Talk:Sport utility vehicle

Suggested removal of "Hybrid" discussion advertisement

Discussing Hybrid Gas-Electric vehicles does not really belong in this article. Especially references to specific vehicles, which sounds like advertisement. It is perhaps only relevent in terms of Fuel economy. Perhaps one when noting the poor gas millage of SUV's compared to other passenger vehicles, the "hybrid" gas milage could be mentioned. "While the average fuel economy of SUV's is less than 20 mpg, some gas-electric hybrids can get 30 mpg".

The pages for Truck, Van, Minivan, Car, and Bus should be referenced. There is little to no reference to hybrid gas-electric in these pages. It really is not part of the definition. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GodWasAnAlien (talk • contribs) .

Why is the distinction not made between 4x4 off-roader and SUV?

In Europe, as can clearly be seen from the Dutch and French SUV wikipedia pages a clear distinction is made between SUV and 4x4 or off-roader. Where 4x4 or off-roader is primarly designed for off-road use. (examples are the older Toyota Landcruiser and Nissan Patrol (before they turned SUV), the Land Rover Defender or Lada Niva) and SUV's are four wheel drive vehicles with limited terrain capability, mostly for road use. (VW Touareg or Tiguan, Toyota RAV4 or CRV, ... basically all recent 4x4 vehicles with the exception of the Defender, Niva or Iveco Massif). SUV in Europe at least is a term coined for selling the new style 4x4 "luxury" vehicles, as a break from the older not so luxurious utility 4x4 vehicles. So why is the distinction not made in this article?

Addition: The German SUV article makes the same difference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.245.252.47 (talk) 19:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

SUV as a descriptive category has simply never been adopted in Britain and Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe the American term has only been adopted for marketing reasons. The huge American truck based SUVs are extremely rare in Europe, and most large vehicles of this type really are off-roaders. Non-4x4 vehicles with SUV styling are much smaller than their American counterparts. European manufacturers who build SUV type vehicles are largely focussed on the US export market. --Ef80 (talk) 20:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Use in recreation and motorsport????

Only very heavely modified SUV's are used in motorsport and expeditions, as standard SUV's are not capable of that kind of trips. In those settings like safaris etc older Toyota Landcruisers and Land Rover Defenders etc are typically used, cars which are not SUV's but off-road utility vehicles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.124.219 (talk) 16:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

What exacfly does "4x4" actually mean ?

What exactly does "4x4" actually mean ? If it mean "four-wheel-drive", well would that be 4WD ( which is used in some places ), how does that get to be "4x4" ? Eregli bob (talk) 15:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

SUV

I've heard that SUV originally was stood for "suburban utility vehicle" and as one of the first was the Chevrolet Suburban it does make sense. A quick googling shows that the term is widely used. // Liftarn (talk)

Merging article Criticism of sport utility vehicles

Immediately after posting this talk section I will be merging the article Criticism of sport utility vehicles into this article, which will result in a significant loss of content from the Criticism of sport utility vehicles article. In light of the fact that I generally consider myself to be an inclusionist, and I believe this is my most controversial edit on Wikipedia yet (although that may be more a commentary on my edit habits rather than this edit itself!), I thought I would take some time to explain myself. In general, I have a few major issues with the Criticism of sport utility vehicles article. Specifically, I believe it violates the following Wikipedia guidelines:

• NPOV/Undue weight- At the time of this edit, the Criticism of sport utility vehicles article is 41 kilobytes in length, while the Sport utility vehicle article is only 33 kilobytes in length. While size in bytes is obviously not a perfect comparison, I find it greatly troubling that the article on the criticism of a subject is significantly longer than the article on the subject itself.
• Content fork- I believe the article to be a redundant content fork, and looking at the article's AFD nomination, I am not alone in that belief. I hope my merge demonstrates that there is no reason this topic cannot be simply included in the Sport utility vehicle article itself.
• Verifiability- The Criticism of sport utility vehicles article contains a number of uncited claims; in fact, multiple sections contain not a single citation. The article has remained in this condition for a significant period of time.
• Original Research/Synthesis- Multiple statements in the article contain citations, however the statements are based on liberal interpretations of the cited source, or synthesis of sources.

