Whaler27
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Alex
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2020
- Threads
- 60
- Messages
- 2,696
- Reaction score
- 5,372
- Location
- Oregon
- Vehicle(s)
- 2019 JL, 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee Altitude Ecodiesel, 2005 Mustang GT, 2018 Ford Raptor, 2018 BMW R1200GSA, 2020 Honda Monkeybikes (2), 1972 Honda CT-70, 1980 Honda CT-70,
- Occupation
- Saving the world :-)
- Thread starter
- #1
The answer is an amazing number of things! Many of us on this site love Jeeps for their off-road prowess, but they really are a wonderful multipurpose vehicle.
From grocery-getting, to trailing, to overlanding, to rock-crawling, to mall-crawling, to show-n-shining, I'm good with all of it. Well, almost all of it. I'm not okay with the idiots who build and operate their jeeps in a manner that puts the rest of the world at risk. That's not part of your jeep ownership "entitlement".
I've been managing the consequences of highway-salad for most of my adult life. Lots of dead and maimed animals and people, including plenty of kids who died as a result of somebody else's stupidity. We've always had plenty of drunks and other categories of idiots, of course, but we didn't celebrate their stupidity the way we do now. I think most of our former idiots realized that embarrassment or shame were the appropriate emotions when their stupidity was revealed. Not so anymore.
These days all of our former categories of idiots are still with us, but we've added cell-phone idiots, and amplified the class of super-entitled, who believe that they should be allowed to do whatever they can afford to do, whether it puts others at risk or not. Expressing their stupidity is a right to be celebrated, apparently.
I love horsepower, and I love driving -- still, even as an old guy. I've driven a AWD hemi-powered Charger for many years, and I ring it out on a near-daily basis, so I'm not some testosterone-starved weenie who wants to deprive everybody else of their fun. I get it. And I'm in favor of it. That's what track days are for. But I'm tired of dealing with the inevitable consequences of idiots who don't understand or care about the limitations of their vehicles. High-horsepower four-wheel drive vehicles are contributing to our highway-salad more every year.
You know what the crash scene looks like when a Wrangler loses control at 80 mph and center-punches a Honda Civic with two little kids in it? If not, do you want to?
They're much better than my old CJ and TJ brakes, but OEM Wrangler brakes are still lousy. They don't stop quickly. When we change the suspension geometry and add oversized tires they're even worse. If we choose tires with hard rubber compounds and large mud-throwing lugs the braking sucks even worse. People who make all of these choices bear some responsibility to adjust their driving behavior accordingly -- so don't pretend your crappy-braking, poor handling, limited grip, hot rod should be out on the highway wedged into urban traffic at 80 mph in the rain. I don't care if you're the best driver in the world (and 99 out of 100 are not well trained.). Shit happens. Random events get introduced into traffic all day every day -- drunks, deer, loose pets, idiots, shifting loads falling off of trucks, tire failures... every day. If you're the douche-nozzle driving your Wrangler at 80 in the rain when that unfolds in front of you you'll own that little Honda Civic and your stupid behavior for the rest of your life. And some poor trooper is going to be cleaning up your mess.
I'm sorry for the rant, particularly during the Holiday season, but this is the season when my awareness of the above is most acute, for more reasons than I can count. Idiots in modified four-wheel-drives dominate our wintery crash landscape, as their operators, most of whom describe themselves as "good drivers" are in fact crappy drivers, as they don't understand the role weighting and braking play in driving -- especially on wet and icy road..
From grocery-getting, to trailing, to overlanding, to rock-crawling, to mall-crawling, to show-n-shining, I'm good with all of it. Well, almost all of it. I'm not okay with the idiots who build and operate their jeeps in a manner that puts the rest of the world at risk. That's not part of your jeep ownership "entitlement".
I've been managing the consequences of highway-salad for most of my adult life. Lots of dead and maimed animals and people, including plenty of kids who died as a result of somebody else's stupidity. We've always had plenty of drunks and other categories of idiots, of course, but we didn't celebrate their stupidity the way we do now. I think most of our former idiots realized that embarrassment or shame were the appropriate emotions when their stupidity was revealed. Not so anymore.
These days all of our former categories of idiots are still with us, but we've added cell-phone idiots, and amplified the class of super-entitled, who believe that they should be allowed to do whatever they can afford to do, whether it puts others at risk or not. Expressing their stupidity is a right to be celebrated, apparently.
I love horsepower, and I love driving -- still, even as an old guy. I've driven a AWD hemi-powered Charger for many years, and I ring it out on a near-daily basis, so I'm not some testosterone-starved weenie who wants to deprive everybody else of their fun. I get it. And I'm in favor of it. That's what track days are for. But I'm tired of dealing with the inevitable consequences of idiots who don't understand or care about the limitations of their vehicles. High-horsepower four-wheel drive vehicles are contributing to our highway-salad more every year.
You know what the crash scene looks like when a Wrangler loses control at 80 mph and center-punches a Honda Civic with two little kids in it? If not, do you want to?
They're much better than my old CJ and TJ brakes, but OEM Wrangler brakes are still lousy. They don't stop quickly. When we change the suspension geometry and add oversized tires they're even worse. If we choose tires with hard rubber compounds and large mud-throwing lugs the braking sucks even worse. People who make all of these choices bear some responsibility to adjust their driving behavior accordingly -- so don't pretend your crappy-braking, poor handling, limited grip, hot rod should be out on the highway wedged into urban traffic at 80 mph in the rain. I don't care if you're the best driver in the world (and 99 out of 100 are not well trained.). Shit happens. Random events get introduced into traffic all day every day -- drunks, deer, loose pets, idiots, shifting loads falling off of trucks, tire failures... every day. If you're the douche-nozzle driving your Wrangler at 80 in the rain when that unfolds in front of you you'll own that little Honda Civic and your stupid behavior for the rest of your life. And some poor trooper is going to be cleaning up your mess.
I'm sorry for the rant, particularly during the Holiday season, but this is the season when my awareness of the above is most acute, for more reasons than I can count. Idiots in modified four-wheel-drives dominate our wintery crash landscape, as their operators, most of whom describe themselves as "good drivers" are in fact crappy drivers, as they don't understand the role weighting and braking play in driving -- especially on wet and icy road..
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