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Ah, the SUV with the nature-y name. The "Tahoe" or the "Forrester" or the "Acadia." Designed, in theory, to ford some pristine river.
The reality is not as glamorous. These $45,000 boats are sitting in a parking lots in front of big box stores in suburban Cleveland. Or stuck on the highway in Maryland carrying a single passenger, spewing toxins into the air.
It's discouraging to see the auto market again headed so strongly toward SUVs — which sends pedestrian deaths soaring.
But the suggestion that an SUV is somehow "outdoorsy" is a big part of the appeal. So just for kicks, we asked our readers to come up with more — ahem — appropriate names for some of the best-selling full-size SUVs of 2019. Here's what Streetsbloggers came up with:
Land Rover Range Rover
Land Rovers. For when you want a safari vehicle, but mainly just for commuting 35 miles on the interstate by yourself. This is one of the SUVs that, for whatever reason, seems to communicate a certain something about the driver. This version for 2020 starts at $42,000.
It's like the lego version of a Hummer. This one has actually been -- thankfully -- discontinued. Sorry about that, cars aren't really our thing around here. Still ...
Thanks to everyone who submitted names! You can check out the whole thread here.
Humor can make a difference. If more people realized that their vehicle choices were the butt of everyone else's jokes — and car manufacturers put on the defensive — perhaps we wouldn't be in the situation we are in right now. After all, one of you who suggested calling a mega-SUV the Chevy Glacier Melter — which is funny ... because it's true!
New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing tolls are one historic step closer to reality after Wednesday's 11-1 MTA board vote. Next step: all those pesky lawsuits.
No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken.