to this (AFAIK as I wasn’t around when they were a company) the AMC Eagle was a sedan with 4x4 and what looks to be either 1ft or close to it of ground clearance. It’s a shame they went under, that vehicle in particular looks interesting to me due to it’s unique characteristics and expanded use value.
I understand the landed argument and this is certainly prevalent in rural America. Of course it isn’t our job to worry about the pette bourgeois I didn’t mean to confer that. I was thinking more of trailer parks whereby workers rent trailers not drive them in there and towns where workers rent around the immediate area which can take them through rough terrain due to the underdevelopment of the area. I will also say that most people who live in these areas are either pette bourgeois or working class, taking “many rich” relatively.
Agreed. Gas prices are in general very high right now, this is even worse for those with large vehicles.