The headline of the latest foray of The Onion into the tragic world of traffic safety: "Conscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident".
This might be a case of "funny because it's true," or it could be more like, "unfunny because it's too true." But The Onion has noticed the trend of Americans buying bigger, more dangerous and polluting cars (SUVs and trucks, actually) and produced a particularly scathing example of satire.
Explaining that she did not have any strong preferences when it came to make or model, area woman Laura Bauer, a conscientious SUV shopper, confirmed Wednesday that she just wanted something that would kill the family in the other car if she got into an accident.
The entirely fictional Bauer, cleverly named for an edition of one of the first SUV models to strike it rich in the American market (the Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer edition of this correspondent's high school years, although Bauer's work with Ford goes back to the early 1980s), also has this to say:
I don’t need anything fancy, just a practical, midsize SUV that gets good mileage and will easily slaughter a family of five during a 60-mph crash. The last thing I want is a flimsy sedan that takes out Mommy and Daddy in the front seat but leaves behind a couple of orphans in the back.
The reality that informs this satirical fabrication has been covered throughout the entirety of Planetizen's existence, but here are a few recent examples of the danger presented by the American love for large vehicles—starting first with another example of The Onion's satire from earlier this year.
- Sunday Funny: The Onion Calls Out the Auto Industry for its Massive SUVs (March 2020)
- Men and SUVs: A Bad Mix for Traffic Safety (December 2019)
- U.S. Land Use, SUVs Targeted in New U.N. Climate Change Report (November 2019)
- British Researchers Sound the Alarm About the Dangers of Large SUVs (August 2019)
- SUVs Kill Pedestrians—and They Have for a Long Time (July 2019)
- GM Announces Plant Closures, Shift Toward Larger Vehicles (November 2018)
FULL STORY: Conscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident
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