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Group claims members went around Beacon Hill deflating SUV tires in climate-change protest last night
By adamg on Thu, 04/20/2023 - 11:57am
Tyre Extinguishers, a British group whose preferred method of fighting climate change is to deflate the tires of large vehicles, says it let the air out of the tires of 43 vehicles on Beacon Hill last night.
The group took this action to render the large greenhouse gas emitting vehicles unusable, directly preventing the outpouring of emission from the vehicles into our atmosphere which further contribute to climate change and air pollution. Only large, luxury, gas powered SUVs were targeted by the group; no tires were deflated on electric or hybrid vehicles nor any vehicles with handicap signage. The group left leaflets on the cars to inform the owners about why their vehicle was impacted, imploring them to stop using their SUVs and switch to public transportation, biking, or smaller compact electric and hybrid cars.
Rather than slicing open tires, participants use lentil seeds or similar:
When you drop a lentil in a valve stem cap and screw the cap back on, the air will slowly leak out of the tire.
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Comments
I love the lentil approach
Makes a statement, but no property damage.
I'm not sure about "no property damage"
I would defer to the lawyers on this, but I think you'd have a hard time defending the claim of "no property damage" if you render someone's car unusable in such a way as to require either running out and buying a pump or calling a truck to come re-inflate your tires.
Poorly-prepared drivers
A bicycle floor pump with a Schrader valve costs like $30 and can sit in the back of your car for whenever you need to top up your tires. Takes about 5 minutes of effort to pump up the tires to full pressure (and less time to top off). Easier than finding gas station pumps. (Long ago, many gas stations had free air, not so much anymore.)
Bonus: when you're driving and see a cyclist by the side of the road changing a flat with an air pump, you can pull over and help them out.
If I took the tire off your bike
And placed it in the woods to protest cyclists that run red lights. You’d just walk into the woods laughing because it was funny and a minor inconvenience. Ya, right!
Que?
Nobody's tires were removed from their cars.
If you flattened my tires on my bike, then yes, it'd be a minor inconvenience.
I bet most of the sorts of cars (large luxury SUVs) they targeted had run-flats anyways. Other than the pamphlet, they probably wouldn't have even noticed an issue until they saw the tire pressure warning light and went to an air compressor. Making sure the lentil didn't just stay in the valve/cap would have probably been the most annoying part.
Pulling a front tire off a bike takes at most 1 minute
And less than a minute putting it back on. A simple minor inconvenience. No big deal.
Oh honey
Did someone touch your precious Porsche Trashcan?
So sorry that you are too much of a little prince to even do minor service on your own car.
Tell me you don’t own a modern car
Without telling me you don’t own a modern car. Do you know how much a Porsche OBD scanner tool than can clear a service indicator costs? Oh, you don’t. I’m not surprised.
Stick to epidemiology and e-bikes. That’s what you know, even though your ego tells you different.
Complexity isn't impressive to me
Simplicity is. So is efficiency - and bikes and ebikes are the most efficient solution for limited distance travel and occasional longer excursions.
Maybe I like my bikes because ... oh ... because I completely rebuilt my first car's engine when I was nineteen? And did most of my own car repairs for another couple of decades? And dealing with a bike is simpler? And you can nearly always push it, carry it, put it on the T or pick it up with the very practical brand new household vehicle if it fails?
And, yes, the tire pump was one of the first things we put in it. Might want to stay away from the spraygoosh - it wrecks your wheel sensors.
So starting at 19…
I’m going to peg you at 60 now. Please don’t take offense, I’m really just guessing. That would mean the engine you rebuilt was from 1982. I rebuilt my eclipse 2.0T motor and threw on a T16 in 1999. It really wasn’t that hard. Motors were a lot more complicated in 1999 than 1982 and infinitely more complicated in 2023. You’re proving my point.
Check out the big cojones on robo
Are they robotic/cybernetic/or still your own analog balls?
What cojones?
Do we even know that this person is male or for real?
I think your play on words is wrong
I think you're using "Trashcan" in place of the Porsche "Taycan," but that's a fully electric vehicle which is what these groups want people to drive.There's also very little service on EVs as there's no oil to change, engine maintenance, and the brakes last a long time because of the regenerative braking instead of using the pads.
I keep forgetting how bad people are at preparedness.
I just kind of assume that everyone carries a cheap hand-pump in their trunk, right next to the spare tire and the lug nut wrench thingy. And that people have a few spare gallon containers of water in the back of a closet for emergencies. And that they keep a little bit of cash in case their phone or card doesn't work. But every once in a while I am reminded that common sense ain't common.
