chicagojlo

Isn't that just in the beginning when you're all new with no credit or driving history? Local friends seem to pay very little for theirs (although I never had a car in the UK so what do I know!)

elfman

It's expensive for everyone in NJ

SagenOnion

Gasoline is merely the tip of the iceberg...heating oil prices here just topped $4 a gallon so the oil tank I filled 3 years ago for $297 now costs $1100!...and this is bloody spring. By next winter people who use oil for heating will be dying.

Duncan Roberts

Vehicle. Last year the Camry was the top selling car and the F-Series outsold it by 200,000 or so. It's been outselling everything for at least 25 years, maybe more.

meauxna

It's grim, isn't it? hey, I smell a new thread coming on...

Big D

This has been debated many times - personally for me insurance is roughly the same as it was at home and I live just outside NYC.

Even with gas going higher i still think motoring is cheaper here as cars are virtually half price too - although that starts another argument that its because of the f/x rate.....

Dan725

So they're not complaining in the UK too?........It's all relative.

Tarkak9

(around here we call it Commerce City)


You know what's going to be really bad... if a gallon of gas gets close to the amount for minimum wage.

AdobePinon

Bragging rights for whining privileges.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Intuitively, many of us understand that a lot of SUV buyers are jerks. Quantitatively, the automakers know that they are jerks, because they've done the research and have the demographic data to prove it:
__________

Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation's most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.

According to market research conducted by the country's leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be "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 and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others."

He says, too, that SUV drivers generally don't care about anyone else's kids but their own, are very concerned with how other people see them rather than with what's practical, and they tend to want to control or have control over the people around them. David Bostwick, Chrysler's market research director, tells Bradsher, "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."

Armed with such research, automakers have, over the past decade, ramped up their SUV designs to appeal even more to the "reptilian" instincts of the many Americans who are attracted to SUVs not because of their perceived safety, but for their obvious aggressiveness. Automakers have intentionally designed the latest models to resemble ferocious animals. The Dodge Durango, for instance, was built to resemble a savage jungle cat, with vertical bars across the grille to represent teeth and big jaw-like fenders. Bradsher quotes a former Ford market researcher who says the SUV craze is "about not letting anything get in your way, and at the extreme, about intimidating others to get out of your way."

Not surprisingly, most SUV customers over the past decade hail from a group that is the embodiment of American narcissism: baby boomers. Affluent, and often socially liberal, baby boomers have embraced the four-wheel-drive SUV as a symbol of their ability to defy the conventions of old age, of their independence and "outdoorsiness," making the off-road vehicle a force to be reckoned with on the American blacktop. But as Bradsher declares in his title, this baby boomer fetish is considerably more harmful than the mere annoyance of yet another Rolling Stones tour or the endless commercials for Propecia. In their attempt to appear youthful and hip, SUV owners have filled the American highways with vehicles that exact a distinctly human cost, frequently killing innocent drivers who would have survived a collision with a lesser vehicle. Bradsher quotes auto execs who concede that the self-centered lifestyle of SUV buyers is apparent in "their willingness to endanger other motorists so as to achieve small improvements in their personal safety."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea....mencimer.html

another bloody yank

Well there you have it. Affluent, socially liberal baby boomers.

Bob

even with experience, it's much more expensive over here when you compare like for like, sure you can get it cheap, base needed for the state, which won't do you any good if you cripple someone though.

simongb

I remember when gas was 89 cents a gallon!

y2b4sure

I seem to always find myself saying this but surely this type of UK/US comparison is going to vary wildly depending on individual personal circumstances. I think my car insurance rates are the same or lower here in Arizona, US than in Northamptonshire, UK.

y2b4sure

I think what I object to is people driving cars that *seem* wasteful. I think here in the 21st century all greeny people should accept that having car is necessary for a normal lifestyle for most people and having a car with a reasonable size engine is acceptable. What I don't like is people driving cars with huge engines for no reason, or those driving Bigfoot around town to the shops.

On a different note, I don't sign up to the argument of "let's all walk to work, that'll bring the price of gas down". That's a bunch of BS. The prices are where they are as the producers only make just enough to go round. If demand drops, they'll produce even less.