Without going around this bush again too many times:

An SUV uses a disproportionate amount of fuel because there are vehicles of comparable pickup and capacity that have better fuel-economy. In other words, your x-passenger, y-cubic-feet-of-cargo-room SUV that goes from 0-z mph in 60 seconds consumes a LOT more gas than another vehicle of x, y and z. The Car Guys site cited upstream in this thread does a very good job of documenting this.

You may feel that fossil-fuel consumption, with its concomittant dependence on foreign despots, choking emissions, toxic waste issues, climate-changing consequences and so forth are not a big deal, but if that's true, you're in a very small minority among educated western people. Ever since the OPEC crisis, America has had a strong policy objective of reducing its reliance on oil.

Globally, America is a pariah for its failure to honor the Kyoto Treaty, which was signed by representatives of most industrialized nations.

The impact to the US of the ongoing fossil-fuel crisis is enormous. It shapes foreign policy, it distorts and shatters our cities, it trumps efforts to preserve critical, irreplacable wild-land.

I hope you're not serious about the carrot-example. No one is concerned about any carrot crisis.

The auto-industry, with its ENORMOUS subsidy to gas, roads, safety, as well as direct bailouts, military adventures and trade-subsidy, is not even remotely subject to market pressures. To patly assert that one of the most heavily regulated, subsidized industries in the country will be sorted out by "demand signals" is just wishful thinking. If there was anything like a "market" for cars, drivers would pay a $0.25/mile travelled tolls, $5/gallon for gas, and would see their insurance rates decaduple.

Yes, SUVs are net less safe than other cars. They don't handle as well. They are prone to rolling AND not designed to survive a roll. They are designed with bumpers at a height that will kill other motorists with whom they collide. They block lines of sight for other motorists. Not only are you more likely to have an accident in an SUV, you're more likely to be injured or to injure someone else in that accident.

We don't let people put Spartacus chariot-spikes on their wheels or even drive with empty wiper-fluid reservoirs. Yet the fastest growing class of vehicles on the road today is MORE dangerous that the cars that preceded it.

As to pollution: the reason cars today pollute less is because we made cars that pollute more illegal. Which is what is being proposed in respect of SUVs by some in this forum. Why is the freedom to manufacture a 1965 smog-spewer (the adbridgement of which gave us today's lower emmissions) less important than the freedom to manufacture an SUV?

Marketing: while cynical claims about dishonest marketing may be easy to rattle off -- I spent six years in advertising and have rattled off my share -- we live in a world of HEAVILY regulated marketing. False claims are routinely prosecuted. The location and nature of marketing is likewise heavily regulated, and such regulation has been found by the courts to trump the First Amendment.

"I'll bet you $500 that cigarettes will still be legally available in the US, ten years from now."

If I had $1000, I'd say let's make it a long-bet. I think that with the current trend, cigarette companies will abandon sales in the US as too high a liability and focus on less-regulated environments whose courts and politicians are more susceptible to manipulation. This strategy is clearly already in place: look at the amount of focus being given to cigarette marketing, at FAR slimmer margins, in Africa, latinamerica and Asia.

"fatty foods, contact sports, alcohol, radiation-emitting personal communication devices, private automobiles, and even sex, all in due course.

All of which are heavily regulated today. Your point?

Edited by author 12-08-2002 08:23 PM
My point is that I like SUVs, fatty foods, contact sports, alcohol, radiation-emitting personal communication devices, private automobiles, and sex. I don't like cigarettes, but I tolerate them because that's the social compact I'd like to live under: we cut each other slack, we don't try to run each others' lives.

But the attitude that cigarettes, SUVs, and the rest are so dangerous we need to "remove them" from people's lives, if followed through as consistently as you seem to be advocating, will render the world a much poorer and less interesting place.

Neopuritanism should be resisted in all its guises.

It's not neopuritanism, Gordon. I doubt there's a person here who cares what your personal morals are. What we care about is the impact of your actions on the rest of us. SUVs have an impact on us. That has been described. The other items you site as being prone to regulation are regulated because your use of them costs the rest of us money, time, and care.

Your car crash, stroke, or cancer will cost the rest of us increased insurance premiums and higher taxes as we pay for the medical damage these things cause.

Face it, you live in a community. Your decisions affect others just as their decisions affect you. None of us is a completely free agent.

All these crusades against things and personal choices are neopuritanism.

Consider especially the case of a conscientious SUV driver (which I was for 10+ years):

(1) That conscientious driver's proportionate fossil-fuel impact has been accounted for, just like everyone else's, via fuel taxes. If these are too low, raise them. Any other strategy targetting specific cars for "removal" is just sanctimonious meddling, dictating choices rather than simply insisting on fairness.

