Just get it over with- stop caring… it will just drive you insane.

If you live in the city and have a truck, you had better be using it for work in some way, or you’re just vomiting money down the drain.

Meanwhile, I would have no excuse for buying an SUV or truck. I live in Phoenix, everywhere I travel is paved, and the weather is not a problem. As such, I commute to work on the Rapid (a commuter express bus) and I use my ten-year-old Honda Accord 4-cylinder ricerocket for everything else. It’s so cheap to keep and maintain and use at this point that friends of mine have taken notice and are actively searching for decade-old Hondas and Toyotas as cost-saving vehicle options. I highly recommend it to others… monthly insurance is $55 for two drivers, you get 450+ miles per tank of gas, and the v-tec H22 engine is known to perform like new year in and year out.

Another friend’s father recently picked up a heavy-duty truck for a third its retail value – because it was a tool to him, not a daily vehicle.

I’ll skip the debates about “better uses for the money” however…

Traciatim:

Read the Malcolm Gladwell article PLEASE.

Amanda:

You can say “why did you buy the damn car then!?!?” Just because your co-worker is stupid doesn’t mean you can’t point it out. Stop worrying about how it looks. Who cares? Say what’s there to be said, and what’s there to be said it that your co-worker is stupid.

RJ:

The Gladwell article is for you too, fellow traveler.

Ernesto:

Got all that. However, the one of the biggest traits of the rich is that they minimize unnecessary spending (negotiating prices, minimizing expenses, etc.).

Troy:

You really expect an idiot to not drive like an idiot? Are you serious?

Jay:

Good points. My paid for 2000 Accord V6 agrees.

Sam:

We don’t live in the old days, unfortunately.

All:

Sure, many good points are made here. Generally, trucks have utility functions. I don’t think anyone would argue that. SUVs for the most part are for looks and flawed notions of safety. (And how I drive, my Honda Accord is a bigger threat to your Expedition than your Expo is to me. Bet!)

With my car, I have avoided the most impossible situations that the typical SUV driver could never have escaped. I’ll put money on that. They money I save on gas!

Plus, I started my budget when I lived in Cali 6 years ago, and I still calculate my monthly gas spending based on living in SoCal, even though I have been back in DC for 6 years. Gas prices could triple before I notice it. Literally. I stress test my gas spending at least once a year, then I add a bit on top. And I adjust my budget accordingly.

Its all in the planning.

SUV’s are not irrational, but I can understand how a writer from Boston would get that impression. Having lived nearly all my years in Utah and Wyoming, I know how useful SUVs are. Back in the old days SUVs were Jeeps, Internationals, 4wd pickups and Suburbans, Blazers and Broncos. They were purchased by ranchers, hunters and fishermen, campers, skiers, boaters, and oil field workers. They used them to get places you couldn’t get in a car, in weather that most people wouldn’t go out in. Those people still need SUV’s and will continue to buy them. If you think that SUVs give you a sense of security in I-405, think about being 10 miles from the nearest pavement in January with a foot of snow on the ground and 10 degrees outside.

In the intervening years SUVs became a fad for people that didn’t really need them. They became a substitute for a minivan or a station wagon or a way to look more macho. The people that bought SUVs for these reasons are the ones abandoning them now. The irrational part of SUVs is someone buying one to cruise the concrete canyons of Manhattan or the freeways of southern California.