So yeah, I had figured that the SUV drivers would have to spend a few minutes pumping up their tires. But some of them were probably left somewhat stranded.
Almost all of my cars don’t have a spare option
Instead, I get a can of goop and air that will ‘repair’ a flat, but result in needing to replace the tire. Most high performance SUVs and cars done come with a spare.
I mean, if it works, and if it's what you want, then fine.
Point is, you'd at least be prepared.
I used to do that before I
I used to do that before I had AAA. But isn't it bad for the tire?
It will get you out of the
It will get you out of the situation.
There's something about it, though. I don't know exactly what - lingering toxic chemicals or flammability - that you need to tell the person removing the tire from the wheel what's in it so they can do it safely. ...and I don't know what happens if you leave it in and have a later blowout with that stuff in the tire.
5 mins?
You think so, huh?
I'm thinking more like a half-hour especially a larger SUV tire, with rest breaks.
Been there, done that.
Even one of those small cigarette-lighter pumps can take 20+ minutes, and you shouldn't let them run that long. They'll break. I loaned mine out to a young couple who woke up to a flat in the campground. Next time I tried to use it, it didn't work.
Tire Deflation
This nothing but vandalism. Simply leaving the leaflets on the windshield gets your point across. Do they think the car owners are going to be sympathetic?
Oh, to be clear, I don't know if this helps at all.
To a large extent, I think what's going on is that people realize there's a climate emergency, but can't find effective levers to move the citizenry and the government to do something about it, so they're trying... anything, really. And this is anything, as it were.
So I don't know if it's the *right* thing, but I do find it a bit clever.
It gets people talking
About a very important issue in the newspaper of record, on social media, and here in the warm confines of Adam's creation.
I wouldn't buy an SUV. I grew up seeing them as no different than gaudy jewelry or club sports. A way to use money to make you feel better than others. The more luxxxe, the better you are. It's like those rehab centers that you pay all this extra money to, just so you dohn't have to be in a room with another drug addict whose earning potential is lower than yours.
I hate having to navigate around them as I drive, because they have poor visibility, believe they are superior, and also sit high enough up that they see themselves as literally over you, which results in more and more people doing just the same. So now everyone's driving vehicles into a city, that were designed to haul camping equipment up a mountain, which has been retrofitted to still kind of be able to do that but instead focus on ensuring that your body, mind, and ego are all cocoooned in your own portable traveling mini-mall.
The lentils are such a nice touch.... a superfood!
Really?
Are you quite sure that that's what they're talking about?
Doesn't seem like it to me.
Really again?
Really? My old 4-cyl Honda Element was classified as an SUV and it was fantastic. Why? The "U" in SUV means something. A regular sedan is useless to me. We could put two bicycles in the Element standing up with the front tires off and nested so that they took minimal space. Being inside was good for so many reasons - security, cleanliness, they won't get whacked by overhangs, etc. Lots of room left over for camping gear, etc. It had an amazing amount of room for a small car.
Not every SUV is luxe monster car.
Makes a statement, but no
Makes a statement, but no property damage.
up
Even if true, it's still vandalism.
There's other types of damage, too - causing somebody to be late for work, or a doctor's appt, etc...
It might result in physical damage, too.
- someone parked very close to curb and you lower their car, you might scratch their surfaces, especially if you block their door as a result.
- their method (using the valve cap to press lentil seeds against the valve stem and cause a slow leak) might leave behind some schmutz to gum up the valve, so that has to be cleaned out, so not just "oh, refill the tire with your bike pump" that some have been saying.
Really, the lentil is telltale of the pathetic cowardice of these vandals. They don't have the courage to stick around and maybe be observed during their act of "protest" (news flash - the air comes out faster if you use the point of the valve cap or a key or a pen to press down the stem (or even faster if you use the correct tool to actually remove the stem)), so they start a slow leak and run away.
the inconvenience is the point
this post underscores the reality that there is no socially acceptable form of protest
If inconvenience beyond such
If inconvenience beyond such necessary to exercise one's right to speech & protest* is being employed to make a 'point' like that, then one has indeed gone beyond socially acceptable protest.
Socially acceptable protest movements don't succeed
Every single successful protest movement ever has "gone beyond socially acceptable protest". Read contemporary accounts of the civil rights movement, women's suffrage, gay rights, the Dalit Panthers, the brothers Gracchi (it's debatable if they were even successful), South African apartheid,... All of them.
