When I lived in California, it was my impression that many smokers felt shamed into giving up, or at least hiding and denying, their smoking habit. I remember seeing one woman smoking by a fountain once, and instantly feeling disgusted and offended by her "behavior" (and then being startled by own indignation -- she was the first person I saw smoking outside in many months.)
If the same shameful image could be associated with oversized vehicles that serve no purpose except to be fashionable and flaunt one's wealth, eventually it might become socially and politically acceptable to legislate such cars into highly restricted and controlled usage, the same way legislation is steadily restricting the usage of cigarettes. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
The problem (or one problem) is that the perception of what constitutes a large vehicle in the US is... broken. Even when driving a typical American station wagon or sedan, you are apt feel boxed in by the high-riding SUVs. Definitely not for the claustrophobic. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Well, yes, but isn't that why they invented minivans? In most of the US there is no good reason for anyone to own an SUV. And the off-road capabilities just aren't needed on the freeway, where these monsters spend almost all of their time. The Fates are kind.
If people start taking out their feelings on big-sized gas-guzzlers on the road, I think it would be much more likely to result in much more violent -- and tragic -- confrontations. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
Nevertheless, it still just blows my mind when I see teenagers and people in their twenties driving massive Porsche and BMW SUVs -- with no one else in the car! I guess I need to remind myself these are an extreme minority, and maybe cultivating mass shame against SUV-drivers might be overkill to deal with these outliers. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
