Roll-over and roof crush are the two main problems with SUVs. If there was a safety cage, or if the roof could actually support the full weight of the SUV, as it inevitably will be upside down at some point, people wouldn't be getting paralyzed from the neck down.

By the time you calculate the fuel costs of those larger SUVs in stop and go traffic, they're not worth it. They'll put your family in financial danger. One of my coworkers frequently gets only 5mpg or so in his Expedition in Northern Virginia's stop and go traffic.

My Civic which they call unsafe can maneuver quickly between large SUVs driven by stupid drivers. It also gets 30mpg. It's not contest which is better.

The thing is these parents are ironically worried about protection from ... other moronic SUV drivers. I can see the (limited) rationale whenever I see one of those huge monstrosities bearing down on me at an intersection (or one in the next lane with their blinker left on) and think, "but for fuel efficiency, at the scene of the crash, I'm going to wish I would have been drivng a fucking tank." It's a pretty vicious cycle.

I'm all for people who need SUVs having them. Key word is of course need. While trucks (big riggs) polute more then cars (I'm not sure this is actually true for some of the road panzers) Amy dosn't rail against them. However when you have someone with one child and a ford excursion who is a stay at home mom you have no sympathy. The quibs about "But I like it" shit I like a lot of things. Especially not to be killed by some idot with a road panzer who can't drive one. The quib about "but they are safer", nope wrong (http://www.suv.org/safety.html). If you use an SUV for work then I don't think anyone should jump on yor back. That said, I grew up on Long Island, there the vast majority of SUV drivers are stay at home moms with one max two kids and they all drive the biggest thing they can get their hands on. Most of the people would upgrade to the largest thing the minute it came out. I have also seen that the larger the SUV the worse the drive is, unless they actually need the damn thing for work. To answer the obvious question, what gives me the right to judge? Answer: You put your comfort above the safety of others, that makes you a shit human being by deffinition.

You put your comfort above the safety of others, that makes you a shit human being by deffinition.

It's not even a "comfort" issue, as much as it is a status symbol issue. My ex-sister-in-law drives a brand new Escalade, not because it's "comfortable" but because by driving it, she can rub it into my brother's face that her new boyfriend makes more money than he does. (If you find her outside behind the dumpster with a bullet hole in her head, I swear I didn't do it!)

Sorry for the bolding, I was trying for a break in the paragraph! *blushes*

I wonder why these people don't think about cars that are capable of maneuvering, and then I realize that the average American doesn't know how to drive. "Not being in an accident" does NOT equal "knows how to drive". So they've never thought of the tools of driving.

I rented an Olds Intrigue once because my '92 (360,000 miles) BMW 525 blew a strut; we left the BMW at the airport. At the end of the trip, I couldn't believe how much better the BMW was to drive, trashed strut and all, and the nearly-new Intrigue burned more gas.

While you guys are yelling about SUVs, consider that the #1 vehicle in the USA was, and maybe is, the Ford F-150 pickup truck. Quite a few of those never haul hay, you know.

We have to give people driver's licenses for fogging a mirror, because otherwise, how will they vote?

"...Manufacturers may choose to reduce the weight of their heaviest vehicles to improve fuel economy performance, but this need not come at the expense of significant size. A properly designed vehicle made with lightweight materials can offer ample room for passenger protection without sacrificing fuel economy performance. The perfect example of this is NHTSA’s Research Safety Vehicle (RSV).

The RSV was built in the 1970s under a contract with Minicars, Inc., lead by Don Friedman, a former GM engineer who won a NHTSA competition for the contract against much larger companies. The finished vehicle weighed 2,450 lbs., got 32 miles to the gallon in 1978, and safely protected its occupant in severe crash tests.(3)

The vehicle was able to protect its occupants in a full frontal barrier impact at 50 miles per hour (mph) and in side impact and rollover crashes at 40 mph without significant risk of occupant injury. Current statements from Friedman indicate that, if equipped with the hybrid engine technology currently being used in the Honda Insight, this vehicle would achieve a fuel economy today of between 50 and 60 mpg.(4)..."

Link: http://www.citizen.org/autosafety/fuelecon/nhtsacafe/articles.cfm?ID=8264

F-150 used to be the best selling vehicle of any category and of all time; it has only recently been surpassed in numbers by the Corolla. This just tells you about the American psyche. To put in perspective the Corolla is a worldwide brand and has managed to sell only 3 million more cars than the F-150. The F-Series is basically a domestic market driven vehicle only. I remember Fareed Zakaria once wrote an article that the universal love of all Americans is BIGness and nothing else.

