The Range Rover has a lot to answer for. Yes, its creators were probably genuine in their desire to create a car that could navigate rough and dangerous terrain whilst carrying its passengers in lavish comfort, but when their customer base began to concentrate in suburban areas they could have decided to act for the good of society and just shut down then and there. Instead, they embraced the upper-middle class urban housewife who decided that what her Hampstead/Kensington/St. John's Wood driveway needed was a vehicle that could accomodate the possibility of Selfridges relocating to the Welsh Alps. Tragically, this started A Trend. The Range Rover migrated to America and became the first of a family of traffic diseases known as Sport-Utility Vehicles (or "SUV's" to those about to be run over).

Americans view SUV's in much the same way that third world dictators view nuclear weapons. After all, Mad Max is seen mostly as a tutorial for driving in Los Angeles, and the more steel-enclosed space you can put between you and your freeway neighbours, the better. "Small and parkable" may be a practical advantage to European cars, but in America it translates to "roadkill". With an SUV, you are moving fast and made of metal, they are crunchy and full of ketchup. Keeping inane mantras like "The best defence is a good offence" in mind, American motor companies set out to make their products as large, ballistic and generally offensive as possible. Modern SUV's such as the Ford Leviathan and the Chrysler Zipcode have the space and fuel requirements of a medium-sized village, along with similar cornering ability. Don't let the house-sized tyres fool you: these things have the stability of a South-American economy, and regularly do Gerald Ford impressions on nasty curves. Those who buy SUV's think they have the Spirit Of Adventure running through their veins, but it actually runs from the advertisements into their wallets and out through the exhaust pipes. The biggest adventures SUV drivers have are attempting to maneuver their vehicles through small towns without crushing them.

Bearing in mind the hugeness and stupidity of SUV's and those that purchase them, the best tactic to employ should you encounter one while driving is to divert your course to a safer area, such as a tree. Wait until the SUV has passed, find it when parked and attack the b*****d thing with an axe. That'll teach 'em.