They claim only to have damaged 40 cars one time. There's no evidence they did that, no public outcry in New York, and no corroborating evidence at all.
Again, there is no movement like this. There has not been a spike in vandalism against SUVs. I work with auto insurance data in my day job, and changes in damage to parked SUVs hasn't notably changed.
Just putting on a bull bar on a big truck/SUV in a city center itself isn't destruction of property or intimidation even if it may lead to that. It might actually intimidate some people walking around at street level if they knew how mangled up in it you can get caught, but the vast majority aren't even aware.
Yes, it peaked with David Foster Wallace being cheered by graduating Kenyon folks when he was making a counter-example:
. . . and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] — this is an example of how NOT to think, though . . .
The overwhelming (and I mean truly overwhelming, to the point you often cannot even get people to engage with any criticism of cars) majority of places are the absolute opposite. Car shaming is basically rounds down to zero. Contrast that with bicycle or bus or public transport shaming which is frequent and often extremely abusive.
It's more than abusive, social media is filled with frothing car fanatics that want to kill cyclists merely for slowing them down from being able to roar up to the traffic light and stop in traffic a few seconds earlier.
Not everyone lives in insane car filled wastelands. Aerial pictures of lots of American cities are truly abhorrent, vast concrete and asphalt wastelands purely for car parking. The American system and people definitely need car shaming. I don't want the same thing exported to my city.
While those activists are being stupid, this argument is even worse. A heavier car is intrinsically more dangerous to those around it, as the article we're commenting on explains. People can also choose how large of a personal vehicle they want to buy.
