Suspicions Confirmed!
It's nice when a book not only confirms my niggling suspicions, but shows that I was not cynical enough by a wide, wide margin. The book is High and Mighty SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How they Got That Way by Keith Bradsher. He points out not the now-tired observations about how SUVs tend to kill their occupants and others far, far more often (well, not just those observations), but interesting points about the big "truck" drivers that I thought you folks would find illuminating. Let me give you a taste:
Who has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.
No, that's not a cynic talking -- that's the auto industry's own market researchers and executives.
(Keith Bradsher, High and Mighty SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How they Got That Way, PublicAffairs, 2002, p. 101, me with the boldening.)
Would you like specific citations backing up this broad generalization?
On SUV drivers' and family life:
SUV buyers are frequently married with children, but are often uncomfortable with both. "We have a basic resistance in our society to admitting that we are parents, and no longer able to go out and find another mate," said David Bostwick, the market research director at Chrysler. "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."
SUV buyers, unlike minivan buyers, frequently care little about anyone's kids but their own. "Sport utility people say, 'I already have two kids, I don't need 20.'" Bostwick said. "Then we talk to the people who have minivans and they say, 'I don't have two kids, I have 20 --- all the kids in the neighborhood.'"
(Bradsher, ibid, pp. 102-103.)
On control:
During interviews with consumers, GM officials have noticed that SUV and minivan buyers differ markedly in how they express their desire for control while driving. "Minivan people want to be in control in terms of safety, being able to park and maneuver in traffic, being able to get elderly people in and out -- SUV owners want to be more like, 'I'm in control of the people around me,'" (GM's top engineer for the initial planning stages of new vehicles Fred J.) Schaafsma said. "The words are identical but the meanings are completely different, and that has implications for how you design a vehicle.
Providing that feeling of control is why automakers mount the seats in sport utilities higher than the seats in minivans, Schaafsma said. Until recently, market researchers did not even ask customers how high they wanted to sit in a vehicle. No, surveys . . . show that visibility from the driver's seat ranks even with a vehicle's driving performance and interior comfort as the most important attributes that buyers seek.
(p. 104.)
On safety, there tends to be a disconnect between American SUV drivers and drivers from other parts of the world:
Nissan has found that drivers in Europe and Asia typically have very different attitudes toward vehicle safety from American drivers. Europeans and Asians tend to associate safety with a nimble vehicle with excellent brakes that can swerve or stop quickly so as to avoid an accident entirely, said Jerry P. Hirshberg, Nissan's recently retired president of North American design. Americans tend to have less confidence in their driving skills and assume that crashes are inevitable, so they have gravitated instead to tanklike vehicles that will protect occupants even if they plow into another vehicle. Buyers of sport utilities seem to be especially American in this regard, Hirshberg added.
(p. 107.)
This bunker mentality, the desire to surround oneself with a tank that offers protection and intimidates others (the auto industry refers to intimidation by sheer size, height and stylistic touches as "aggressiveness", and markets these traits to the people discussed here) often stems from a feeling of powerlessness, of being surrounded by a bad world out to do you harm. Whether or not that world is out to get you seems irrelevant:
With the detachment of a foreigner, (auto-industry market researcher and psychologist Clotaire) Rapaille sees Americans as increasingly fearful of crime. He acknowledges that this fear is irrational and completely ignores statistics showing that crime rates have declined considerably. . . . At the same time, he argues, the aging of the population means that there are more older Americans, who may pay less attention to violence in the media but are more cautious than young people about personal safety in general.
(Bradsher, ibid, p. 95.)
Ah, but I've saved the best for last. At Ford, while doing research with Explorer drivers, some really surprising clues for just how frickin' paranoid people have become popped up:
Many of the customers had said that they wanted something bigger than an Explorer, and Ford was responding by starting to design a full-sized model that would become the Expedition. Many buyers, especially women, also said that they wanted to ride high off the road, so that they could see farther. When asked why they gravitated toward models with considerable ground clearance, customers frequently surprised (researcher Jim) Seagal with an unexpected answer, telling him that, "If the vehicle is up high, it's easier to see if someone is hiding underneath or lurking behind it."
(Bradsher, ibid, p. 150, dark and foreboding statement emphasis mine.)
That's paranoia worthy of psychological treatment, if not outright institutionalization, if you ask me. That's bordering right on Crazy Town, and it's a statement that "frequently surprised" the researcher.
