The Hummer: Militarized American family car

I vividly remember. It was summer 2003. I was in the US, with family, and traveling a highway through Virginia. At first maybe I thought I was having a 'flashback' of a visit at Camp Dobol in eastern Bosnia, or remembering what it was like driving an OSCE armored vehicle on the road between Fushe Kosov/Kosovo Polje and Pristina. But no. There before me coming down a civilian highway in northern Virginia, USA was the military vehicle we call a "Humvee". That was the first time I laid eyes on its commercial equivalent - a freak of marketing - known as a "Hummer." Being rather militarized itself, northern Virginia seems a likely locale for observing the unprecedented blurring of military transport with the need to pick up dish liquid and a newspaper. What is the Hummer owner's demographic profile? Is this ostensibly the next evolutionary step up from the SUV? I've seen one Hummer ad on US TV. It depicted a kid being dropped at school, and by mom no less, as he cheerfully exits the vehicle's passenger side. All this seems highly unlikely. In my book, anyway.

Comments

[Kyso K]

I dunno, in one sense, the marketing of the hummer as a "family car" kind of makes sense, since in my experience it's usually the Mom who makes the "I like this big car because it's just so safe" argument. On the other hand, there are several hummers running around my town, and I've never seen any of them with women behind the wheel (or kids in them for that matter. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen anyone driving a hummer who had passengers in it). Maybe the campaign is designed to make the Mom more likely to agree to let the Dad get his hummer.

I think that a hummer is a bit of an overkill for taking the kids to school. At some point you have to balance the alleged safety of driving a damn tank with the danger of driving in a child-intensive area in a car so large you can't see the ground around it.