patrick.net

astrid,

I think part of the reason we have that law is because "triple trailers" are legal here. These things are huge and when it rains it's like they create their own weather system!

I’d actually seen one I think the other day. I just assumed it was like a “state” vehicle until I went to pass and saw a family inside. Weird huh?

The A8? Yes, it is very popular amongst European politicians.

DinOR,

I hope those people at least have a commercial license. A nice round of insurance premium increases and more stringent licensing requirements ought to cut down the nuisance factor for big SUVs, big trucks, and RVs.

Forcing people to relocate is not economically efficient in the slightest, not to mention it is totally lacking in compassion.

Forcing unproductive people to move is not uneconomical. The policy that produces the best utility may lack compassion towards some people but it is a small price to pay. Misfortune occurs every day.

Life *is* fair as long as people contribute to making it so and don’t throw basic morals in the trash can just because others choose to do so.

Huh?

The main problem is speeding and inexperienced drivers.

Solution, GPS tracking device. The loss of privacy is a small price to pay.

I meant to say - the main problem is speeding and inexperienced drivers - not the size of the cars.

Bill C,

I've never heard of Liz Ann Sonders (Chief Schwab Strategist) but I like her already. I like her assesment that 2006 could break RE streak going back to to WWll! Good summation.

Some people secretly like the bland, unpopular Ford 500 sedan because it has the Volvo frame and safety systems, and is pretty cheap.

Make sure you choose the optional side curtain airbag system. It is between life and death.

Michael Anderson,

I too drove Volvos for years. My 940 was quite heavy and it always felt like there was an emphasis on safety (hit a deer once). But I've heard that the data is "skewed". Europeans don't drive as much or nearly as FAST! Some in the community are now challenging that claim.

Prop 13 is one of the reasons I use to justify renting

newsfreak,

I'm not sure I follow you. I find the semis hogging all the lanes to be a huge pain precisely because they show little courtesy to other drivers. A couple of them can be side by side for miles and slow the entire flow of traffic down. Sure these people do this for a living and they're optimizing their gas consumption, but it makes the driving experience suck for people behind them for miles and miles with no visibility.

As for safety and unneccessarily large vehicles/reckless drivers. The roads are a public resource and there's no reason that they have to degrade into a war of all against all. We have rules of the road that everyone adhere for everyone else's safety. There's no reason why we can't start putting SUVs and RVs out of commission, particularly out of hands of reckless drivers.

I find the semis hogging all the lanes to be a huge pain precisely because they show little courtesy to other drivers. A couple of them can be side by side for miles and slow the entire flow of traffic down.

Actually, I find big rig drivers to be quite courteous. If they slow the entire flow of traffic down to the speed limit, God bless them! :)

We have rules of the road that everyone adhere for everyone else’s safety.

Half of that sentence is incorrect. I just wish the CA's "keep right" and "pull over" laws were properly enforced.

SQT,

Unsafe SUV drivers are not in the majority, but I see at least a couple instances of women talking on their cell phone and minding the kids while changing lanes, through curves, or backing out of parking lots. However, most of my observances of truly insane driving are connected with minivan drivers. The vast majority of minivan drivers seem fine, but there seems to be a fringe of crazy minivan drivers.

However, I still don't see why there ought to be so many SUVs from a purely practical stand point. You and Peter P are both advocating SUV based on the idea that it protects you from other drivers and gives you a better view of what's happening around you. If there were laws (maybe a one time sales tax based on height or if insurance companies quit pooling SUVs with cars) that decreased the total number of SUVs on the road, you wouldn't need SUVs nearly as much and everyone ends up safer.

that decreased the total number of SUVs on the road, you wouldn’t need SUVs nearly as much and everyone ends up safer.

This is similar to a nuclear arm race. We may need something like START than. :)

Claire,

I'm not even thinking about fuel consumption, just road conditions whenever there are a lot of tall vehicles around. However, if I was to keep that in mind, most other gas guzzlers at least pay a gas guzzler tax at the time of sale. SUVs are still getting exempted based on their light truck classification, even though they are actually a substitute for minivans and wagons.

Not quite. By crazy I mean going 30 miles above everything else on the road, weaving like crazy, and running red lights. Though I'm not actually as offended by this small group because they're relatively uncommon and you can spot them from a mile away.

What really freaks me out are people who never ever use their turn signals and cut 5 feet in front of me in 70 MPH traffic. I think those people are possibly the most dangerous drivers ever.

If I were king, I’d make any vehicle that is above a certain size require a special nozzle at the filling station that has double the taxes on the gas.

Solution is a toll road system that charges by weight x speed x distance.

My chief objection to SUVs and minivans and lifted trucks are how they block he view.

If you need to see past the vehicle directly ahead, you are probably following to close.