With that in mind, I will summarize my section-by-section changes below:

Safety

The section claims that "..overal, SUVs are safer for their driver than small cars made by the same manufacturer. However, if the analysis is realtive to the cost, smaller cars are often safer." This statement contains two sources, however after reviewing these sources I find no evidence to support this claim. Citation [6] "Driver deaths by make and model: fatality risk in one vehicle versus another" leads me to believe that this statement is based on Original research/synthesis of the statistics presented in this document.

Rollover

I clarified the finding in the referenced Forbes article citation, and paraphrased the section for brevity, however I do not believe I significantly altered the information/arguments found in this section.

Construction

The first paragraph of this section provides no insight into the criticism of SUVs. The second paragraph cites one segment of one episode of Fifth Gear, involving one specific type of SUV along with one specific type of minivan. The experiment in no way constitutes a scientific finding and futhermore the cited source (which now just redirects to the show's homepage) provides no evidence that the findings from this experiment extend to SUVs in general. If anything, the criticism should be included in the articles of those specific vehicles. Furthermore, the paragraph states that a "first generation" Land Rover Discovery (1989-1998) was used--the Land Rover Discovery is now into its fourth generation.

Risk to other road users

This section states that "in 2003 and 2004 in the US, passenger cars were involved in 1.65 and 1.58 fatal crashes per 100M miles respectively, compared to 2.14 and 2.05, nearly 30% for light trucks (SUVs pick-ups and vans)." I find a number of issues with this statement. First, it is uncited (it is immediately followed by a 'citation needed' tag). Furthermore, this article is about criticism of SUVs--not light trucks. If there is some evidence to suggest these figures are caused by SUVs, then it should be introduced here; otherwise, this information is better suited in an article about "Criticism of light trucks".

The following paragraph concerns bull bars and pedestrian safety, however it fails to introduce any evidence that vehicles with bull bars are more dangerous to pedestrians (i.e. there is a statistically significant correlation between pedestrian fatalities involving vehicles with bull bars vs vehicles without bull bars), or even that SUVs are more likely to have bull bars than sedans, minivans, pickup trucks, etc.

The last paragraph concerns the Ford Excursion and 'vaulting ability' as compared to the Ford Taurus. There is no indication that the findings in the study of this one vehicle model extend to SUVs in general. Furthermore, the text seems to indicate that the issues raised in the study have been addressed by manufacturers.

Visibility and backover deaths

This section contradicts itself, stating that testing found that "poor rearward visibility was not limited to any single vehicle class". In fact, one NHTSA report suggest that for certain age groups, backover deaths are significantly higher in sedans than SUVs, vans, etc. Still, the study indicates the difficulty in determining death rates for any specific class of vehicle.

Wider bodies in narrow lanes

This section contains not a single reference.

Psychology

This section was based on significant interpretations of one article (op ed?) by Malcolm Gladwell, instead of only facts found in the article. For example, there is a claim that states that "U.S. potential SUV buyers will give up [an] extra 30 ft (9.1 m) of braking distance because they are helpless to avoid a tractor-trailer hit on any vehicle"; I believe this is supposed to correspond to the following hypothetical as found in the source document: "The S.U.V. boom represents, then, a shift in how we conceive of safety--from active to passive. It's what happens when a larger number of drivers conclude, consciously or otherwise, that the extra thirty feet that the TrailBlazer takes to come to a stop don't really matter, that the tractor-trailer will hit them anyway, and that they are better off treating accidents as inevitable rather than avoidable." This is simply a proposition, not a fact backed with any evidence (furthermore, I believe that this Gladwell article as a whole, despite being referenced multiple times by the Wikipedia article in question, suffers from serious NPOV issues). I have retained only the few facts from this section that are backed up by any sort of reliable source.

Sense of security

This was combined with psychology in the new Sport utility vehicle article section. The death rates from 2002-2005 were removed as they served only to encourage synthesis. Verifiable figures and claims were retained.

