Why do people drive unnecessarily large cars?

We need to switch to a motor taxation model based on weight and dimensions with kei cars being incentivised.

Ok, which poster claimed: "that SUVs weren't ramming children"

The closest I could see was one poster who - correctly - pointed out that children being killed in collisions with SUVs was not common.

A bit of sense from our elected representatives:

Paul Murphy, a People Before Profit TD for Dublin South-West, described the statistics as “alarming” and said SUVs “are not built for busy city environments”.

He’s calling for SUV-free zones, similar to protections against heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in urban areas.

SUVs have grown in popularity in recent years, with many drivers favouring their higher seating position. SUVs are generally taller, wider and heavier than traditional cars, and less fuel-efficient.

“These massive vehicles are getting bigger and more dangerous,” said Murphy.

https://www.thejournal.ie/children-are-82-more-likely-to-die-if-they-are-hit-by-an-suv-than-by-a-smaller-car-study-finds-6691454-Apr2025/

Just waiting now on the usual suspects to tell us how they know better than studies done by qualified experts and the opinions of people elected to the Dail.

It's more of the same old codswallop from the same posters, no matter what the thread. It's like now that religion has no hold on people they have filled the vacumn by becoming devout disciples of the Thou shall not sect. It doesn't seem to matter what the subject, the input is always the same....Though shall not....

For Christ sake imagine demanding that people should only buy EVs that can manage a miseravle 20km a day🤣 How could any rational person make that claim and expect people to take it seriously. Comedy gold

I'm outraged at the unnecessarily large houses people build in this country. Waste of resources pushing up building materials cost during a crisis. Large houses need more energy and are worse for the environment.

Change the law. The maximum house size should be 175m2. No exceptions for residential buildings.

And again, there's the pedantic nitpicking applied by my posts that isn't applied to other people's posts.

Here's what the poster said; "I haven't seen too many SUV's ramming into children around Ranelagh recently."

Are you suggesting that the poster meant that it's OK for SUVs to ram a small number of children around Ranelagh?

If you want to take everything literally, word for word, then sure, let's go down that totally non-productive road.

Bloody doctors, sure what would they know about public health anyway? Why can't they just listen to the experts on Boards?

Haven't we had a poster here saying they know someone (they could be making this up) that uses a Ranger as their family car?

I don't think anybody is arguing against the expert figure of 82% for kids and 44% for adults. A politician simply represents the views of his constituencies, Paul Murphy is representing 9,928 voters in Dublin South West. Not trying to take away from anything he says but thems the facts

Maybe I'm missing something but does any article actually tell us what the experts have defined as an SUV?

An interesting figure quoted in that article

If all SUVs were replaced by standard cars, the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed in car crashes would decrease by an estimated 8% in Europe 

https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/eu-road-fatalities-drop-3-2024-progress-remains-slow-2025-03-18_en

There were 19,800 road deaths of which pedestrians account for 18%, or 3,564 and cyclists account for 10%, or 1,980. 8% of these figures account for less than 450 people across Europe

Assuming we move every SUV driver to a "regular" car and that doesn't result in more occupant deaths that's 450 people over a population of 500m. Is it really worth doing something so big for such a small return?

Did it even occur to you that some families may have one vehicle that they use for both work and family purposes?

Or would you prefer they own and keep two separate vehicles instead? That's hardly environmentally or otherwise friendly, is it?

And again, how do you know what reasons are behind their choice of vehicle?

These arguments continue to be nonsensical.

https://www.msl.ie/assets/1/product-brochures/skoda/skoda-octavia-price-list-2022.pdf

Warning: this is a pdf

And that's for the 1.0 litre, I've never seen one of them. The two litres are all 2 tonnes.

That's incorrect, they can be used once declared but it also dodges the salient points raised nicely.

The motor tax office will ask for further details if it's to be taxed as commercial, otherwise for dual use it's based on private.

That's me. Making it up 😂😂🫣yea, nobody really has one of these, they're just illusions