Not to be anti-Bush, but facts are facts, because of the last tax cut, the father of a friend of mine was able to buy a Porche SUV, and make money because of the tax savings. Interesting, no? Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I'm with that site all the way. I can't stand SUVs, especially since I live in a suburb where more than half the population drives SUVs. Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Explain to me again why anyone would have ever wanted a Hummer in the first place. Forget the bad gas mileage and all the rest - they're ugly.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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They're big. They're boxy. They're built to look intimidating. I expect that they'll just run over me if I don't get out of their way fast enough. I always expect them to have tracks like a tank rather than tires. When I see one, I expect to hear someone yelling "Incoming...", and I prepare to duck and cover. They look like the forerunners of an invading army.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I could be wrong, but I think it has something to do with having two X chromosomes instead of an X and a Y. Something along the lines of liking versus not liking The Three Stooges. Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Honestly, I'm not really that much into cars (again the XX thing, I guess). However, I like the new T-birds (just out, that look like a vintage T-bird). Even better, would be a real vintage T-bird. Or a vintage Corvette. And, please, don't ask me years - I'm not that knowledgable about cars. I just know the ones that qualify when I see them.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Hey, fallow. No fair making me laugh. I'm just getting over a cold, and every time I start laughing, I start coughing.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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You do know that business owners can deduct most vehicles, right? Even if it's depreciated over 5 years instead of outright deducted, equipment used for business purposes is tax deductible.
Further, business owners can directly deduct somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 of otherwise depreciable expenses can be deducted each year.
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Hummers are cool. Why? Because they are purely functional. Not an ounce of effort was made to make it asthetically pleasing. There's something beautiful about something that doesn't try to be beautiful. But *boy* is it functional. Hummers can do amazing stuff.
H2 on the other hand is way stupid. It is *purposely* ugly, which removes all coolness. And on top of that, it isn't functional like the Hummer. It's the worst of all world. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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How can Hummers (or H2) be "survivalist" when they use so much gas? You could pack extra gas tanks on the top and still run out halfway into the wilderness, so how you gonna get back?
Scott, Why do you live 60 miles from where you work. Even under ideal conditions, that 2 hours every day completely lost.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I saw a Prius the other day. I want one! Once I get my mini-van paid off I think that is where my money will be going. Though by that time they might have something even better out as well.
Rabbit how long is your commute normally?
It only takes me approximately 1.5 hours to bike the 13.5 miles to work. I expect the time to drop as I get in better shape. But going home it takes me 1.75 hours simply because a strong westerly wind appears to kick up at exactly the time I'm biking home and it is blowing at me the entire time.
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Long story short, Rabbit-- price of living in the Washington Metro area is too high to live any closer.
(For example, a two bedroom apartment in Landmark, VA-- $315,000)
The two hour commute isn't a waste if you use it right. I listen to audio books, plot stories-- a lot of my 'reading' I do via my ears. Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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The popularity of the hummer has practically nothing to do with what it looks like. It's the fact that we used them to kick ass in desert storm.
Posts: 238 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: Because it makes them "safer". And in the process, it makes everybody else who can't afford such a car not as safe.
Actually, that's not entirely true. SUVs are pretty dangerous for those driving/riding in them.
quote:In 1998, there were 130 million passenger cars registered in the U.S., and 16 million SUVs. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were 119,000 car rollovers and 36,000 SUV rollovers that year. That means that for every 100,000 vehicles, 91 cars rolled over, and 225 SUVs - a figure two and one half times as high. When it comes to deaths, the disparity is even greater; for every 100,000 vehicles there are 3.4 deaths in car rollovers, but 10.1 in SUV rollovers (a figure over three times as high). For comparison, the homicide rate in 1998 was 6.3 per 100,000 people.
"But rollovers are a rare form of accident" is a reasonable response, "Aren't SUVs safer in general?" That is a valid question, so once again we must look at NHTSA figures. For the 130 million cars, there were 29,000 fatal accidents in 1998 - a death rate of 22 per 100,000 vehicles. For the 16 million SUVs, there were 4,500 fatalities, which means a death rate of 28 per 100,000. Given the size of the sample, the difference of over 25 percent must be statistically significant. There's no two ways about it. SUVs are more dangerous than cars -- for everybody.
