If you live in constant fear of nuclear annihilation and you have enough money, a doomsday vehicle could soon be parked in your driveway. According to Reuters, two private U.S. companies, Parliament Coach Corporation and Homeland Defense Vehicles, have joined forces to build the first luxury recreation vehicle that will withstand nuclear radiation. The large motor homes will feature sleeping accommodations for four people, a satellite navigation system and plasma televisions. Now for the bad news. Only 12 vehicles will be built this year, each costing from 1.2 million to 1.9 million. An air filtration system option, which sounds quite critical, will cost $100,000. Hey, it’s only money. However, before selling everything we own and acquiring a debt equal to the gross national product of a third world country, we should be reminded of inherent problems that might be associated with owning a radiation-proof recreation vehicle. Specifically, those problems would include the prohibitive costs and what can best be described as the awkwardness factor. We should question whether it would be worth $2 million to be one of a dozen or so families in the country to survive a nuclear war. Wouldn’t we miss our friends and family, all unable to afford radiation-proof vehicles?What would be the monthly payments on a $2 million, custom built recreation vehicle? The answer undoubtedly is something like, "if you have to ask, you can’t afford it."The cost of fuel for the gas-guzzling motor home might be a problem. It might be difficult in the wake of a nuclear disaster to find an open gas station every 17 to 20 miles. The awkwardness factor should not be overlooked. First of all, there’s the danger of being perceived as a nuclear snob. By driving, simply driving, the motor home around town before a crisis happens, we will be sending out an unspoken taunt — "Ha. Ha. We can afford this motor home and you can’t. We’ll live and you … well … sorry about that."Consider this awkward scenario. Your family and another family you haven’t met have radiation-proof motor homes at some remote campground and everyone else there has standard camping equipment. The other camps without radiation protection might prove to be real nuisances as they try to get a foothold into your vacation home on wheels after the first mushroom cloud appears on the horizon. They will try almost anything to get in — from pummeling the outside of your vehicle with fishing equipment and metal, hot dog roasting forks to knocking on your door and using some ploy to gain entrance. They might pretend to need to borrow a cup of sugar or to welcome you to the neighborhood. This could put a real damper on your vacation plans — at least for a while. Also, what if you haven nothing in common with the other safe vehicle’s occupants? When the radiation levels subside and you can finally meet them, what if they want to show you hours of slides from their other vacations or they just want to talk about the weather? Owning the same kind of vehicle is hardly the basis for a long-lasting friendship. By the time you have met the other family, you will have missed the first massive dose of radiation. There can’t be any going back. As far as anyone knows, there aren’t nuclear do-overs or golf-like mulligans for cases of post-nuclear boredom.Perhaps it would be better to simply drive an ordinary car into the face of disaster. Like our friends and relatives we’d glow like greenish-colored night-lights, but it wouldn’t be awkward.
