A GROUNDSWELL AGAINST SUVS
Author(s): Bella English, Globe Staff Date: February 10, 2003 Page: B7 Section: LivingSport utility vehicles, the status symbol of the past decade, have recently become what the new mink coat was for the eco-cause set: a needless trophy that hurts the environment. Although some have grumbled for years that the huge vehicles guzzle gas and contribute to global warming and air pollution, the looming war in Iraq has given environmentalists a front-page news peg on which to hang their cause. And SUV drivers are feeling the wrath.
Samuel Price, who drives a Jeep Cherokee, has been "ticketed" a couple of times. His offense? Driving an SUV. A classmate at Boston College Law School, Ward Olivete, drives a Toyota 4-Runner and has been asked by a perfect stranger how he can drive "that thing." In Newton, vandals recently spray-painted several SUVs with sentiments, including: "No Blood For Oil." On Beacon Hill, Governor Mitt Romney wants to eliminate the fleet of Ford Explorers in favor of smaller cars that get better mileage.
But the fact remains: for the past 10 years, SUV sales have increased, with 3.5 million sold last year. Detroit insists that it isn't backing away from the profitable vehicles; to the contrary.
"SUVs are as popular as ever. This year, we expect sales to stay very strong," says Michael Morrissey, a spokesman for General Motors. GM, which produces the Chevy Suburban - one of the largest SUVs - was the first to sell more than a million, in 2001. Last year, it sold 1.2 million.
And the Hummer H2 - a four-ton tank designed by a US military contractor and popularized by the Army during Operation Desert Storm - is the hottest SUV on the market, with long waiting lists for orders. "They're huge," says Ernie Boch Jr., whose family owns four auto dealerships in Norwood. "It's status. If you drive one of them, you actually get an adrenaline rush. You really feel like you can climb walls."
Most SUV drivers will tell you that the vehicle is their prized possession, and that the environmentalists can go hug a tree - though they're not quite that polite.
Joanna Christopoulos of Newtonville adores her Ford Explorer. "It's higher up, it has more room, it's heavier, it's safer to drive," she says, dismissing the argument that driving an SUV indirectly supports terrorism and contributes to the war on Iraq. "We'll have a problem with Iraq whatever we drive," she says. "As for the oil, every vehicle uses oil. If anything, they should be talking to people who drive diesels."
The only way she'll give up her Explorer is to supersize it: "I'd go to an Expedition, which is larger."
James Kliesch of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy notes that people love to hate SUVs because of the image associated with the owners of a car designed to be driven in rugged conditions: a yuppie driving alone, or a suburban mom going to the grocery store.
"In fact, pickup trucks are the most popular vehicle on the road, but people don't complain about them," Kliesch says. "I think it's an easier argument to make that SUVs are not being used for off-road purposes, whereas some pickups are."
The typical SUV, he adds, is occupied by only 1.3 passengers.
Recently the syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington brought her fledgling anti-SUV campaign to Harvard. She said Washington had given the vehicles a pass on the fuel efficiency and air pollution standards that all other passenger cars must meet. Her campaign, called "The Detroit Project," was born after she wrote a column linking corporate greed and political corruption to the market explosion that has put 16 million such vehicles on the American roads.
Huffington, who used to drive a Lincoln Navigator (13 miles to the gallon), saw the light - at the light.
Huffington was stopped at a light when she looked over at an SUV, festooned with flags.
"It was after 9/11. I had a moment of truth," she says, adding that she realized it would be more patriotic for both of them to give up their SUVs. Huffington now drives a hybrid Toyota Prius: 52 miles to the gallon. She considers her campaign particularly timely, given the country's dependence on Middle East oil while campaigning against Arab terrorism.
"When our stated goal is to decrease reliance on overseas oil, and the Bush administration says we can't go along with countries harboring terrorists . . . What else is Saudi Arabia but a country harboring terrorists?" she tells the overflow crowd.