Yes, my list is biased towards the US and the last 150 years. So is this movement.
As a rule, vegans only _talk_ about their diet, and our culture _hates_ them for even doing that.
This doesn't mean that "socially _un_acceptable" means "righteous".
But "socially acceptable" seems to mean "ignorable".
An immobile SUV
The ultimate space-saver
This is brilliant
and if you own one of the targets, you’re probably some kind of assclown anyway, so let’s bring on the whining!
Wah wah my giant tank has been immobilized
I know you're getting likes and are feeling smug right now.
But people like you are douchebags that have made living in Boston worse. Clearly blanketing all types of large vehicle owners that may have families (heaven forbid) or jobs where they transport things in their vehicles.
If losing your SUV makes "living in Boston worse" then move out.
Jobs and families will be perfectly fine without their Yukon XL.
many of these
are used to haul lattes, not lumber. calm down
Try a minivan or a truck,
Try a minivan or a truck, then. Both do a better job transporting people and things than SUVs.
Minivan
I had one of the smallest minivans available and I never had to put anything on top coming out of IKEA like the Jeeps and Exploders had to.
Also a great carpool car, with seating for six adults.
Are they better for the climate?
Are they better for the climate, then?
Asking for a friend.
Lighter than SUVS
MInivans are lighter than SUVs, have smaller engines, and haul more people per vehicle weight/gas consumed if you have more people to haul.
Really?
My car, according to MA RMV, is a "SUV". It's, uh, really pretty small. It is dwarfed by the average minivan. Seems like if your vehicle has a hatch, they call it a "SUV" no matter what size it is.
Minivans are really lighter than SUVs, huh? I mean, I don't know who gets to decide which is which these days.
Few true minivans anymore
When I had an 2006 MPV the difference was a bit clearer. It was a good 2000 lbs lighter than the most comparable 6 seat SUV.
I go with wagons these days, but even my Impreza was considered to be an SUV by some. Then again, Subarus are most likely to be actually used as sport utility vehicles.
I wish there were smaller options
I agree, minivans aren't so mini anymore.
There is a class of small vans now that are an option, like the Ford Transit Connect and others. Problem is that they are commercial oriented. They also lack AWD. Ford has a more consumer-oriented Transit Connect but I'm suspect. I'd have to see and drive one.
When we were in Croatia waiting for a ferry, there was a VW California in front os us that I wanted. Perfect size and utility, but not imported.
SUVs
They are also notoriously bad as actual work vehicles. The only things they are good for are pollution, taking up an enormous amount of space, and compensating for insecurities about your manhood.
Was having issues posting the link
But they also kill more kids than literally any other type of vehicle. This is easily found with a quick google. SUVs are a threat to children not a way to protect your family.
Waaaaah, waaaaaaah
Some people are pretty sick of your garbage. I would look at seriously considering who’s being a smug asshole here, because I’ve got about a thousand little incidents to back me up.
Waaaaaaah! Waaaaah! People are giving me blowback for driving a consumer tank, waaah
*crying eyes*
Huge SUV and pickups are
Huge SUV and pickups are something that actually makes living in this city a nightmare. They are deaths waiting to happen. It should be illegal to drive them in the city without a legitimate commercial purpose.
Because it's all about you
Got it
A nightmare? Really, drama queen?
To me this would be "meh" as a form of protest
I don't have a giant gas-guzzler, but I do have a small air pump that plugs into what used to be known as the cigarette lighter. This "attack" would range from a mild inconvenience to an annoyance that I was made late to something.
An air inflator ain't helping
An air inflator ain't helping you if they slashing the sidewalk of a tire. Any puncture close to the sidewalk is not repairable. So yes this is vandalism as each owner has to pay $1200 to get the tires replaced not a "mild inconvenience" as you say
did you read the post?
.
Except they didn't
Reading is fundamental.
They depressurized it with the valve.
Bro
They unscrew the air cap, put a lentil in it, and screw it back in. This causes the tire to deflate without any damage whatsoever to any part of the vehicle.
I don't even think it scuffs the interior of the black pastic cap that said lentil is inserted into.
We need more of this!
We need more of this!
The T agrees
The MBTA has long shown solidarity by immobilizing their own vehicles.
As an environmentalist type,
I imagine that this could escalate to people doing the same, or worse, to EVs and hybrids.
The notion of an undeclared "Civil War" could identify the "other side" by the kind of vehicle they drive.
