Myth busted- drove a SUV over Rimutakas. They can be steered

[MD]

So with all this bleating by car drivers in the Dom Post about nasty bikes travelling too fast on the hill and overtaking bloody slow traffic that's going ridiculously slow, I thought I would take an open view and look at the world from the oppositions perspective.

I had to drive to Masterton for work and took a Sante Fee 3L diesel SUV thingy. Now it's no secret I detest all things 4WD and SUV that are not owned by Tradies or Farmers. So I wore a disguise in case anybody recognised me behind the wheel of one of these repulsive vehicles. You can tell I went into this with an unbiased open mind can't you. It has puzzled me why on Piecock Hill and Rimutakas I constantly meet SUVs coming at me on my side of the road. I had assumed there was some global mechanical fault that forced all SUV drivers to use both sides of the road and at the same time drive stupidly slow, commence braking 2 minutes before reaching each bend and unable to pull over.

BUT shock, horror, I have busted this myth. The SUV steering wheel worked pretty much the same as in a conventional car. Turn it a bit to the right and the vehicle changed direction accordingly. Rotate steering wheel more or less and the degree of the vehicles directional change varied at a similar rate, just like in a car. Not once did I threaten the centreline.

Also the SUV could accelerate very well and enter and exit corners at an acceptable rate without the need to create a massive tail back of cars behind.

Armed with this new found knowledge I returned a puzzled man. Yes I had discovered the truth that the engineering design itself of SUVs isn't the cause of their owner's driving like inconsiderate pricks and total arseholes that I regularly witness.

So my research has only half answered this conundrum. It's not the SUV itself at fault for so many displays of selfish, arrogant, inconsiderate and dangerous driving, like always cutting corners, driving too slow for the traffic flow and never pulling over to let traffic pass.

Am I overlooking another factor or could it just simply be as I've often said, most SUV owners are wankers

[haydes55]

I know the answer.

Who crash more often?
Bad drivers.

Who has to think about protecting themselves and the occupants of their vehicles safety from crashes more?
Bad drivers.



Because their driving is below acceptable, and they have multiple crashes in their lives, they buy an SUV to be safer on the road. Actually getting some training or giving a shit about driving might stop them from crashing, but they can always blame a crash on someone else, so just buy a bigger vehicle.


SUVs don't make people bad drivers, bad drivers choose SUVs to avoid their inevitable Darwin award ceremony.

[FJRider]

SUVs don't make people bad drivers, bad drivers choose SUVs to avoid their inevitable Darwin award ceremony.

They also require two car parks in any parking area ... as they seem incapable of needing just one ... and still able to get out of said parking space ...

[Paul in NZ]

Mind you - there are SUV's and SUV's. I drove a Surf a with huge tyres on it. It felt like it needed two lanes to do 100kph on the motorway...

[mashman]

OMG you're lucky to be alive. Wotcha gonna try next? Can you try it with your vehicle on fire coz I think that'd look awesome.

[SMOKEU]

The muppets in their SUVs over the Akaroa hill are so stupid that I can smell their burning brakes long before I can see them. Are people that incompetent that they don't even know how to use any engine braking? Are they stupid enough to believe that braking during a corner (not just before the corner) is a safe way to drive?

[Akzle]

a cager bitch thread! Just what we need!

[GSW]

Video proof or it didn't happen!

[TheDemonLord]

I feel I can add something to this

Getting a bigger car with sub par suspension to go 'fast' (and by fast I mean up to 104 kph) on a windy road is an artform.

Especially tricky is to do it with an Auto as you can't use engine breaking in the same way you would with a manual, the trick is to carry speed into the corner, but most people have no concept of how to do this as they have been used to letting the car do all the work (over breaking, then just accelerating hard to get back up to speed)

Case in point - my Cage is an Auto Mazda 6 (the 2.3 l version but not the sport version) and I can get it to pootle along at a high rate of knots quite happily, but others who have driven it, struggle to get it to stay at 100

[skippa1]

More whinging in here than a room full of menstruating women

[James Deuce]

I feel I can add something to this

Getting a bigger car with sub par suspension to go 'fast' (and by fast I mean up to 104 kph) on a windy road is an artform.

Especially tricky is to do it with an Auto as you can't use engine breaking in the same way you would with a manual, the trick is to carry speed into the corner, but most people have no concept of how to do this as they have been used to letting the car do all the work (over breaking, then just accelerating hard to get back up to speed)

Case in point - my Cage is an Auto Mazda 6 (the 2.3 l version but not the sport version) and I can get it to pootle along at a high rate of knots quite happily, but others who have driven it, struggle to get it to stay at 100

Why would anyone break their engine to control their speed?

[mashman]

Why would anyone break their engine to control their speed?

It'll work won't it?

[James Deuce]

Once, and once only.

[Big Dave]

Generalisations are for wankers.

[James Deuce]

SUV waywardness is more of a trope than a generalisation.