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  Those SUVs! The predicament is that people feel they must buy them to stay safe from other SUVs. But, I have recently learned small cars are safe. Yeah for me (I prefer them) and I guess good for bikers, too?

  Even though the word “SUV” conjures up so much for people (anger, humour, comfort, whatever) I can really feel the weight of it in the last line. Scary.

  I also like the economical look of the poem. Does that make sense? A bare number of words and three syllables with three letters in “SUV”. Poems can be so visual…

  Comment by Alison — September 23, 2009 @ 8:41 pm

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  Alison,

  I believe that this is the New Yorker article I once made required reading in a Community College English 101 class:

  http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

  It says it all and quite eloquently; good reading for someone getting a license. Of course all cars can hurt, and the biker always loses in the ensuing collision; hell I definitely came in second in a scrape with a Dodge Charger a year and a half ago; if it had been an SUV, I’d have had a punctured lung and broken pelvis at the very least.

  Of course–as you nimbly note, the “SUV” is a cheap way to get three syllables (and rhyme). The car that actually cut me off that day and inspired the haiku was a Honda Accord. So much for vehicle-profiling. . .Although it’s also three syllables, I like to vent against the bigger vehicles and how they make a Saturn driver/cyclist feel, i.e. hunted.

  Comment by D. Gale — September 24, 2009 @ 5:11 am

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  A familiar experience. Mine involved a driver of an SUV who cut across the bike lane suddenly to pick up a friend. It was a close call.

  Comment by mary hatch — September 25, 2009 @ 5:58 pm

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