While I don't like to see big gas-guzzling and polluting vehicles out and about, targeting them like this will lead to retribution and, completely innocent car owners will be victimized by association.
“Innocent”
Choosing to spend more money than an average car to drive the single most polluting and dangerous type of vehicle for others isn’t exactly “innocent.”
somebody has to do something about
all our various social issues, but it seems the people who could won't and so we are going into a period of prolonged vigilantism for ever. and I am definitely not looking forward to it. once the chaos is truly loosed on the land it will become its own economy, will become entrenched, and will not be easy retract it.
the world seems divided into people who would completely deny what I just said, and on the other hand those who would vehemently endorse it as the correct course of action.
not fun.
So…..
If I deflate property of British people in the Boston area because of their continued occupation of Northern Ireland, we are cool, right?
Sure!
The movement being reported on here is specifically targeting those who have personally demonstrated certain harmful choices, rather than dismantling structures.
However, if you are advocating for the inconveniencing of those who benefit from structural privilege, that gets a bit more complicated, but it is also a noble goal, and it's about time you recognized it rather than just your usual shtick of casual sexism and insisting that white people are oppressed.
So, you would need to target white people, who benefit from and perpetuate worldwide structural racism.
You would also need to include abled people, cisgender people, Christians, men, heterosexual people, among others, as these people also benefit from and perpetuate structural systems of oppression.
Not all of these people have vehicles though, so you'll probably need to focus your activism somewhere else. The solution that works the best at this time seems to be recognizing structural oppression, calling it out, and taking steps to include those who are structurally excluded. Let people know that occupying others' lands is wrong. Let people know that systems that favor some groups over others are wrong. Acknowledge the privileges you have and take steps to include the people who are often passed over in favor of your groups.
Please….
Go lick pavement.
Please ...
Consider that your glib statements will wither under scruitiny.
Recent polling data suggests you
do not understand the low level of support for a United Ireland in Northern Ireland.
Yes,
But I righteously disagree with those people. Therefore I feel that I am allowed to take action against others who disagree with me.
These deflators are justifying their actions with their self imposed righteousness.
Anarchy is a two way street. That thought process is lost sometimes on people who blindly see their own beliefs as paramount.
I can’t stand SUV’s either. The fastest way to watch your trip get slower is putting your Dodge Ram or F150 within a few feet behind me on the highway. Nevertheless, don’t touch my stuff unless you want reciprocal and measured retaliation.
Stop being an idiot, John -
Stop being an idiot, John - those other idiots got here first, they're working this gas-lamped, curb-ramped corner of Beacon Hill, so you gotta hit the road.
When you do hit the road, remember that obstructionist driving is aggressive driving, and illegal same as tailgating in most states.
What a dumb, puerile thing to
What a dumb, puerile thing to do.
No one noticed them ?
B.H. is infested with security cams.
Has this actually changed anybody's mind?
I get that sometimes groups need to take direct action when the slow wheels of the law have locked up and there's no path forward. But I just can't imagine there's a single person out there who already owns an SUV (and, in this case, is enough of a hardass or a masochist to park their SUV in Beacon Hill everyday) who finds their car immobilized when, presumably, they've otherwise about to use it, reads a pamphlet, and has a come to god moment about buying a hybrid.
If there's testimony to the contrary I'd love to see it but I just suspect the vast majority of these people either sigh and call a tow/AAA and get on with their day, and a minority get pissed and further entrenched in the "fuck you, my car is mine, stupid activists" attitude.
Like is this intended to change the minds of bystanders??? People walking by seeing the flat tires and read the pamphlet and go DANG next car I buy will be electric? Or what. It rewards people driving small cars, I guess, but they were already on your side. What is the goal here in terms of actually affecting real change vis a vis public opinion? Or is this all just stomping feet and lashing out?
I can think of more effective
I can think of more effective ways to protest.
Picket outside an SUV dealership. Hold a rally at the statehouse or EPA headquarters when climate legislation is being debated. Protest outside the Lexington town meeting that they should stop approving so many office parks with poor or nonexistent transit and pedestrian access. Speak at a Boston MPO meeting and ask them to get serious about transit expansion and curbing car-oriented development in the suburbs. Picket MassDOT headquarters and tell them to install sidewalks in the suburbs and plow them, and think about how someone on foot or a bicycle (or mass transit, if they ever start running it) is supposed to handle Route 1 or 9 where it can be miles between crossing opportunities.
