Marketing the monster

Car companies know, but do not say, who the owners of SUVs are. It would be impolite to tell the truth that they are fearful lousy angry drivers. The three traits go together: drivers afraid to sit behind the wheel are consequently inclined to see driving as a power contest of “me against them”: they need the size of the car to make up for their lack of self confidence, a feeling of mechanical superiority inspires their worst instincts. The evidence is obvious, just look: they are the ones who can’t negotiate turns or double park and yet also the ones who behave most uncivilly on the road. Teenagers excepted, the SUV drivers are the only people routinely to install the ultra-loud horns. Choipak is one of them. “Thais are very bad drivers”, he keeps saying. Yet in every collision in which he has been to date he was the ramming party. Now you know why SUVs are advertised with images of power and confidence: they advertise precisely that which their owners do not have.