This afternoon, on a suburban downtown two-lane street, a Hummer H1 was backing out of one of the newly-installed slanted-in parking spaces. These spaces are designed so backing out in a normal-width car only blocks one lane of traffic. However, the Hummer was so wide that it blocked both lanes as it backed out.

The Hummer H1 is 86 inches wide (by comparison, a Ford F150 full-size pickup at 79 inches wide, and a Ford Taurus is 73 inches wide). It gets 10 miles to the gallon. It costs $105,000. As a Class 3 truck, it does not have to meet safety requirements for smaller vehicles (for instance, it has no airbags).

A man in his 20s or 30s was driving the Hummer. He was alone. I could see no cargo in it.

He did wave thanks at me for waiting for him to back out of the parking spot.