SUVs piss you off? They're probably illegal on your street.

I have nothing against SUVs -- except the Hummer. It's hard not to be bothered by a car which is marketed as one great big flipped-up middle finger, cruising down the road with enough momentum to send an entire 8th-grade class of Catholic school girls sailing over downtown. Other SUVs, hey, if you want to pay $40 in gas to travel 50 miles, go right ahead.

But, where you are you gonna drive it? It turns out that, when city streets were built in California, they were engineered largely for light vehicles -- cars less than 6,000 lbs. Heavier than that, the roads get ripped up. That's why there are signs everywhere, excepting major thoroughfares, which say "No vehicles above 6,000 lbs".

It's the fact that many of these SUVs are above 6,000 lbs that permits them to be huge federal tax breaks -- writing off 100% of their value the first year you own them -- if they are "business" machines (the tax law was written for tractors and farm equipment; because, hey, who would be crazy enough to simply buy a car because it's heavy, right?). This tax break is, in part, responsible for their huge popularity.

But what they don't point out at the dealer or your accountant's office, as this Slate article points out, is that nearly every residential street in California (and *every* one in Pasadena, CA) is illegal to these SUVs. They're too heavy.

Oh, and the likelihood this law will be enforced anytime soon? About the same that Dick Cheney runs the Long Beach Marathon this year.