Micheal,
I actually like the Ford 500 as well. Pretty nice looking car. The only problem is that the thing has a V6 engine and is very heavy. So it isn't particularly quick. it also has a chain driven transmission, which ford claims provides a smoother ride. I wonder how long they'll go before it snaps.
I also like it because it is fairly rare out here in import-happy california, so you'd be the odd duck in a sea of Bimmers.

SQT,

Well, it might all be moot if gas prices stablizes at $4/gallon.

The other worrying thing about SUVs is what'll happen once they stop being nice and shiny and soccer mom friendly. Since there's the perception that they're safer, a lot of them could get handed to 16 year olds. That's not going to be as deadly as buying them a sport car, but I can't imagine that this trend would help teenage mortality.

OK, but too abstract. I want something with a hard cutoff that sets off a boolean when people buy it. “Yes” I can buy the cheap gas or”No” I have to buy the expensive SUV gas.

People will figure out. If not, more revenue for the city, less tax for the rest of us. :)

astrid Says:

> Well, why do middle age white men go crazy for Harleys
> when they’re very expensive and not that fast (since
> they’re so big and heavy)?

Harleys are underpowered expensive piles of crap that mostly ridden by gay men in the leather lifestyle, in the closet gay men who are in to the leather lifestyle but don’t want to admit it and losers who have done nothing with their life and feel important when people look at them revving the engine of a loud bike with lots of chrome…

> I never saw a Hummer going offroad while I was in the Southwest.
> Their wheelbase is too long and they’re way too expensive to
> get trashed up

The reason you don’t see many H1s on the trail is due to the “track” not the “wheelbase”. Most off road trails are run by guys in short wheelbase Jeeps, FJ40s and D90s. A longer wheelbase vehicle like a Toyota or Chevy extra cab pickup may “high center” a little more often but with a skid plate and some pulls from their friends will hot have much problem. A Hummer H1 is just too wide to make it between the rocks and trees on most trails…

P.S. What is the difference between a dog and a Harley? A dog can get in the back of a pickup by itself (Harleys break down so much that you have to lift them in)…

Yeah, the SUV thing is a bit of an escalating Arms Race:
You need one because you want to see over the trafic, and in order too do that your SUV needs to get bigger, in order to see over the smaller SUVs. Ad Ininitum.

Soon all SUVs will be 15ft off the ground, and still no one will be able to see where they're going.

As for the 'safety' issue...studies have shown that many SUVs are actually less stable because of the wheelbase/height ratio. They tend to tip over more often, and many of them are built to the same specifications as 'normal' cars. OK, Land Rovers and Cayennes maybe not, but most SUVs are built by car companies, using parts from their cars, cunningly disguised as SUV parts.

Perhaps pricing them out of availablilty would help. The UK recently set road tax levels on 'high end' 4x4s (SUVs in the USA) 2500 GBP more a year than other cars. That, and the steadily increasing price of gas will soon put paid to them.

Again, I have no problem with them for people with big families (although most seem to only hold 5 people, just like other cars), or who work/live in rural areas where they need 4WD. But, living in LA, I see thousands of them every day, 90% of them have a single occupant, and are on thier way to a condo in Beverlywood...

Anyway, how are we going to help distressed homeowners? I'm not concerned about the greedy flippers, but more about the OO with kids, house down the pan, divorce rates? Increasing?

During rush hour and any other relatively crowded traffic situations, I’m always going to be “too close” to the vehicle in front of me.

I keep at least 3-4 seconds away. People can cut in front of me and I do not care. I just drop back a little.

It's all about the Bling! LA has the highest Bling Per Capita Quotient(tm) on the West Coast. Basically, you areno one without an SUV the size of the North Face of the Eiger.

Though, there's no helping some people....a friend of mine recently bought a Pacifica (Chevy, GM, anyone?).

She was chuffed to bits with it, and couldn't help showing it off to us, and kept on telling us what a good deal she got (not surprising really, the sales guy must have thought 'yippee! here comes my comission!').

When I asked her how many miles per gallon it got, she looked at me funny, and had to think.

'Erm, about 17mpg on the highway'.

I sort of snorted, politley mind, because she was so happy with it and I'm not one to piss on anybody's chips.

Then she started on again about how great a deal it was, how much room it has (she only has one child), etc, etc..

I'm still waiting for the Canyonero, as seen on The Simpsons:

Can you name the truck with four wheel drive,
smells like a steak and seats thirty-five..
Canyonero! Canyonero!
...
12 yards long, 2 lanes wide,
65 tons of American Pride!
Canyonero! Canyonero!

Michael Anderson,

I hate to "one better" you but when I pick up my realt-whore repo I've got dibbs on OR custom plate:

AGT2BY

Don't EVEN think about it!

