Sport Utility Vehicles have no place in the city

I’ve never been a personal fan of SUV’s.  I don’t feel the need to own one.  They’re great for those who live in the country, and for institutional and military use though.  I’ve always been kind of soft on urbanites who own SUV’s too.  I’ve usually figured they needed them because they required the space for children or head out of town on the weekends to a cottage or camp.  My softness changed this afternoon.

Parking lots can be risky places, not just for people, but for cars too.  An incident in a parking lot this afternoon has fueled anti-SUV sentiment within me.  I parked my car at a local shopping plaza to go into a pharmacy.  I needed vitamins and even more importantly, Easter chocolate.  I returned outside and a man ran out of another business in the plaza and told me he had hit my car with the door of his.  His large black SUV was parked far too close to my ordinary four-door car so it should not have been any surprise that it happened.  The SUV was almost too big for the parking space anyway.  I thanked the man for having the courtesy of staying around and telling me what had happened and giving me his contact information and then went home.  The insurance claim and repair process has since commenced.

I don’t think SUV’s have much of a place in urban, residential areas.  I don’t care if you have children and are often busy driving them to sports and clubs.  It’s just as easy to fit six bags of groceries into a small car.  And if you routinely are buying lumber or other large items from a home improvement store—most of them deliver for free or offer a van customers can borrow to take their large purchases home in.  Use those options instead.  Stop driving vehicles better suited for a weekend of hunting, fishing, or camping—or for use by the police and military and be practical.  Most city parking lots and the spaces in them these days are not made for large SUV’s.  I grew up in a small town that had huge parking spaces.  You could fit a 1974 Chrysler Newport in them.  They were made for senior citizens with big cars and farmers with pickup trucks.  In the city, parking spaces are made for Honda Civics and Hyundai Elantras.  And, if you urbanites with SUV’s really feel the need to have a car the size of the USS Nimitz, please watch where you are going in parking lots and when you open the doors, don’t act like your vehicle is there to conquer everything smaller surrounding it.