Oh How They Love Those SUV's In The 604

By Ben Meisner

It is easy to understand why the provincial government has instituted a carbon tax by way of an increase in the cost of our gasoline as a means of trying to get people away from vehicles  they do no need.

I spent Monday in Vancouver and as I watched the traffic go by it was very evident the kind of vehicles being used in that part of the province in no way reflect what is really needed.

More Hummers came by me in the half hour that I sat there than I have seen in any other part of the province in a year.

4x4’s are not a rarity but rather, there were a lot of them. I chuckled as they came down the street because I couldn’t help but wonder why you would need a 4x4 to get to work especially if it is equipped with a bush bar, and metal running boards?  

The biggest chuckle came however in seeing these rigs coming down the street. For the most part they looked like they had just come out of the show room, polished, not a scratch and certainly not a hint that they had been driven where rocks are on the road, the paint is getting chipped, the road covered in snow and there is a 100 gallon tidy tank sitting in the back of the rig as you head off to work.

Then there is the matter of SUV’s. Wow some of them are a beauty to behold but necessary to have when you received  just 17 snow falls in the past season? Hardly.

In Richmond, as I watched the vehicles go by ,I thought gee, the City Of Richmond doesn’t even have a snow removal budget, when they get a snowfall of any significance they simply shut things down. Which by the way  is a rare occurance.

So does the provincial government have a case in trying to get these gas hogs off the road?  It does indeed.  The problem however with all this is they are also nailing the rural community to the wall, in an area where a pick isn’t a luxury or a status symbol, it is a necessity.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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