Whelp
It has clearly changed the minds of those who have looked to Europe for inspiration.
Gets a whole lot of attention, too.
What you
Don't want to fail to understand about anarchy and chaos is that what will sustain them for a long wretched period of time is that...
the vile combo come to represent investment opportunities.
Try not to be so much of an egghead that you fail recognize the depth of that dilemma. Macro level it is already going on with private equity funding death squads. It just gets close and closer
And closer and closer......and so on. Use your imagyfor something other than your next Dunks purchase for a min.
Last week’s Economist
Last week’s Economist magazine (not a tree hugging publication) had an article about the upcoming climate for the 700 million people (twice the US pop.) living in northern India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. Quote “The Indo-Gangetic Plain, which extends from the spine of Pakistan through northern India to the deltas of Bangladesh, is home to 700m people and exceptionally vulnerable to the heat pulses that climate change is making more frequent. It is one of the hottest, poorest and most populous places on Earth."
In these parts where folks have contributed very little to climate change, wet bulb temp (temp + humidity) is getting alarmingly deadly. That's only one of the many consequences of mindlessly sending so much carbon in the atmosphere.
Sorry, I got distracted from the most important issue of the day; the ethics of deflating SUV’s tires on Beacon Hill!
https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/04/02/global-warming-is-killing-indi...
They have instructions on how to deflate a tire
Their members/supporters must not be the sharpest tools in the toolbox.
if you live on Beacon Hill, you don't need a car
It is in the center of the city and all the public transportation.
Bwah-ha-ha!!!
Bwah-ha-ha!!!
People actually need cars for the places they want/need to go that aren't served(, or served reliably, or served economically, or served practically) by public transportation. Like a lot of places not in the city. And a lot of places IN the city.
If you can write stretchers like that with a straight face, maybe you can get a job doing PR for Trump 2024 - they could certainly use the upgrade.
you make no sense
Why would you pay Beacon Hill prices if you don't work in Boston? You need to go to work, school, Food shopping and the doctor's office. All of those things are in Beacon Hill within walking distance. About a million options in Boston steps from public transportation. You don't need a car to get to anywhere in Suffolk County.
I'm not saying that wouldn't leave boston, but its optional. You may want a car while you live in Beacon Hill, but you don't need one. That's a big part of the point of choosing Beacon Hill. It is wasteful and excessive to own a big SUV and park it on the street there.
Not about making sense
All about how we are supposed to be impressed with the degree to which Robo wastes money on excessive and showy things, and then gets all huffy when we point out how useless their toys are and how pretentious they are.
Just look back through the posting history and note how many times "porsche" gets thrown in. Or "cars" plural.
Of course, like any of us unknown to others in real life, we could be dealing with someone who is entirely making all of it up.
Lol, you missed a letter
Need a new prescription or something? I wasn’t the OP. Keep hating though, Karen.
Aww
That's nice, hon. I'll pray for you.
Wow.
Wow.
It's possible to live & work in the city and have friends & family & interests & obligations NOT in the city. The age of the Brahmin ended a while back, Cin - the horizons of life extend beyond the limits of the Boston Globe Society Column.
And what part of there being places not served by public transportation - either "at all" or merely "practically, economically, and/or reliably" - is so hard to understand?
sounds very optional. And
sounds very optional. And again, if you can afford to live in Beacon Hill, you can afford may ways of travel without killing the planet.
A friend of mine who lives in
A friend of mine who lives in the city (not Beacon Hill) and was living that car-free lifestyle recently had to buy a car because her parents who live in Natick are struggling a lot more and it's become a nightmare to reliably get out there to them. She's trying to get them to stop driving because it's becoming unsafe so short of packing them up and moving them to an assisted facility in the city (are there many well served by the T?) she had to get a vehicle. Sure I guess she could park her car out in Natick and take an uber out there any time there's an issue or she needs to take them shopping or check in but realistically that's not cost effective.
People have complicated lives and acting like everything is super simple black and white is not going to help anyone solve the actual, structural, societal issues that cause widespread car use.
Hard choice but still a choice
They could move to Natick. She could use their car.
Beacon Hill was targeted because it is very expensive and works to exclude other people enjoying their amenities. Low paid service providers spend hours on public transportation whether or not it is reliable.
Oh and what do you do if you need to get somewhere at 2AM
That may be true if where you need to go is served by the T and you need to get there when the T is running
But just suppose that you need to get to somewhere with no T service on short notice perhaps or that you can't get to the T because of environmental conditions or physical conditions
No -- no one is served by that kind of a statement
Again if you can afford
Again if you can afford beacon hill then you can afford car service. This is auto industry koolaid, trying to say that every adult must have a car.
