SUV: The Death Watch
Ever notice how, every time you read about a dramatic car crash, there's an SUV involved? I have. And once you start to notice, the pattern is remarkable. People can't stop them, can't turn them, can't slow them down in time, can't brake without skidding or flipping. And when someone does lose control in an SUV—or drive drunk into someone else—the damage is all the more devastating because of SUVs' enormous size and weight.
The irony here, of course, is that people buy SUVs because they feel safer in them. A double irony, really. They're not safer, because they're more likely to lose control and crash. And the people they crash into are invariably more likely to be wounded or killed than if they were hit by, say, a Honda Accord or Volkswagen Jetta.
So I think I'll start pointing out some of these incidents here on the blog.
Like this one: Infant Clings to Life after Crash by Repeat Offender. It's upsetting on many levels. A guy driving an SUV hit a pregnant woman in an SUV. The guy had repeat convictions for driving while on drugs, and had had his license suspended. His girlfriend admitted that she allowed him to use her car even though she knew that his license had been revoked....
Massachusetts is considering a law which would mandate jail time for repeat driving-under-the-influence offenders, to which one can only say, Of course. You drive drunk more than once, and you should go to jail.....