Small, nimble cars are safer than trucks, even in crashes. The best piece of safety equipment is above the neck. To be safe, simply restrain the loose nut behind the steering wheel.
I could go on.
Who has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.
No, that's not a cynic talking -- that's the auto industry's own market researchers and executives.
(Keith Bradsher, High and Mighty SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How they Got That Way, PublicAffairs, 2002, p. 101, me with the boldening.)
Would you like specific citations backing up this broad generalization?
On SUV drivers' and family life:
SUV buyers are frequently married with children, but are often uncomfortable with both. "We have a basic resistance in our society to admitting that we are parents, and no longer able to go out and find another mate," said David Bostwick, the market research director at Chrysler. "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."
SUV buyers, unlike minivan buyers, frequently care little about anyone's kids but their own. "Sport utility people say, 'I already have two kids, I don't need 20.'" Bostwick said. "Then we talk to the people who have minivans and they say, 'I don't have two kids, I have 20 --- all the kids in the neighborhood.'"
(Bradsher, ibid, pp. 102-103.)
On control:
During interviews with consumers, GM officials have noticed that SUV and minivan buyers differ markedly in how they express their desire for control while driving. "Minivan people want to be in control in terms of safety, being able to park and maneuver in traffic, being able to get elderly people in and out -- SUV owners want to be more like, 'I'm in control of the people around me,'" (GM's top engineer for the initial planning stages of new vehicles Fred J.) Schaafsma said. "The words are identical but the meanings are completely different, and that has implications for how you design a vehicle.
Providing that feeling of control is why automakers mount the seats in sport utilities higher than the seats in minivans, Schaafsma said. Until recently, market researchers did not even ask customers how high they wanted to sit in a vehicle. No, surveys . . . show that visibility from the driver's seat ranks even with a vehicle's driving performance and interior comfort as the most important attributes that buyers seek.
(p. 104.)
On safety, there tends to be a disconnect between American SUV drivers and drivers from other parts of the world:
Nissan has found that drivers in Europe and Asia typically have very different attitudes toward vehicle safety from American drivers. Europeans and Asians tend to associate safety with a nimble vehicle with excellent brakes that can swerve or stop quickly so as to avoid an accident entirely, said Jerry P. Hirshberg, Nissan's recently retired president of North American design. Americans tend to have less confidence in their driving skills and assume that crashes are inevitable, so they have gravitated instead to tanklike vehicles that will protect occupants even if they plow into another vehicle. Buyers of sport utilities seem to be especially American in this regard, Hirshberg added.
(p. 107.)
This bunker mentality, the desire to surround oneself with a tank that offers protection and intimidates others (the auto industry refers to intimidation by sheer size, height and stylistic touches as "aggressiveness", and markets these traits to the people discussed here) often stems from a feeling of powerlessness, of being surrounded by a bad world out to do you harm. Whether or not that world is out to get you seems irrelevant:
With the detachment of a foreigner, (auto-industry market researcher and psychologist Clotaire) Rapaille sees Americans as increasingly fearful of crime. He acknowledges that this fear is irrational and completely ignores statistics showing that crime rates have declined considerably. . . . At the same time, he argues, the aging of the population means that there are more older Americans, who may pay less attention to violence in the media but are more cautious than young people about personal safety in general.
(Bradsher, ibid, p. 95.)
Ah, but I've saved the best for last. At Ford, while doing research with Explorer drivers, some really surprising clues for just how frickin' paranoid people have become popped up:
Many of the customers had said that they wanted something bigger than an Explorer, and Ford was responding by starting to design a full-sized model that would become the Expedition. Many buyers, especially women, also said that they wanted to ride high off the road, so that they could see farther. When asked why they gravitated toward models with considerable ground clearance, customers frequently surprised (researcher Jim) Seagal with an unexpected answer, telling him that, "If the vehicle is up high, it's easier to see if someone is hiding underneath or lurking behind it."
(Bradsher, ibid, p. 150, dark and foreboding statement emphasis mine.)
That's paranoia worthy of psychological treatment, if not outright institutionalization, if you ask me. That's bordering right on Crazy Town, and it's a statement that "frequently surprised" the researcher.
Small, nimble cars are safer than trucks, even in crashes. The best piece of safety equipment is above the neck. To be safe, simply restrain the loose nut behind the steering wheel.
I could go on.