There's an interesting article over on Slate titled California's SUV Ban: The Golden State has outlawed big SUVs on many of its roads but doesn't seem to know it. Andy Bowers does a good job of explaining how the largest SUVs often weigh more then 6,000 pounds, the traditional cutoff between light and heavy trucks.
It turns out every big SUV and pickup is too heavy for my street. Here's just a sampling: The Chevy Suburban and Tahoe, the Range Rover, the GMC Yukon, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Sequoia, the Lincoln Navigator, the Mercedes M Class, the Porsche Cayenne S, and the Dodge Ram 1500 pickup (with optional Hemi). What about the Hummer, you ask? Hasta la vista, baby!
The article does a good job of explaining how infrequently the restrictions are enforced. But I came away wondering what would happen if we started calling to police to report these illegally parked and/or moving vehicles? Would the police refuse to ticket someone. If so, can we sue the police for not enforcing the law?
It makes me wonder just a bit...
Disclosure: Yes, I own an SUV. It weighs less than 6,000 pounds. I use it 95% of the time for towing my glider (example), hauling glider gear to and from the airport, and when people visit from out of town once or twice a year and we don't fit into my normal day-to-day car (pics). In other words, I try not to waste gas by driving it only when needed. Heck, I even get an insurance break from driving it infrequently.
Posted by jzawodn at August 04, 2004 05:12 PM
The rest of the pack I can understand, but how you get a M-class Mercedes and a Porsche Cayenne to weigh 6000lbs, is beyond my imagination.
I'm not completely familiar with your situation - is the Integra paid off or still on lease/finance etc., and how much is your insurance, but I kind of lean towards doubting that it actually comes out cheaper - even if it's paid out, a cheap insurance on the Integra should be no less than ca $80 a month (from what I remember about the prices from back when I was living in the states - for me, a single under-25-year-old-then guy, it was more than twice that) - and a $80 (it's really probably considerably more, since there's always regular oil changes, tune-ups etc.), gets you quite a lot of gas to make up the slightly lower mileage of the 4Runner. Even with today's prices. Even in California.
I'm not blaming you, just arguing over your reasoning. I own an every day car (a non-WRX Subaru Impreza), an SUV (Suzuki Jimny), a sports car (Renault Fuego Turbo) and a motorcycle - but not because it's cheaper that way, but because I like them and the choice of "what will I drive today?" :)
What I meant to say is that the 4Runner is cheaper to insure if you drive infrequently. So by using it only on weekends and other times I fly, I pay less in insurance than I would otherwise. That's all.
Both vehicles are paid off.
Gotta agree about the M-class, which has a curb weight of 4800 lbs. That gives 1200 worth of people and crap. It does seat 5 or 7 (@200lbs ea) which gets it really close to that 6000 mark, but that's a lot of latte's for 7 200lb people. (says the 5'11" 170 guy.)
http://autos.yahoo.com/newcars/mercedes-benz_m-class_ml350_2005/14827/style_specs.html?p=ext
not sure about the Cayenne, but I suspect it's probably the same.
As for what I drive? Subaru Outback - 4,400lbs, baby. Granted, with a max towing capacity of around 2,700 lbs, it's probably not the best choice for hauling anything more than a glider.
> The article does a good job of explaining how infrequently
> the restrictions are enforced. But I came away wondering
> what would happen if we started calling to police to report
> these illegally parked and/or moving vehicles? Would the
> police refuse to ticket someone. If so, can we sue the
> police for not enforcing the law?
Most likely, this would ultimately result in the laws being revoked and/or made more lenient.
"It weighs less than 6,000 pounds"
i have absolutely no clue how much that weighs , having been brought up using the metric system.
Anyone got a link to a U.S. to metric system converter?
obviously, you will delete this post, but regarding the entire topic you deleted (or were forced to delete):
This is interesting since there is a SUV Tax Loophole that allows you to practically write off the SUV if you use it for business at least 50% of the time and it weighs over 6,000 lbs.
http://www.selfemployedweb.com/suv-tax-deduction-4.htm
Does this mean you get a tax deduction on a vehicle that is illegal to drive on public streets?
First I thought this is another "California sues ..." (yeah, I think this week yahoo got sued at least twice for breaking Californian laws).
But the tax deductions in that article are really quite revealing.