The anti-SUV activists have become more aggressive, doing that "ticketing" of vehicles and slapping bumper stickers on them with the message: "I'm Changing the Climate! Ask Me How!" In Newton, 16 SUVs were vandalized with spray paint around Christmas. "References were made to climate and oil, war in Iraq and those kinds of things," says Newton police chief, Jose Cordero, whose personal car is an SUV (he won't say which kind).
But Boch, who drives a Toyota Highlander and sells hundreds of others, says the Hummer is the best evidence that the public isn't listening to the anti-SUV campaign. "That's the granddaddy of all SUVs, and it's selling like crazy. You can't keep them in stock, and people are paying sticker price and over for it," he says. An 8,600-pound Hummer costs about $55,000, gets around 10 miles per gallon and costs nearly $50 to fill up.
To Boch, it's simply a matter of personal choice: "If it's available in the US and it's for sale, you should be able to drive it. It's the American way." But what about concerns over mileage? "Bottled water costs more." Pollution from exhaust emissions? "Even the big giant SUVs every year are getting better on that." Aiding and abetting terrorism? "That's insane." ("When you see the weapons inspectors in Iraq, they're all driving around in Land Cruisers.")
The market, however, is changing. GM's Morrissey says that though his company isn't abandoning SUVs, it is aggressively pursuing hybrid vehicles, which combine fuel-efficient gasoline engines and electric-battery-powered motors, thus improving mileage and reducing emissions.
Mothers, in particular, say they love their SUVs for what they perceive as the safety value: They're heavy, they're high, they're huge. Lauren Dugan of North Reading had just dropped her children off in her Toyota Highlander last month when the vehicle skidded on ice and slid off the road, then rolled over.
"The police were amazed," she said. "They said if I had been in a car, the roof would have just caved in." That, plus a greater field of vision, she says, makes her feel safe.
According to The Detroit Project, the opposite is actually true: SUVs are four times as likely as passenger cars to roll over in an accident, and three times as likely to kill an occupant in a rollover. And those who drive smaller cars say they feel they're fodder for the giants who share the road.
Kristin Parker, who lives in Brookline, is one. "I never experienced road rage until I was driving my little Toyota. I didn't know why I was feeling so stressed out, and then I realized I was surrounded by these huge vehicles that were bearing down on me. SUVs are really shrinking the road for the rest of us."
Parker has taken matters into her own hands, literally, by joining the national "ticketing" campaign. She sticks "parking tickets," flyers that resemble official citations, on the windshields of SUVs. Upon closer inspection, the tickets detail the advocates' perception of the evils of driving an SUV rather than a smaller car.
"At Bread and Circus, I am always shocked when I see the behemoths in the parking lot. The people who are buying organic foods are driving these disgusting vehicles," she says.
Nationally, the campaign Changing the Climate directs its energies toward "the exciting new sport of Big Game SUV Hunting." Activists affix embarrassing bumper stickers to SUVs, which they call "bloated, gas-guzzling behemoths." (Among tips for ticketers: The Hummer is the "ultimate prize." And tag only late-model vehicles, "not some beat-up old Suburban some poor soul has inherited.")
The Sierra Club has jumped aboard, too, saying that those who switch from a car to an SUV for a year waste more energy than "leaving a refrigerator door open for six years, a bathroom light burning for 30 years, or a color TV turned on for 28 years." Even some religious groups are preaching against SUVs with a campaign called, "What Would Jesus Drive?"
Gordon Wilcox, a Boston restaurateur, can see both sides now. He drives a Cadillac Escalade, one of the biggest SUVs, but he plans to trade it in for a sedan. "It's brutal on gas," he says, "and they give you this sense that you're safer in this tough tank. You're not. It's like a piece of plastic."
The only solace Kristin Parker gets, she says, is watching SUV drivers fill up their tanks. "They're paying a fortune," she says.
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