“It is interesting that nobody makes the connection to the food riots. Climate change is one thing. But the starvation is right in you face. High oil prices=mass starvation in the 3rd world. This is a permanent worsening affair due to the advent of peak oil.”
You can’t expect SUV owners to take into account how their behavior affects others. It’s their God-given right to destroy the environment and make life worse for their fellow human beings. The Bush-voting SUV owners could care less about whether or how someone else might be affected by their choices.
As for the myth about SUV safety …
‘This book should be required reading for anyone thinking about purchasing an SUV. SUVs, originally Army vehicles that evolved into the favorite of executives and soccer moms, appear to offer protection from other vehicles and people, and perhaps an escape from urban life. Appearances are misleading. Fewer than 5% of SUV owners will ever use their off-road capabilities, and SUV drivers are far less safe than motorists driving regular cars. Bradsher points out that SUVs contribute to more than 3000 needless highway deaths annually – a toll greater than that of Sept 11th’s World Trade Center disaster. The public needs to know that rollover death rates for sport-utes are double those of regular passenger cars and that SUVs kill non-passengers as well, causing an additional 2,000 deaths a year in vehicles they strike. Less well known is the tendency of SUVs such as the Ford Explorer to flip over after striking a guardrail or having a tire fail – problems that don’t affect cars. Sport-utilities pollute more, are harder to control, utilize under-sized brakes and consume more fuel than cars, all because of increased weight. SUV buyers need to think twice before purchasing these tanks on wheels. Bradsher concludes, “SUVs represent the biggest menace to public safety and the environment that the auto industry has produced since the bad old days of the 1960s.”‘
