January 15, 2003
"SUV DRIVERS HAVE A TROUBLING TENDENCY TO RUN OVER THEIR OWN KIDS"
It's a month old, but here's an excellent column in December's Washington Monthly about SUVs: the myths about their safety, the profile of their owners (yes, they are overwhelmingly insecure, self-absorbed jerks - surprise!) and the government's unwillingness to classify them as trucks, thus exempting them from any sort of reasonable fuel-economy standards.
The column is an extended review of High & Mighty by Keith Bradsher, which is vaulting to the top of my must-read list. This may be the most interesting bit:
"Because these beasts are so big and hard to see around (and often equipped with dark-tinted glass that's illegal in cars), SUV drivers have a troubling tendency to run over their own kids. Just recently, in October, a wealthy Long Island doctor made headlines after he ran over and killed his 2-year-old in the driveway with his BMW X5. He told police he thought he'd hit the curb. "
Oops!
I got to this article from the always-enjoyable Mark Morford, who speaks for a lot of us when he says he gets physically ill at the sight of Hummers barging around city streets. Amen, brother. For more on the anti-SUV backlash, go to the Detroit Project, a group producing commercials that mock the stupid drugs=terrorism ads that ran during the Superbowl last year. Predictably, only a handful of TV stations are airing them.
Posted by michaelf at January 15, 2003 12:17 PM