(2) That conscientious driver is less likely to be hurt or killed in an accident, lowering indirect social costs. (Even the Washington Monthly stats support this: it's clear that most of the SUV rollover fatalities, for example, come from that small, reckless portion of the population that doesn't wear seatbelts and drives in a manner that results in rollovers even when no other car is involved. If you're not in that reckless group, the SUV easily becomes your safest choice.) When you take away a careful soccer mom's right to an SUV because some other teenager might flip a similar model, you've imposed your own set of rigid moral tradeoffs in place of those of the individuals involved.

(3) The stats are not yet clear either way on this, but I believe that conscientious driver is much less likely to be *in* an accident, caused by either their own error or another drivers', in an SUV. Why? It is easier to see and be seen in an SUV; other cars know you're coming and keep a safer following distance. (Note that none of the stats in the Monthly article -- or that I've seen referenced elsewhere in the context of Bradsher's book -- are controlled for driver skill/attitude/demographics. Take the same young, upscale drivers who have 10 accidents per X miles in SUVs, and put them in compacts, and they might have 20 accidents per X miles.)

But regardless, if a mere marginal cost to society is all it takes to have mandates replace individual choices -- "your car crash, stroke, or cancer will cost the rest of us" -- then there's no realm for freedom left at all. The actuarial priests of "safety" and "medical savings" will rule our lives to the smallest detail.

I don't find the world at the end of that line of reasoning very appealing, but YMMV.

Cory,

You claim that SUV use of fuel is disproportianate to other vehicles because they use more fuel to do the same things. You then listed things that an SUV will take more fuel to accomplish than a similar vehicle.

And yet, when I purchased my 1994 Ford Explorer I had a specific set of goals in mind. I wanted to carry three adults from Colorado to Mexico, and back (about 2500 freeway miles), carry a fair amount of equipment, and spend time camping and exploring roads that are best described as 'cart trails.'

My Explorer enabled this trip perfectly. And I would seriously challenge you, or anyone else, to offer up an alternative vehicle that would have enabled this trip.

This was my choice, and I see the campaign against my chosen vehicle to be a moralistic crusade.

You have argued that many arguments come down to a moral basis, and that the difference is that the morality behind hindering SUV's is right.

Well I just don't see it that way.

As for Pat's arguments that my choices have impacts on 'the rest of us.' Of course they do! But I see no embracement of measures to improve the safety and fuel economy of SUV's.

No...the argument really does boil down, as you have included in your posts, to the basic 'Those People Are Having Fun' argument.

And that is the same position of groups who you and I jointly despise.
As for other points in your message...the US has never had a strong policy objective of reducing our reliance on oil.

And your estimate of the cost of the externalities of automobile use while interesting in a 'wild ass guess' sort of way, are not consistent with the costs and benefits of automobile's which I observe and experience.

The reason that the freedom to manufacture a 'smog spewer' is less important than the rights to manufacture, and drive, SUV's is that 'smog' is a specific identifiable externality.

There is not such specific externality with SUV's.

But again: this isn't about safety, or oil, it is about a moral base that is inconsistent with personal liberty.

And as Pat York makes clear: There is no limit to the ways in which 'the community' will need to limit the actions of the individual in order to save money. Contact sports and fatty foods will all fall to the urge to protect the 'community' from itself.

Rich.. basically all morality is opposed to personal liberty. That's kind of the point. Your characterizing it as an objection to "having a good time" as a bad thing in itself is wrong.

Pat... "increasing our insurance premiums" always strikes me as a pretty weak argument. Doing anything the slightest bit dangerous could be said to do that. Besides, insurance is a form of gambling you know, and the house always wins. I'll get my revenge on America yet! I'll eat fatty foods, have fun doing it, and increase everyone's insurance premiums until they go MAD!

(24 hours without a cigarrette now, my brain is melting.)

Meanwhile, I had to go look up "neo-puritanism". Seems like such an effective epithet that all kinds of people use it to mean different things. Some of the tobacco industry propaganda is particularly amusing. I think we should leave Puritanism to these guys, they know how to do it right: http://www.planetkc.com/puritan/

"The actuarial priests of "safety" and "medical savings" will rule our lives to the smallest detail. "

They're not priests, they're dictators. And if you don't think they dictate to me and mine the financial rules of our lives right now, you're living in a small cabin in Montana. My community makes many of its decisions based on insurance risks and costs. Friends and family eschew creative or entrepreneurial careers because they must have insurance.

In the world of unintended consequences, SUV drivers have a measurable negative impact on my life.

This stuff is very unglamourous to he-men lone wolves, but that doesn't make it any less real for the rest of us.

(24 hours without a cigarrette now, my brain is melting.)

Ooh, you go, Shan! No kidding.

As for 'neo-puritanism' if there was ever a Limbaugh neologism this is it. Look up the actual Puritans. They weren't all that pure. And they knew it. It was just a useful term to describe a philosophical/religious ideal. I'm sure they're all spinning in their graves when they see the nonsense invoked in their names.

Rich said: Attaching 'social stigma' to something is exactly the same process at work by which fundamentilism works.

