I only had to sell my Berlingo because I needed more than two seats, otherwise I’d still be driving it. All the time I was a courier I just hired a car for the few times I needed extra seating, but after retiring I was taking friends out more often. Incidentally, I always drive, I don’t trust anyone else to drive while I’m in the car…Unless I’m banned. Having heart attacks and heart surgery, prevents driving for up to six weeks … 
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Aww! You’re such a spoilsport. But here is me not speeding, normally I don’t stop, just keep moving slowly but that damn caravan kept stopping.
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That’s lovely @Bruce. Have you got any videos of you sat in your SUV equivalent watching paint dry? 
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All my videos are like watching paint dry, it’s my speciality, my genre if you will.
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Perhaps you could get your 3D printer to recreate the whole scene, and setup a camera so we can watch it in real time and see our days out gracefully?
Back to topic…. Apart from having to carry a load of gear around for long distances from time to time, could you survive without a large vehicle on a day to day basis? ‘Cos that seems to be the crux of the discussion.
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Just been watching a Tesla promo video about aluminium batteries. If one ignores the somewhat obvious matter of how Tesla has sold cars based on lithium batteries (which the video berates considerably), coupled with the curious omission of mentioning where the electricity might come from, it does seem a game changer. Batteries which charge within 10mins and provide a 1000 mile range.
The argument about SUVs would be obsolete. We’d all want one and could afford to buy and run one, especially if AI makes it nigh on impossible to crash one yet alone get a speeding fine.
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I know that feeling. That’s the same thing here. Got a brush guard on the front of my truck. Nice and slow and bumpy them if they don’t want to move. Don’t blow your horn because that means it’s feeding time and they will surround you.
That road had plenty of room for SUVs
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On a day to day basis I never use my car at all, everything I need is within walking distance, doctors, pathology, supermarkets, shopping centre, dentists, restaurants, fast food are all within a few hundred metres of my house. The Club and railway station are two small blocks away (5 to 8 minutes walk)
The only time I use my car is to go to Bunnings about 4km away since the local hardware store closed. If I go into Wollongong CBD (or Sydney) I always take the train…
If you discount trips to Bunnings the shortest distance my car travels regularly is 500km return trip to Canberra. In May I drove to Darwin which took me about a month and was just under 9000km return. In summer I went to Jindabyne in the Snowies about 1500km return
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To be fair both are paved now.
There is only one unsealed section of Highway 1 (the longest highway in the world) and that is the 700km section between Borroloola NT and Normanton Qld.
Most people use the Barkly Highway from Threeways much further south which is sealed.
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Also everyone would always know exactly where you are with an AI controlled vehicle. Win:win 
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We’ve had three automatic Renaults over the years. A Laguna, a Megane and a Kangoo. All good but we had trouble with the window winders packing in on both the Megane and Kangoo. We would have got another newer Kangoo this time but they don’t do a WAV (Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle) version now
My only criticism of SUVs in UK is that most car park parking spaces aren’t wide enough for them. I don’t know how people get in and out without the doors bashing the car next to them. Through the sunroof maybe. 
Edit: Regarding the Kangoo WAV. I’m not sure if these were ever available new from the showroom. The new Laguna and Megane were converted before we drove them away from the showroom but we got the Kangoo used with 6000 miles on the clock. Probably more accurate to say that nobody seems to have converted later ones.
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Our local Tesco car park has recently been resurfaced and the spaces look slightly wider than before.
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This is an interesting question - do any of the car makers produce a factory made wheel chair access car? I thought, as I’d internet access, that I’d do a quick check. I found few WAV car sales web sites. They helpfully tell about the car, its wheelchair access and capacity - and which company did the conversion work. None where factory made, all were converted by one business or other. It’s a pity that there wasn’t internet available when you were trying to find this out and when you posted.
https://www.wavsgb.com/for-sale/
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I wonder if the supermarkets have worked out that the drivers of large SUVs are in the group of people who are less likely to look at individual prices and value for money?
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Well that’s dinner sorted Bruce…what about lunch?
I live in a farming community but I’ve never seen as many cows as that on the road…
I did some work for an ex dairy farmer once and he had a thousand cows grazing in his pasture, and he claims he knew every one by name…
Wash yer mouth out Annie…
I only drive a small SUV but I never look at prices or bargains in the supermarket…If it takes my fancy, I buy it…
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they really should put more thought into this with all cars. My mum is wheelchair-bound although she can transfer to/from. But it’s so difficult for her to transfer into most cars because they don’t put any grab handles in. We don’t move her from the care home often enough to make it worth adjusting, but they should really think these things through. With these new SUVs you often have to step up to get in which is fine if you’re flexible and fully mobile but just impossible if you’re frail and elderly.
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I did make the edit. When we bought the Laguna and Megane from new, they were standard estate cars. They were transported for conversion elsewhere, the hoist and hand controls fitted and the car brought back to the Renault dealer. Not true WAV vehicles perhaps but made so a disabled person could use them. The Kangoo was the only complete conversion to a WAV (a used car) where getting out of the wheelchair wasn’t necessary. Probably done from new but by another company. Quite right for pulling me up on this. Still no later WAV Kangoos that we could buy though.
In retrospect, We should have got all the faults on the Kangoo done. Some were to do with the conversion …and it had a heavy ramp. A bit less powerful than the Peugeot we now have but it was a smoother ride.
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If anybody doesn’t drive a SUV simply because they think they are saving the planet, they want their bumps feeling…
Deciding what items save the planet is not up to you, If the establishment wants to limit the number of SUV’s on the road they will…But can you honestly see any self respecting member of parliament driving around in a Nissan Micra? I don’t mean while commuting in London where they’re been scrutinised and under the media spotlight, I mean in their constituency. Where their 6 bedroom houses are…
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That was during a drought when they take the cattle on the road to graze on the grass at the road side (called the Long Paddock) The drovers were at the end of the video on horseback on the left. They keep them moving until the drought breaks at their station then they take them home (by truck)
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Never thought of that Bruce, here the grass is lush most of the year so if they haven’t built houses or a great big solar farm on it, they can graze to their hearts content…And the roads are as busy as hell…I don’t even cycle on the main roads anymore, just keep to the country roads and go first thing in the morning with just the odd farmers SUV or tractor trundling past occasionally.
There is a massive battle going on here at the moment, between protestors and a company who want to build one of the biggest solar farms in the UK not ten miles from where I live…
Sometimes the local council get overruled by the government and the project will happen. It’s in Ed Miliband’s (spit) constituency to make matters worse…
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