Nothing like jumping on a bandwagon, especially one that's already halfway down the road. In my defence, my dislike of SUVs is longstanding and open, at least among the people who know me well. And a recent newspaper column made me want to bitch about it.
Today, Kathleen Parker decribed what she feels is the "Kafkaesque assault" against SUV drivers, a group to which she happens to belong. Apparently, a combination of the "What Would Jesus Drive?" ads, the Arianna Huffington campaign, and some soul-searching by Matt Lauer has driven her to the edge. Critiquing SUVs has nothing to do with their gas-guzzling tendencies, their threat to other drivers, or the pollution they give off. No, it's all about the "moral one-upmanship" of the anti-SUV crowd, the need for "people to insist that you ascend to their moral high ground just because it makes them feel better," and the suspect funding and sources of the people actively campaigning against these vehicles.
In defense of her chosen transportation, Parker notes that "While it's inarguably true that SUVs use more gas . . . Most people who drive SUVs don't drive solo but pack them with kids. In other words, they carpool, which saves gas, right?"
Well, maybe wrong. I don't know where she's getting her information that SUVs are filled with energy saving carpoolers. Not where I drive. All I seem to see (what little I can see above the SUVs' behemoth-style backsides) is one, or possibly two riders. I'm out and about at a number of different times during the week, but I seem to keep missing the grand carpooling exodus onto our streets. If there is any actual proof of SUVers' noble carpooling sacrifices, I'd like to see it.
Parker also questions "(W)hat uses more energy: An SUV that gets filled up once a week? That would be mine. Or, say, a Brentwood mansion with electronic gates, such as the one in which (Arianna) Huffington lives?"
This here, of course, is what we call a false dichotomy. I have neither a mansion nor an SUV, although I have an opinion on both. Just because one is worse does not make the other good. And a lot more people drive SUVs than live in Brentwood mansions, giving them a far greater effect on society. Whether or not you think Huffington is being disingenuous in her personal campaign, one still needs to examine whether or not ones need for an SUV is truly not outweighed by the costs, both personal and in terms of our responsibility to others.
There are certainly people who need to drive a larger vehicle. One of my sisters, for example, has 4 children aged ten and under. Both she and her husband have served as scout leaders. She drives a minivan, a vehicle whose size she uses to the utmost, while her spouse drives a regular car to his job. She tries not to take the van on long trips, and does her best to kep the milage to a minimum. (Might I add that their vehicle's capacity sure came in handy this summer, when my brother-in-law volunteered to take my daughter and her cousins back from the hospital to his house, while we waited for news about my Dad's heart surgery.) Other people may need such a vehicle for their small business, or because they live well out in the country.
I doubt, however, that most SUV owners meet these conditions. One person I know has two kids, and lives in a condo in town. She spends $200 a month in gas, and is looking for a much smaller vehicle. The others I know are much the same. They don't really need this big a vehicle, a fact that they freely admit. They use at least double the gas a smaller vehicle would use. They pollute at a higher rate. They are more dangerous to other cars. In a society where decreasing our dependance on foreign fuel, decreasing highway fatalities, and reducing pollution and greenhouse gases are not only laudable but essential goals, what is wrong with encouraging people to do with less?
In my parents' day, during WWII, it was everybody's patriotic duty to help out the country by using less, be it less meat, less sugar, less rubber, or less fuel. No one batted an eye at this. As we head towards war now, this old sense of duty, of responsibility towards one's country and fellow citizens has shrunk, dwarfed by our ballooning sense of entitlement and outraged self-importance. Give up my SUV? Why, that's communistic! And unpatriotic! Next you'll want us to walk everywhere, and live in a yurt, and use solar power for everything! This country was founded on the idea that people have the right to do what they like when it comes to our driving choices! So there!
Here are some fresh ideas, people. Let's show some restraint. And self-control. Let's make driving decisions based not simply what we can do, but perhaps what we should do. Let's think a little bit less about ourselves, and more about what how our actions effect other people.
They may not be really fresh ideas. But they are ones worth thinking about.
Posted by at February 12, 2003 10:10 PM