Re: Saab appears able to survive a GM bankruptcy

I live in the US and have never heard anyone use that inane reason - safety - for driving an SUV (let alone a 4x4 SUV). Not only are SUV's less safe on motorways than passenger cars for the reason you provide, there are additional reasons. The primary one in the US being, as trucks they are by federal legislation the last to get the safety features first mandated for use in passenger cars. For example, it was a requirement for nearly all cars to get air bags beginning in MY 1990. The law allowed SUVs/Trucks to wait until 1995 to get airbags (source:

Legislation for upgraded side impact protection was mandated on cars for 1998, while trucks had several additional years to implement this feature. 4x4's are even less safe because they provide a false sense of traction during acceleration without any additional benefit during braking. Unless you clear snow covered roadways for a living, perform military missions, or need to traverse your giant farm ranch, I agree that 4x4 SUV's generally aren't needed. The common reasons I hear for non 4x4 SUV are:

- I need room to fit my children (and their friends) who are part of the soccer/hockey/football/baseball team and their gear

- I need something big enough to pull the caravan/trailer/boat/snowmobiles/motorcycles when our family goes on a trip and the most recent reason

- with gas prices so high lately, they practically gave this truck away

Admittedly, not all SUV's are 4x4's, even though they may look the same. Quite honestly, even though it is snowing outside right now, very few of the SUV's/trucks in my area have 4x4 capability. Maybe we are talking about two different things.

Graham

"Walt Kienzle" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

It's common over here.

There's very, very few 4x2 SUVs on the market over here.

Don't forget, too, that the SUVs we get here are an order of magnitude smaller than the behemoths you lot see - to us, a Range-Rover or Cayenne is HYOOOOOGE. The school-run stuff being talked about would tend to be Discovery (LR3 to you)/X5/ML size.

Your point would be better made if the article you cited wasn't over 6 years old and provided information on how these statistics were collected. I also discount it since it is from California, where they don't let reality get in the way of their bias. Additionally, they make comparisons to Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and Canada where traffic laws apply across the entire country and then vaguely lump the U.S. with 50 states and individual laws in each, together. The current U.S. seatbelt usage rate is

81% with 11 US jurisdictions having over 90% usage. Not every state in the U.S. has seat belt laws but several states have enacted such laws since the 2002 article you cite. I would say that seat belt USAGE is also near or over 90% for most states that require seat belt usage, depending on how long that requirement has been in place. What the other states do is none of my concern. For more accurate information than the article you provided, please see Walt