On 3 Jul 2001, at 0:48, burns boldly uttered: > Philip J. Koenig wrote: > > > > The problem is that SUV's are being designed, sold and bought as > > mass-market passenger cars, yet for years they had (still have, > > AFAIK) all sorts of smog and mileage exemptions due to being > > categorized as "light trucks". > > > > In most cases they are light trucks. There are two general categories of > North American SUV's. The smaller ones, such as the Blazer, are built > upon the mini-pickup drive-train and chassis (in the case of the Blazer, > it is the S-10 rolling chassis). The larger SUVs, such as the Yukon, > Tahoe and Suburban are built on the full-sized pickup (e.g. the > Silverado) rolling chassis. My point wasn't a technical one about what kind of chassis they are built on, it is a socio-political one because originally the exemption for "light trucks" was designed to throw a bone to commercial enterprises that use light-trucks as commercial vehicles. Since the vast majority of SUVs are now personal, leisure vehicles, produced in much higher quantities and driving a lot more miles (not just ferrying hay around a farm) the reasoning for those exemptions has totally changed. Here in San Francisco about 10 years ago they enacted some tax exemptions for building "live/work lofts". The law was designed to encourage low-income artisans and craftspeople to not flee the high price of housing here. However during the dot-com boom the builders ended up building tons of these "classed as affordable but really not" housing that just turned out to be a yuppie giveaway. I see the abuse of that kind of well-intentioned law to be very similiar to the exemptions that SUVs have enjoyed for years. Car manufacturers have been lobbying against removing them of course, because it increases their profits. But the tide is shifting now that it's gotten the public's attention. If nothing else, it's just a PR move, since it just adds to the perception that SUV owners care about nothing but themselves. -- Philip J. Koenig [EMAIL PROTECTED] Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium _______________________________________________ http://linux.nf -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives, Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, Etc ->http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
