I Want My SUV

“The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations which may be soon turned into complaints.”

–Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

While Burke’s 18th century statement seems horribly out-of-place in contemporary America, it encapsulates the paternalistic feelings of a coalition of extremists who wish to restrict America’s automotive options. Their complaint with consumer freedom is that large numbers of consumers choose to purchase sport utility vehicles (SUVs), which they consider to be anti-environment, unsafe, obnoxious, and ostentatious. Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer derides SUVs as “yachts on wheels.”

Their efforts to rid the world of SUVs have taken many forms, including faux tickets left on SUVs to chastise owners for their irresponsible purchase, bumper stickers placed on SUVs that read ‘I’m Changing the Climate’ in reference to their emission of greenhouse gases, and face-to-face confrontations with SUV owners.

Oddly, some SUV protesters recognize there is a distinction between consumers who “need” an SUV and those who purchase one for the status they are perceived to confer. One anti-SUV website instructs its minions to spare “those people who have a legitimate need for these gas hogs, business people who have to haul stuff around and really need the automotive version of the Exxon Valdez to do it.” Another targets those SUV owners “who don’t even try to defend their purchase based on need.”

Disdain for conspicuous consumption is a recurring cultural theme in America. To some extent, the anti-SUV ethos is driven by resentment and condescension. In this way, opposition to SUVs is a perfectly understandable human reaction, and if people do not damage any lives or property in their crusade, they have every right to go about their SUV-bashing ways. But when these activists lobby Congress to impose new fuel efficiency standards or to ban these popular vehicles altogether, they have gone too far.

While some feel that SUV’s are unnecessary status symbols, as many SUV opponents concede, SUVs have been and will remain essential for some families and climates. The lives of big families, people who must endure wintry conditions, and many small business owners would be adversely affected if SUVs were no longer available.

In recognition of this, activists at the federal level have dressed up their disdain for SUVs as an environmental issue and they support increases in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to apply to SUVs instead of an outright ban. But CAFE is what killed the family station wagon, as automakers found the easiest way to meet the government’s arbitrary miles per gallon standard was to reduce the weight of vehicles. Last summer, a National Academy of Sciences report estimated CAFE’s effect on vehicle size caused between 1,300 to 2,600 deaths annually.

SUVs are not subject to the same CAFE standards as cars and are much safer because of it. And the heavier the SUV, the safer it is. Imposing new CAFE standards on SUVs would lead to lighter, less crash-worthy SUVs and less of them, which would be a net-loss in terms of highway safety for the nation. According to insurance industry analysis reported in USA Today, if SUVs follow the same pattern as cars, the cost of every mile per gallon gained in fuel efficiency will be 7,700 deaths. (Incidentally, a recent poll conducted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute found that 22 percent of SUV owners cited “greater safety” as the most important reason for their purchase.)

Anti-SUV crusaders claim that such dire predictions are nonsense because “the technology exists” to increase fuel efficiency standards without compromising size and towing capacity. But the fact that such technology exists and is not used is forceful evidence that consumers are not willing to pay for it. Instead, consumers prefer options like CD-players, leather seats, and sunroofs, to the added expense of fuel-efficient engines.

The worldwide automotive market is intensely competitive. If SUV makers could profit from installing their vehicles with more efficient engines, they would have done so long ago. The “technology exists” argument is simply dressed-up elitism. The additional cost of the unwanted engines would make SUVs unaffordable for some consumers who want them, serving to fuel the perception of the SUV as some sort of status symbol.

Whatever one’s thoughts about SUVs and their owners, they are a sensationally popular vehicle for which their exists much demand. If the spike in SUV sales (200,000 in 1982 to over 3 million in 2000) represents a trend in consumer taste, like any trend, it will probably be discarded once the next “thing” comes along. But unlike disco, crimped hair, and acid-washed jeans, SUVs have a practicality that will provide staying power for years to come. This might anger some, but considering the significant costs of depriving consumers of such choices in terms of lives and livelihood, it would be better to “risk congratulations” and allow them to determine if they “need” an SUV themselves.