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I would love to bike to work, and now that I found a route on back roads, I could. Except...besides the Texas weather, which sucks and you don't want to be outside for that long, I have to dress up in business semi-casual, and I can't do that, bike 1 1/2 hours to work, and arrive in anything approaching in time and looking decent. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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A teenage boy decided it was really time for his dad to buy him a car. He was sick of bumming rides from his friends and having to be chauffered around by his parents.
"Dad," he said one day, "I think it's your responsibility as a parent to buy me a car."
"Oh really?" replied the father. "And what have you done to deserve it? Your grades are awful, you don't have a job, and you look like a Survivor contestant in those crazy outfits of yours."
A little offended the son retorted, "I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"Tell you what," said the father, "if you put in a little effort on your part, I can see what can be done about a car. You've got to show me that your grades are improving, find at least a part-time job to pay for gas and insurance, and cut your hair."
The son agreed, and over the next few months made a concerted effort to improve. His grades were stabilizing, and he got an after-school job bussing tables. He decided to approach his father again.
"So Dad," he said, "I think you'll notice that I'm being much more responsible. I've got a job, and I'm doing better in school. I think I can handle having a car."
"That's true," said his father, "but you know Son, you haven't gotten a haircut like we had discussed. That was part of the deal."
"Well, you know Dad," the Son said, "I thought a lot about that and I realized... well, you know that Jesus had long hair. And a beard! Surely you can't object to me looking like Christ!"
"That's very true, Son," said the father, "but you'll also notice that he walked everywhere he went."
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I'm the unwilling driver of an SUV right now. A drunk (who consequently got a free ride to jail) lost control of his car and hit me on Sunday, and the only rental available was a Grand Cherokee Laredo. It's just so big! I'm about 5 feet tall on a good day, and I really miss my little car. I went and said goodbye to it in the tow yard today after they declared it a total loss. Thank God for airbags--I would be in the hospital, or worse, if those things hadn't deployed.
I must admit, I do kind of like that feeling of power you get from looking down on all the other drivers, especially since I'm in a paranoid state of mind right now. Maybe that's part of the attraction. However, I can safely say that my next car will not be a Grand Cherokee! A hybrid is actually looking pretty good right now.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Jan 2004
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"Go Vegetarian" might refer to what to eat, rather than how to eat
What does look good these days? I really hate the new breed of mid size (Element, Matrix etc.). My husband bought an Aerostar and I guess I'm repressing my car aesthetics part of my brain to keep from blowing it up.
I used to really like BMWs. But my fashion sense is hopelessly trapped in the 80's. Scott's batman car did look pretty fine.
Oh, one more thing. I heard "hummer" used in a humorous song about Monica Lewinsky once. Is there an explanation for this?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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pooka, you remember what Monica Lewinsky did with Clinton? One of the slang terms for it is a hummer.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Top speed on the best roads in the US: 70 mph
A 17 horse-power diesel engine can power a small car to 65 mph and get 128 mpg while doing it. If you bump that engine size up a little, I'm sure you could get 70 mph and still get over 100 mpg.
Unless you need to tow stuff, or you are driving around a bunch of people all the time, all that extra stuff is just making you burn energy pushing air around. Or making louder noises come out the mufflers.
It's dumb.
Now granted, some cars are rolling works of art. I could appreciate them aesthetically and I grew up in a car culture like no other (Southern California during the 1960's and 70's). But enough already.
We need to rethink our way of life. A 60 mile commute is insane. We should be able to live where we work, and vice versa. We should stop building sprawling suburbs and return to the urbanized areas.
And take public transit!
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I thought that, but I've never heard it anywhere else. But everytime I see one of those trucks that says "Hummer" on the side, I wondered. My husband (who I never asked about the Monica song... I was on a road trip with my DAD when I heard that one and I pretended to be still asleep even though he was laughing really hard) says that it is just a marketing ploy and unlikely that those trucks are really transporting H2s or related accessories.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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