Counterpoint

I Don’t LUV Your SUV

By Christie Aschwanden, 3-14-05

Last week New West managing editor Courtney Lowery asked us not to hate her for driving a gas guzzling SUV. Why? Because, "I love the thing," she says. More specifically, because she loves how the thing makes her feel about herself—"like a total bad ass." To Lowery, and millions of others like her, the SUV is not a means of transportation, it's reflection of their identity.

This vehicle-as-identity phenomena is the reason that SUVs have become so popular, as Keith Bradsher explains in his book, High and Mighty SUV's: the World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way. In the book, Bradsher quotes a General Motors engineer saying that SUV owners tend to be especially worried about how people view them and are willing to forgo practicality to attain their desired self-image. The automotive industry's own research, Bradsher writes, suggests that SUV owners are "Apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities."

Which is exactly why I hate SUVs. It's not just the vehicles themselves*, it's all the things they symbolize: The notion that the wants of an individual trump the common good (feeling like a bad ass is more important than clean air or oil independence for the commons), that emotion (the feeling of safety) is more important that fact (Toyota 4Runners kill nearly twice as many people per million vehicles as VW Jettas do), and that image (the owner of this vehicle is rugged and independent) is more important than the consequences (pollution, climate change, national security threats posed by oil dependency, traffic deaths) that stem from the actions (driving an SUV) needed to build that image.

Of course, every SUV owner—Lowery included--insists that none of this applies to her/him. In the SUV-owner's mind, s/he is different from those other awful people who drive SUVs. "No, I don’t think it’s appropriate to drive a Ford Enormous on the freeway everyday to go to work, pick up the kids, get groceries and go to yoga," writes Lowery. But she does find it perfectly ok to drive the thing to work (albeit with a tinge of guilt when she muscles by those zero-emission bike commuters), because her 4Runner has shift-on-the-fly, which allows her to speed her way to work on snowy days. Apparently it's ok to drive the SUV to work, as long as it's on Broadway, rather than the freeway.

Call it the great SUV disconnect. It's the twisted logic that leads people who did not vote for Bush at the ballot box to vote for his mideast policy at the gas pump. Granted, it's impossible to attain eco-friendly perfection, and everyone must decide for themselves where to draw the line. But to take on an air of superiority, as one commenter to Lowery's post did when he says that his SUV's gas mileage, 18 mpg, "sucks, I'll admit, but it's not in the same league as the quasi-RVs, the Expeditions and the Suburbans and the Yukons, which tend to get around 12" is akin to the 250-pound woman who insists that her weight isn't causing her health problems, because she's not as fat as her 300-pound neighbor. The difference is that the obese person is putting her own health at risk, while the SUV driver endangers the health of the planet and all its inhabitants.

If Lowery really wants to drop her guilt, she should earn the right to do so by riding her bike to work and leaving the 4Runner in the garage until a blowing snow storm makes the shift-on-the-fly a need, not a want. At this point, the SUV owners among you may be thinking "a-ha! Now I know who put that 'weapon of mass destruction' sticker on my Suburban." Forget it. After the 2004 election, I realized that stubborn facts cannot overcome emotion in America today. As much as I'd like to think that good citizenship should be incentive enough for people to behave responsibly, I'm not holding my breath. But I'm not worried either. Gas prices will soon be punishment enough for the gas guzzlers.


*The reasons to hate SUVs are too numerous to mention here (that is another rant), but are discussed in depth elsewhere, such as this anti-SUV site and Malcolm Gladwell's fine New Yorker story from last year.

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