I feel like I'm arguing with Ed Begley Jr. and the hardcore leftist brigades.
I gather you DON'T believe that 95% of SUVs are a crime against humanity for unnecessarily destroying the only environment on the only Earth everyone has.
You're right I don't. Not only are they not a crime against humanity, but they are a boon for humanity. Small vehicles = you don't survive when it comes to a car crash. Once the Federal government messed with the fuel requirements on cars - causing them to shrink and become coffins, the SUV was the sole opportunity for families to protect their children. The EPA killed the station wagon, the full size car and left us with these little coffins on wheels - or the loophole truck-chassised SUVs.
A few years back a 17 year old girl living next door to me died because she was in a car accident and the car was just too small. Her friend barely survived with a crushed lung. They were both wearing seatbelts and the airbags deployed - but there's simply not enough sheetmetal to keep them from getting crushed (and they didn't hit an SUV either - just a lousy wood telephone pole.)
In Arizona, for at least six months of the year, you just can't go bike riding or wait outside somewhere for public transit to roll up. It hits 120 degrees during summertime and often averages 115 degrees. All the cars here are not luxuries, they are tools of survival. Almost nobody has a bike out here - they're useless. The heat dries out (or simply melts) their thin tires in a week of being left outdoors and the tires go flat.
The same sort of environmental issues would be true for a vehicle in Alaska, or many other parts of the US where people live and work. So here you have several million folk that see using vehicles not as a "crime against humanity" but as utter and complete "salvation" from severe and harsh environments.
Sunlight isn't really too healthy in large amounts. Cars help prevent skin cancer, premature aging, greying of the hair and lots of other outdoor dangers. Out here it's easier than ever to realize this. When I lived in a CA beach town and it was perpetually overcast till afternnoon, one never even thought about the dangers because the UV was massively filtered and reduced by comparison. Cars have helped people live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
You go gather 100 SUV owners and show me the 95 "illegitimate" owners and explain why they have no legitimacy. I think you'll find most people don't spend the money for an SUV unless they are using it to haul people and goods around. In most instances the SUV is replacing a station wagon or a full size car. No one was railing on about an Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser or a Buick Estate wagon in the driveway in 1984. Those type of vehicles don't exist anymore - surprise - what do you think those 100,000+ station wagon customers now are forced to drive? That's right a Suburban, Expedition, Denali or whatever.
Who's going to pack the three kids into the small coffin's backseat and drive any distance whatsoever? Anyone who has kids knows also the front seat of the vehicle is verboten to young children because of the airbags - making the vehicles even smaller for families. The Chevy Caprice and Ford LTD and staples of the 70's and 80's for family transport are now gone. The new Crown Vic and Town Car are the last pretenders to the large car title - but really with the airbags it means that any family with over 3 kids almost HAS to buy an SUV.
If one looks at all the numbers we really see that only a few SUV's are "show" purchases and the rest are replacing family sized cars and station wagons. Probably no more than those folks bought a Caddy or Lincoln in the seventies for show.
You, MA, Lindy and Publius are living in an illusion. Just because a vehicle has one occupant at the time you see it does not mean they don't need the space some other time (like when they pick up the kids for example).
Anyone who recalls (or has seen pictures of) how unbelievably filthy our cities were in 1947 - with far, far fewer cars on the road would easily see that the worst pollution is long behind us and was never the result of vehicles at all. Vehicles are a socialist scapegoat, because the vehicle has always been used as a class marker. By demonizing vehicles, the left feels they reinforce their base. This may have been true in 1950 or maybe even 1970. Sadly they are so out of tune that they do not realize just how many low-income workers also drive SUVs and whom love their cars. Their complaining and legislating time is much better spent trying to invent better nuclear methods, better filtration systems for factories with tax credits and financial incentives to install them.
Why is it environmentalists always think with the stick rather than the carrot anyways?
Business and Technology are not the enemy of humanity - ignorance is. The vegan, cruelty-free, anti-SUV extremists have a lot of subconscious guilts and prejudices to overcome and whenever they recover from their imbalance they will be able to see how the car is truly one of mankind best friends and has made our modern world possible.
Anyone who sees SUV's as performing some "crime against humanity" is seriously out-of-touch with reality.
;-)
SDAI-Tech1