Marketing Practices

This section claims that despite "relatively few" SUVs being used for off-road purposes, marketing for SUVs are disproportionately focused on off-road use. The section further states that this is an instance of "greenwashing". This is a severe extrapolation of the cited source and as such has been completely removed.

Tax Benefits

This section is completely unsourced. Furthermore, (at least) the first few pages of a Google search for "SUV subsidy" turn up nothing but unreliable/unverifiable pages with severe NPOV issues. As such, this section has been completely removed.

Fuel Economy

The only part of this section with an actual reference (the 'average data for vehicle types sold in the U.S.A.') table was retained. All other unreferenced data was removed.

Pollution

The only referenced information in this section contains one controversey about the Toyota Prius, and is more a question of "Is the Toyota Prius more environmentally harmful than an SUV", rather than "are SUVs generally more environmentally harmful". As such, it has been removed. It is more appropriate to appear in an article regarding "criticism of the Toyota Prius".

Weight

The only cited statement here argues that the heavier a vehicle the more beneficial in terms of driver fatality rates--this is therefore an argument in support of SUVs rather than a criticism of SUVs. All other content is unreferenced and has therefore been removed.

Size

All references (excluding the one in German, which I am unable to read) are opinion pieces that do not adhere to a neutral point of view; furthermore, they present no facts, rather only opinions of a few non-notable individuals. There is no evidence in these sources to suggest that size alone of SUVs have generated any significant controversy. Again, it seems a significant amount of original resource/synthesis has been used in this section. As such, it has been completely removed.

UK

This is simply a summary of taxes on SUVs in the UK and reflects no criticism of SUVs (if anything, just a disadvantage of owning an SUV in the UK). It has been completely removed.

Declining profits for Detroit Big Three automakers

This section suffers from a US-centric view. Furthermore, it contains no criticism on SUVs, but instead challenges on the US domestic SUV manufacturing industry. It has been completely removed.

Slang

This section (apart from citing urbandictionary.com), I believe is unencyclopedic and as a result has been completely removed.

--Aka042 (talk) 05:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Good move Greglocock (talk) 06:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Strong disagree - not because I disagree with your rationale. I haven't gone through your points in detail, but this is such a contentious move some discussion should be done before you go ahead with it. Many people (myself included) have put some time into this, so to wipe it away with one fell swoop is a little strong. peterl (talk)

How do I get the previous page up so I can compare your radical restructure? peterl (talk) 10:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peterl, here is a link to how the page appeared before I performed the merge: [1]. I understand this is a big change, but it was not exactly entirely unilateral--if you look at the Criticism of sport utility vehicles talk page, a number of issues regarding the article's neutrality have been raised since 2007, but nothing has ever been done about it (a 'neutrality disputed' tag has appeared on the article since October 2008). Furthermore, a number of users in the article's deletion nomination expressed the same sentiment. As such I decided to be bold and perform the merge. --Aka042 (talk) 13:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I think much has been lost from your cull. Regarding article's deletion nomination, 4 comments were 'Keep' or 'Keep and improve', 1 was for Delete, and 3 were for Merge. That means a significant group wanted the page kept, meaning that such a major change should have some consensus. (I do acknowledge that the page may well have changed somewhat since the October 2008, but some of that change must have improved the page). I haven't got enough time to go through all your points, but for example, the 'Slang' section had much debate, improvement and culling over time to a place where most editors accepted it was a worthwhile addition to the discussion. The way community talks about a topic (e.g. slang), is a good reflection about the feelings towards the topic, and the pejorative around SUVs therefore are a criticism. That section was supported by 7 references, including urban dictionary,the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, the Economist, The Swedish Language Council, The Sydney Morning Herald and the NZ Herald, so your comment is completely wrong. (Yes, I acknowledge there is a broken link there.)

I'm not saying that the page is perfect - far from it. Yes some sections need more work and/or culling. But there is also a lot of well referenced and well structured information there. Your edit may have been a little too bold.

I'm going to revert your change, and put the topic up for discussion.

peterl (talk)