Speaking one's opinion automatically creates a social stigma against those in opposition to it. Rich's opinions here are helping to create a stigma against those who would disparage SUVs. Does that make Rich the moral equivalent of a fascist / member of the Taliban / fundamentalist, as he thinks it makes others? Of course not. That's the way social dialogue works.

Making something unpopular is a different thing entirely than making it illegal.

I think buying an SUV is generally pretty thoughtless and mean-spirited, and I hope people who are thinking about buying one understand that the image of SUVs is changing. It's not a symbol anymore of ruggedness or safety, but of automotive Babbittry. It's the conveyance of choice for the foolish and the sluggish, the vehicular equivalent of farting in an elevator.

But buy one if you want that reputation. I won't stop you.

Dan,

I disagree with you in the general case that differences of opinion automatically lead to attempts to impose social stigmas. As an example, much of the discussion on Boing Boing revolves around Cory's avocation and vocation of (well..of what exactly :-) Fair use/open access/non closed content/etc)

Much of that discussion centers on the question of balancing multiple interests with competing claims (even competing legitimate claims). Statements are made that the line should be drawn here,rather then there. But those opinions usually don't depend on the size of the genitals of the opposing party to the debate. Nor do they center on the a priori assumption that the people on the other side are assholes.

The question of SUV's, in my view, almost instantly drops to that level. Jim's post of the advice goddess link points rather directly to that pov! Read her column, hilarious stuff, right? People who make a choice with which she disagrees have small penises and big dried up pussies (yes, that is what she is saying).

This is not rhetoric that comes from the consideration of the impact, on the margin, of the behaivior of those you disagree with. This is a rhetoric of fundamentalism and control.

The phrase 'on the margin' is vital for exploring issues of risk. There are about 1.8 fatalities per 100,000,000 miles driven in the US as a whole.

Drilling into these numbers in detail, as I have just spent an hour doing, reveals far far higher variation in accidents and fatalities based on factors other than vehicle type; with driver age appearing to have the highest predictive value in accident rates.

I assert that an analysis of the data, rather than the emotions, leads to the conclusion that the variations in risk based on type of vehicle driven are immaterial when compared to other risk factors.

There are other actions that can, and should, be taken to improve transportation safety that also have with fewer impacts on freedom than does an emotion and values laden campaign against SUV's.

As an exammple, the NTSB wants Primary Seat Belt Enforcement Laws-ie: the cops could pull you over for not wearing a seat belt. "The NHTSA estimates that more than 14,000 lives could be saved annually if all front seat occupants used seat belts."

http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/mostwanted/highwa....htm#Safety%20Issue

This leaves aside the rather open question as to whether or not SUV's actually are more dangerous! Looking at the data I have not yet found that SUV's are more dangerous than other vehicles. (this is not to argue that an impact between a larger suv and a small car is not more dangerous to the occupants of the small car than the SUV. OTOH, if we hypothesize an accident between two cars, where all occupants die, and compare it to an accident between a car and suv in which all car occupants die and suv occupants live, then the SUV has just cut the fatality rate in half. No, not at the expense of the nonsuv-remember, those folks are dead either way.)

Statitistics are difficult, and their are many many many interacting factors at play, but if SUV's were significantly
more dangerous on net than other vehicles, then we would expect to see an increase in fatalities per mile driven in the period in which SUV's have grown to be 50% of vehicle sales (I have seen 50% quoted, but I am not sure if it is true. In any event, a _lot_ of SUV's).

We do not see such a variance in fatalities. One obvious response would be 'well, with air bags and anti drinking campaigns, etc, the fatality rate should be even lower.' I am unable to respond to that other than to say that the statistics do not appear to support the argument that driving has been getting more dangerous.

And if we can't make the case that driving SUV is more dangerous, then it is hard for me to accept arguments that center around the size of my dick as being based on 'the right' morality. (I ignored the fuel issue in that comment...but this is already too long)

That was certainly productive. If you changed your mind about SUVs after reading this discussion, raise your hand!

Can we move on to abortion now?

Rich's arguments about net effect are interesting. The argument to use would probably be that serial killers have very little net effect on the health of the country, and shouldn't be legislated.

But I honestly don't want to live in a place where every single act deemed immoral is outlawed.

However, there are a *lot* of SUVs out there.

But the proposed gas tax hurts the poor--the rich can cover it.

Lawsuits correct the safety problems, sorta.

My token answer is to require increased fuel economy, because the technology will hopefully benefit other vehicles, and hopefully lawsuits against drivers or makers will lead to increased inter-vehicle safety.

Fortunately, nobody is reading the thread at this point.

Visited a friend who is a dentist last night. He bought a 40k Ford Excursion. It felt and sounded like the 24 ft. moving van I drove to Utah. He had it "chipped" to increase the horsepower. He and his wife probably weigh 300 lbs. combined.

http://thedetroitproject.com/


tom
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