I lived in the Fenway
I lived in the Fenway and used public transit to get to work. Then my job moved 20 miles out of the city.
maybe speak to someone outside your bubble
So let's say you are a true urbanite who lives downtown and sends their children to public high school. And the public high school has sports practices in West Roxbury not near any public transportation because the city lacks field space. And since there are no longer bus drivers it is up to parents with SUVs to get all the kids to and from practice roughly 35 minutes away.
Funny, when my family had one
Funny, when my family had one car in the suburbs with zero public transportation, we were members of several ancient clubs called carpools. One for my father to work 50 miles away, and 2-5 others so that me and my 3 brothers could participate in every sport. And some of the members didn't actually own cars.
Then again....
Not everybody goes where you want to go when you want to go all the time
Is it all about you, drama
Is it all about you, drama queen?
Sorry for stating a fact
Typical magat statement, though.
When you've got nothing, deflect or go with the insults.
hypocrite much?
Oblivious and deflection
But they have a car, parked it legally, and someone decided to mess with it.
Nice deflection, though. Bottom line is that their car was vandalized. All this talk about bike pumps and not needing a car is total deflection. Deflection is something I expect from the MAGAts who bring up Soros or Hunter every time they have nothing constructive to say (which is pretty much every time).
How about "Don't Touch Other People's Shit"?
Your shit doesn't belong here
Your shit doesn't belong here.
not vandalism
legally
This is an amazing country
People can live where they want to live. People can live in Newton and work in Boston. People can live in Boston and work in Newton.
Wow.
My shit is a lot better than your shit, honey. You got nothing.
if you have so much
Why do you need subsidized reserved parking? And why do you get to endanger others?
This has nothing to do with subsidized parking
Another deflection. Nice going.
Please tell me. What is it about "Don't touch other people's shit" that you don't like?
I have a feeling your answer and this whole discussion would be very different if the vandals had targeted cars with Pro-Choice stickers or LGBTQ+ stickers.
Back to your deflection. How am I endangering others? I'm lost with that comment.
It very much has to do with
It very much has to do with reserved parking. If you can afford an expensive car, then afford a parking space.
Answer the question
Nice deflection, again. The subject is deflating tires on SUVs, some of which weren't even large or expensive.
How about answering the question?
If you read the article your
If you read the article your question would be answered.
Try answering
What is it about "Don't touch other people's shit" that you don't like?
It seems like you are not
It seems like you are not comprehending my comments.
Just answer the question
.
I did answer. try reading
I did answer. try reading
Vandalism
From the Globe:
its not vandalism.
its not vandalism.
I'll believe the lawyer
You know, the guy whose job is to know this stuff.
According to the article, no
According to the article, no cars were vandalized.
These people don't seem to
These people don't seem to have a very discerning view of what a luxury SUV is - the picture in their release shows them deflating a Mercedes GLC which is a crossover that's not especially large, heavy, inefficient, polluting, or even expensive.
Compared to a Camry, the best-selling car in America, the GLC has a significantly smaller footprint with about the same passenger volume and 40% more cargo volume (making it a more efficient package overall). The GLC does weigh about 7% more than a Camry, and fuel efficiency is slightly worse at 22/27 rather than 22/31 for the Camry V6. Some of that is down to the AWD which is quite useful in Boston's climate. Brand new a GLC starts at less than the average US new car transaction price, and a five or six year old example like the one pictured is worth 20k-25k these days. Not exactly an ostentatious gas-guzzler.
There is a pretty big difference between vehicles that may be marketed as a "luxury SUV" but are essentially a compact hatchback with AWD, and something like an Escalade or Navigator or BMW X7 that is 2' longer than a GLC, weighs an extra ton, and costs twice as much. There's an argument to be made that a huge SUV (or worse, a giant pickup truck) is an inappropriate and dangerous vehicle to drive around in a city, and that manufacturers should be heavily disincentivized from producing and marketing such vehicles. But it doesn't seem like this group made much of an effort to concentrate on such vehicles.
Let me see if I have this straight
The same week that knocking on the wrong door, pulling in the wrong driveway or rolling a ball into the wrong yard is getting somebody needlessly killed or injured, this group is putting their hands on other people's vehicles.
Wicked smaht, not.
The terrorists have won.
The terrorists have won.