It's "Always a Good Time 2 Buy" a realt-whore repo!

I drove across the country a few years ago. Once you get out into some off the less populated states like Oklahoma and Arkansas, the freeway becomes mostly truckers. It was sort of comforting. They were almost always very courteous drivers. I also had a CB radio and could listen to them chatter. I think they got lonely or something because I'd chime in and they'd get all excited. They'dd ask what kind of rig I had and when I mentioned I was in the little toyota truck they were disappointed.

You know what would be cruel to do if all us us wind up buying repo houses? get the email address of the previous owner, paint the house bright purple and send em a picture of it with you standing out front, flashing a shit-eating grin.

Small price to pay for who? The people? The community? Or, let me guess, you?

The community.

If “misfortune occurs everyday”, then accept *your* misfortune that so-called unproductive people occupy space you want to live on and move along. Cause after all, life’s just not fair.

But how does that increase social utility?

Your’s is the ponzi mentality in action - the belief that “someone always has to get screwed so I might as well join in on delivering the screw job, too”. That is an obvious sign of moral weakness and lack of character.

If someone must be screwed, at least we should make sure that more people can benefit from such misfortune. If you ask me, morality is all aout social utility. The ends justify the means.

I would rather have the old guys riding Harleys than get on a crotch rocket and think they have good reflex to control them. Its better left for the younger adults.. and if they are not careful on them, Darwin takes care of it..

On my recent road trip to LA and back, I was soo annoyed by idiots who think the left lane on I5 is for cruising at 60mph. I passed a lot of idiots on the right cuz I was riding at 70mph. These idiots dont even look in the mirror to see any approaching vehicles. I guess some where driving straight up from mexico. I thought left lanes for passing but I changed my mind after being on I5 for 10 miles and stuck to the right lane to pass vehicles. I think the worst invention for vehicles where the cruise controls. People take forever to overtake a freaking 18 wheeler cuz their cruise is set at 65mph.
I wish the Autobahn rules would be enforced here strictly. Pass on the left and stay on right else get a ticket. Let people who want to speed do that. The accident rates on autobahns ( with no speed limit ) is lower than the US highways. That tells something.

Peter,
It might have been phrased better that fiscally irresponsible people ( those that used compound exotic loans) etc etc should be removed from the local economic scene because their behaviour is in part why the economy and social issues continue to be a problem in this state.Fiscally irresponsible people cause inflation and overextension of the mean. I think that's what you meant, but it almost looked like it was saying that people that don't earn enough to buy homes at the current bubble houses should move on. Just an observation.

SHTF Re: Truckers

Yeah, I've always found truckers to be polite and courteous. In exchange I've always tried to be polite back.

I go up to Mammoth on the I395 one or twice a year, and am amazed at people who tailgate trucks on the single-lane sections. If you're driving a big-rig you have no view of the back...
But, Mammoth attracts a lot of Angelinos (me included) and I'm sure that they put something in the water in LA that makes everyone drive like morons.

Just leave the vicinty of LA County and all of a sudden, people have signals on thier cars, and use the slow lane on 2-lane highways unless overtaking. Amazing.

I think the problem for me is watching the bubble burst is akin to watching paint dry - I need something to keep me occupied...

The accident rates on autobahns ( with no speed limit ) is lower than the US highways. That tells something.

That proves nothing. We need strict enforcement of the speed limit law.

Jon,

Much as I don't like to see misfortune fall upon people who don't deserve it, Peter P is right. There is simply no way governement can eliminate all economic and social unfairness in the world by legislation, and most attempts to do so in the past to do so have resulted in moral hazards (unintended consequences) far worse than the "unfariness" they were trying to cure in the first place.

The best we can do is to create a tax and regulatory structure that is as neutral towards asset class as possible (i.e., not rewarding/subsidizing RE investors over stock or bond investors), that does not attempt to "fix" the price of capital, labor or commodities (either directly by decree or indirectly via subsidies) and, and does not create more useless, self-perpetuating bureaucracies that generally do more harm than good (the Fed, GSEs, HUD, Dept. of Agriculture, Energy, etc.).

Some nice people will get hurt because of market imbalances and disruptions, this is unavoidable. The best we can do is NOT to implement policies that WORSEN the normal volatility of the business cycles and exaggerate speculative bubbles beyond what would have happened without active government intervention (as in the Fed dropping rates to 1% and the GSEs "socializing" mortgage risk, while "privatizing" transaction profits, etc.).

I think that’s what you meant, but it almost looked like it was saying that people that don’t earn enough to buy homes at the current bubble houses should move on. Just an observation.

No... the current bubble is causing massive imbalance in the economy, which cannot be good for the economy in the long run.

Prop 13 is causing resources to be misallocated.