SUV

By HarryC

Thu, 15 Aug 2024
  • 303 reads
7 comments
 
I have a BIG car.
I like to drive my BIG car.
I drive it everywhere, my BIG car,
so that everyone can see how BIG
my car is.
 
I drive my kids to their school in my
BIG car. It's so BIG that it often
blocks the road outside. But that's
not my fault. It's the school's fault
for not having a BIG enough car park
to accommodate my BIG car.
 
I drive my BIG car to the supermarket,
where I take up two parking spaces.
What else can I do, if they won't make
parking spaces BIG enough for my
BIG car to park in?
 
I like to intimidate cyclists in my
BIG car. I like to overtake them,
then pull in to let oncoming traffic
pass, when the cyclists could just
have carried on through. It lets them
know that you have to be BIG to
own the road.
 
I go on my holidays to Devon and
Cornwall in my BIG car. They really
need to widen the lanes down there
in the country. How on earth are BIG
car drivers ever meant to navigate
those without scratching the paintwork
on their BIG cars?
 
I drive my BIG car to the drive-in
McDonald's window, where I can
pick up my BIG Mac, which helps
to make me a BIG man.
 
My BIG car is so BIG that it won't
fit in my garage at home.
 
But that's okay. I've concreted over
the nice front garden I once had - with
flower beds and a fish pond and little
cotoneaster bushes that always showed
lots of bright red berries - and made
it into a BIG new parking pad for
my BIG car.
 
So now my BIG car is parked out there,
in front of my little house - showing to
the world how BIG a car I've got.
 
And how small everything else in my
life is in comparison
 
including me.

 

Certificate 12
Poem
Rant

Comments

Submitted by Turlough on

You've really captured the attitude of all those small people with BIG cars who are collectively a BIG irritation, a BIG nuisance on the roads and a BIG factor when considering damage to the environment.

The BIG question is why do they need them?

If you park your car with two wheels on the footpath (as they tend to) you could call your BIG car a BIG off-road vehicle.

Turlough

Submitted by HarryC on

Hi Turlough,

Thanks for your comment.  I had a couple of 'episodes' yesterday with BIG car drivers, which inspired the rant!  The area I live in is full of them.  I was reading that their numbers have jumped ten-fold globally since 2010, and in 2022 alone they accounted for 46% of global car sales.  I suppose the obvious attractions are the high riding position and the feelings of space and comfort they afford.  The safety angle is often cited by owners, too.  Safe... unless you're on the receiving end of one.  I think this is why, in many built-up areas and town centres, speed limits are being reduced.  Even so, the damage one of those monsters would cause in a 20 mph crash would still be pretty catastrophic (for everyone, again, except those on board). Then, with more and more of them on the roads, we have the damage to road infrastructure - as if we haven't got enough potholes!  With road surfaces as they are around here, it's pretty much like off-road driving anyway.  But yes, it's the broader environmental damage that's the real issue.  Difficult to know what to do.  Governments have tried slapping surcharges on ownership, but it's always fiercely resisted by owners and manufacturers (i.e. the people who vote and make big party donations).  I genuinely believe now that people will only begin to change their minds when the disasters start happening on their own doorsteps and in their own neighbourhoods.  Like animals that greedily grab at more food than they can possibly eat, we're taking what we can while we can - and hastening the disaster in the process.  Amazing to think we're at the top of the food chain, really.  We wouldn't take a dump on our own carpet... but we don't mind crapping on everything else.

Submitted by Turlough on

I once saw a lot of damage done by one of these monsters reversing at a speed probably less than one mile per hour. On top of everything else that you mentioned they are clumsy and ugly.

Whenever I see the cars that were around when I was a kid I remember how tiny they were in comparison to a 'normal' car today. How did we fit inside them? In 1964 we went on a family holiday by ferry from the north of England to Ireland. My parents, my grandparents. my sister, our dog and myself all squeezed into a Ford Anglia estate.

These huge new cars are just so unnecessary but their owners can't see that.

Turlough

Submitted by HarryC on

Yes, exactly.  When I was a kid in the sixties, four of us went from London to Cornwall on holiday... in a Mini Cooper!  We split the journey over two days, mind.  When I had cars in the eighties, I generally had Ford Cortinas, which were rather big family saloons at the time.  Now, even an estate version looks like a toy beside a Range Rover Sport.  I've had altercations with SUV drivers which are reflected in the poem - and I've had the 'It's not my fault if...' comments regarding parking spaces, blocked roads, narrow lanes.  I'll always remember one very well-spoken woman, who had parked her tank on a dangerous bend close to her child's primary school, whining back at me 'If the school won't build a car park, what else are we to do?'  She obviously genuinely thought that a 'school run' car park would be a more appropriate use of space than a playground!  Such selfish idiocy is stupefying.

Submitted by marandina on

I must confess that one of my irritants in life is 4x4s, SUVs and the like. There always seems to be a proliferation of them on school runs *grrrr*

I don't see the need for these BIG cars in urban environments. They do seem like a middle finger gesture to other drivers. I could sense the frustration through the poem but it is a good point, well made!

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thought-provoking sarcasm! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Perhaps, as the chancellor is trying to think up new revenue sources, she could put a BIG tax these