More clueless female SUV drivers

Here's something funny that happened to me on Sunday.

I was meeting up with a couple of friends at a coffee shop before going to test drive new cars, and since I was only going to be a few minutes I parked my BMW right outside. While we were inside I noticed a woman in a Mitsu SUV trying to get past. Unfortunately, it wasn't going very well, the back end kept sliding closer and closer to my car as she tried to drive through the snow wall left by the plow to get around. After a while she got out to look and I realized it was about time to do the same. As I approached her she asked if it was my car and told me to move it so she could get by. Now, normally that wouldn't have have been a problem, except her rear bumper was about 6 inches from my drivers door, making it impossible to open. So, of course I told her to just drive through the snow; how difficult can it be in an SUV? She claimed she couldn't despite having 4WD, which made no sense. Anyway, after a brief argumentation she told me that I could move her SUV myself if I didn't believe her. Said and done, I get in and check whether or not it actually is in 4WD or not. There are three modes, 2L, 4L, and 4H. Guess which is selected, 2L of course! I shift to 4H, hit the gas, and drive right though the snow up onto the sidewalk, past my car, and down on the street again. I get out and tell her she only had it in 2WD and show her the lever which selects the 4WD modes. She looks a bit surprised and says she thought the green light on the dash meant it was in 4WD. I buttume she at least managed to lock the rear diff, which explained why the rear end kept sliding, and that's what the light meant.

What's the point of having an SUV if you don't even know how to select 4WD?!

The rest of the day was more exciting. I must say, I really had to reevaluate my thoughts about ESP after the test drive. Finding an empty snow covered parking lot I did a few different experiments and was surprised how good it was. Giving full lock at speed it felt like the car steered with the rear wheels, which I guess you could say it did by braking all the wheels independently of each other. Had I done that in either of my cars they would just have continued straight ahead. Unfortunately, after a few runs my friends started getting too loud, apparently they weren't having to as much fun as me. Especially my friend who had surrendered his driving license to the sales chick and was "responsible" for the car was especially nervous...

Ulf