Weight reduction had never occurred before because the heavier you made an SUV the bigger your profit. One of the reasons SUVs were so popular was because American car companies were able to sidestep regulations since the weight of the vehicles classifies it under a different tax/safety division which is more lax. You know there are alot of tricks I have seen dealers use in order to circumnavigate laws that are meant to encourage the production and purchase of fuel saving vehicles.

By the way, any SUV can trace its roots to the success of the F-150.

> I'm all for people who need
> SUVs having them. Key word
> is of course need.

Indeed it is, and why on Earth should we let someone like you tell us what it means?

I hate when people do that... When they imagine that there's some standard of horse sense which we'll be able to apply to these considerations. This is how fascism happens; You don't need to find one superfascist guy to call the shots, you just need to appeal as broadly as possible to the fascist, smug, arrogant heart that beats within the guy on the street... The guy who thinks he knows what other people "need".

Fortunately, we'll get through this crisis. Americans love liberty, particularly in their consumerism. The collapse of the Hummer market is nothing but the end of a fad, one well-diluted by competing brands. The Jackson Five never sold that many records after the Osmonds hit the charts, either.

Everyone should watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs

He's the first hero of mine who's been younger than I am. (And gay. And European. If it turns out he likes country music too, I'm going to take my own life.)

Being a huge motorcycle fan (see Superbikeplanet.com), I still wonder at the brainlessness of this situation: with nothing more than money, you can go buy a 160HP Kawasaki ZX-10, which will run over 100MPH in first gear, down the dragstrip in less than 10 seconds with a terminal speed over 145MPH, and ride it around town. But you can't take a Honda Recon 4WD ATV to the supermarket; you can't even put it on the street.

The resource impact of an ATV in the garage is 'WAY less than that of cars, and because of simplicity of design, their service life is longer.

I'm a big pickup-truck fan, and have been for 40 years. I can build a full-size, 25-MPG diesel long-bed with a roll cage that's practically unbreakable with aftermarket parts. The industry, though, insists on making "pretty" their priority, and they're still advertising their horsepower!

I had a great time in Arizona a few weeks ago. My wife, son and I hired a Jeep for a couple of days and drove down to the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon. We spoke later to a chap from LA who said he'd not drive where we had been. "What if you get a flat?" "Well, what?" I thought. Worst is you have to wait a few hours for another human to chance by. In fact we did get a flat, but guess what, we were able to use our native wit to swap it for the spare. One high point was finding a snake, which we later identified to be a gopher snake. I'd like to see a rattler - from a safe distance. It was a famous holiday.

End of story. The thing that struck me most was how timid the LA guy was. I spoke to others, and he was not hugely atypical. Are people driving SUVs on hard top roads in a state of fear?

Yes Norman, the vast majority of SUVs never see dirt, rock, or even really bad paved roads. So, not so much Sport Utility Vehicles. More soccer mom/second wife/small penis vehicles. Personally I have a large enough family for an SUV, but minivans are safer (according to my insurance company), get better gas mileage, and handle just fine on the oh-so-dangerous city streets I traverse.

And Jeeps are made to go the places you went. They're pretty good off-road, better than SUVs in my opinion, because they're smaller and handle much better.

Sorry, but I have to say I will never give up my SUV. I was thinking about a smaller/more fuel efficient car, but something happened recently to change my mind.

I live in Colorado, where the majority of people drive trucks or large SUV's (it's apparently a cultural thing). I bought a 2005 Honda CR-V in "self defense" - we have some seriously crappy drivers around here.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting at a traffic light and was hit by a drunk driver. Hard. Luckly he was driving a S-10 sized pickup truck, but he spun me 120 degrees and pushed me 40 feet down the street. I managed to walk away with only a bruise on my shoulder from the seatbelt, but the other idiot was not wearing his and ended up in the hospital (and I don't feel the least bit sorry for the jerk). I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd been driving a smaller car, or if he had been driving a bigger one.

Apparently my self-defense theory has some merit. :)

I don't know Ann....
I was run off the road by a semi a few months ago. I was driving my mom's Toyota Tundra. (Larger then the F-150). It's safety rating is....ok.
During the accident I was pushed off the road and rolled down an embankment. The roof of the truck collapsed, crushing the headrest and the steering wheel. It was only because I wasn't wearing my seatbelt correctly (under my arm as opposed to over my shoulder) that I was able to curl up in the fetal position. If had been held upright I might not be here typing today. The roof of the Tundra can't support the weight of the truck.

I just got a Hyundai Elantra. It's pretty much the safest thing you can get for under $50k. (and the gas mileage is pretty good too). It has a steel cage in the frame to protect the occupants. In other words, if I get rolled down another embankment by a semi, it won't crush under its own weight (and the curtain airbags are a nice touch too). Bigger might absorb more energy, but that's not the same as safer.