My brother Nat sent this to me recently, having written it before reading mine. He remarked that he was interested at the similarities. But as he said, “some of the most egregious problems with SUVs are just that obvious.”

I have objections that can be categorized as political, societal, environmental, and personal, but first let me say this:

SUVs make a lot of sense for some people. If you own a farm, for instance, and have miles of fence to inspect and maintain, then an SUV (or more likely a pick-em-up truck) is just what you need. Only a tiny fraction of the people who buy SUVs will ever take them off the pavement.

Let’s start with politics (maybe I should say legislative): SUVs occupy a loophole in vehicle regulatory policy. Cars are subject to crashworthiness standards and “Fleet fuel economy” standards, also known as CAFE, also to other regulatory instruments like gas guzzler tax. SUVs are not subject to any of these things, because they are not cars in the eyes of the law. That much is fine. So SUVs are trucks right? Wrong. Trucks are subject to roadway restrictions like being excluded from most residential neighborhoods unless making a delivery, from most national parkways (not the interstates, but the smaller windy older highways like the Baltimore Washington Parkway, the Merritt Parkway through Connecticut or Storrow Drive in Boston), and to lower speed-limits on some interstates. So I am irked that these ubiquitous vehicles are neither cars nor trucks, nor do they belong to any other regulatory category. They are basically unregulated.

Societal: “Well hold on Nat, let’s not get too worried about crashworthiness… everyone knows SUV are much safer in a crash.” It is true that everyone believes that, but is it not true. In single vehicle crashes the occupants of SUVs are more likely to die (crumple zone? Who needs a crumple zone whey you weigh 4 tons). Single vehicle crashes are FAR more likely to occur because an SUVs higher centers of gravity and soft suspension promote roll-overs. In addition, because of their great weight and higher frame, engine etc., crashes between SUVs and cars are vastly more likely to result in fatalities (of the people in the cars) than crashes between two cars that have crumple zones and mandated bumper height. So in terms of total vehicle miles driven, folks in an SUV are not more likely to stay alive, and are much more likely to kill other people. These are well documented facts, backed up by good research that anyone can find on the net.

Environmental: This one seems easy, but it’s actually an area of great recent improvements by the auto industry. Tailpipe emissions of some of Detroit’s leviathan SUVs are, by the numbers, about the same as many of the cars people would otherwise be driving, and indeed some have been awarded various “Low Emissions Vehicles” status. These numbers do not tell the whole story however. Emissions are measured in ppm, which stands for “Parts Per Million”. While the catalytic converter on an SUV can get the ppm to the level people like to see, the fact that you’re still burning 1.5, 2, 3 or more times as much gas as me in my Civic means that you’re still releasing 1.5, 2, 3, or more times as much Carbon Monoxide, Sulphur Dioxide, ash, and whatever else, it’s just buffered out by 1.5, 2, 3, or more times as much carbon dioxide and water vapor. And then there’s the problem that as much carbon dioxide and water vapor. And then there’s the problem that CO₂ is the primary mechanism for the greenhouse effect, so you can get your Super Ultra Almost Zero Emissions ratings, and you’re still working towards drowning the Southern half of Delaware and all of Florida.

And that’s just the back end. On the front end the use of fossil fuels is associated with its own host of problems: never mind the fact that even the head of propaganda for OPEC says “Don’t worry, our projections are that we’ll have plenty of oil for the next 50 years”. Ok, that’s really not that far away. I give myself better than even odds of being alive in 50 years, and my kids certainly will be. What’s going to happen then? And that’s the OPEC propaganda, which I would think is likely to be optimistic. But never mind that… how about National Security? Do we like to have America’s economic viability in the hands of a handful of leaders of middle-eastern countries? Countries that can be categorized as repressive in general and medieval in their views of women? I’m not a big fan. Now of course America ’s fossil fuel dependence is not solely the fault of SUVs, but doesn’t it make sense for each of us to do our parts?

Personally. Well, I just think if you drive a huge truck you might be trying to make up for something. This viewpoint was in fact recently corroborated in an article I read in SEED magazine. A researcher at Cornell took a bunch of male test subjects and asked them a long series of detailed questions about their lives, lifestyles, sexual habits etc. Each person was then randomly told that they were either significantly macho or effeminate. Over the next couple of years, those who were told they were effeminate were significantly more likely to do a number of things, including extreme sports, getting into fights and buying big trucks. The other day I saw a big old Chevy Blazer jacked up on huge wheels with a sticker on the back window that read in lettering 8″ tall “Yes, Size Does Matter”.

How much trouble would I get myself into if I had a stack of stickers that read “At least my truck is big”?