by Phil Kent, SLF President

As appeared in The Detroit Free Press, May 23, 2003

   
   As Memorial Day approaches, nearly 30 million Americans will take to the highways for family vacations over the long awaited holiday weekend.

With the increasing preference for road travel, many families have chosen sport utility vehicles, especially families that have three or more children or those that haul boats and other recreational equipment. SUVs provide safe space for multiple car seats and more capacity for towing heavy cargo. But before these families can enjoy a welcomed break from school and work, they have to fend off attack from an unlikely source. They are being called "socially irresponsible." Some people go so far as to call these outdoor fans and soccer moms terrorists.

Liberals like Norman Lear and Arianna Huffington have run television ads declaring that everyone who drives a sport utility vehicle -- safety advantages and extra space included -- is a contributor to terrorism. Huffington babbles in interviews that consumers should make "socially responsible choices."

Her message, laced with anti-consumer choice remarks, ironically goes on to argue that people who put gas in their SUVs are supporting terrorists in the Middle East. Absurd to say the least.

The ads are hypocritical. These liberals continually demand "choice," but with regard to transportation, they seek to deny choice to consumers with particular needs.

While many consumers write off Huffington and her allies in their fight against SUVs, their outrageous arguments are the first symbolic moves of a potential wave of misinformed advocates attacking SUVs and their drivers. If they succeed, they'll ultimately limit consumer choices and strip light trucks off the road and out of the marketplace. That would be a shame.

During heavy snows, hospitals and local governments often call on volunteers with SUVs to transport medical personnel and patients. Are those volunteers contributing to terrorism?

Then, there is the safety issue. My research indicates that SUVs are as safe as any vehicle on the road today. It is this reason that SUVs are a favorite choice among women and families with children.

One myth peddled by the anti-SUV lobby is that they are rollover prone. But, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, SUV rollover crashes represent only 3 percent of all collisions on the road. In fact, the agency notes if a rollover occurs, SUV passengers are twice as safe as those passengers in cars. Of course, in either case, a passenger not wearing a seat belt is at greatest risk of injury, regardless of the vehicle they drive. The traffic safety administration reports that safety belts could have saved 7,412 of the 9,882 lives lost in rollover crashes. And, in spite of all the SUVs joining the vehicle market over the past decade, rollovers between 1997 and 2002 have remained relatively flat, increasing 3.6 percent.

The anti-SUV crowd takes aim at outdoor enthusiasts for being hypocritical for polluting the environment they are so fond of. But science disqualifies these arguments as well.

Since the late 1980s, Air Improvement Resource Inc. reports, vehicle fuel efficiency has increased by about 1 percent. Consumer demand for bigger, safer vehicles has offset efficiency improvements that have been made, so the average fuel economy has remained flat since 2002. But Air Improvement Resource research also indicates that if no SUVs were sold during the next 10 years, CO2 emissions would be reduced only by less than two-tenths of 1 percent and foreign oil imports would rise from 55.5 percent to 56.7 percent. (So much for "helping terrorists" with "oil money.")

While consumers have taken note, Huffington, Lear & Company has missed the impressive developments regarding cleaner running SUVs and light trucks. Most industry experts say the difference between car and light truck emissions standards (the government classifies SUVs as light trucks) is now very small and will disappear altogether by 2008.

Sadly, it's practically impossible to find the golden kernel of worthy endeavor in the shrill panoply that surrounds today's environmental movement. As the boy who cried wolf discovered, the long-term cost for declaring a daily crisis is that we may ignore a legitimate problem when one arises.

To those of you who choose to drive a light truck or SUV this Memorial Day, rest assured that while misinformed radicals are trying to run you and your car off the road, your vehicle is safer and cleaner than ever before. PHIL KENT is president of the Atlanta-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, a constitutional public interest law firm. Write to him in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 600 W. Fort St., Detroit, MI 48226.

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