Inalienable Rights
I've been thinking about SUVs lately, as oil prices rise and the Seattle summer has turned into one that's more suitable for southern Colorado. Obviously, the SUV itself isn't the cause of global warming or glut in oil. But it's certainly a contribution.

The SUV is a handy vehicle, you can stick a lot of stuff and kids and there and go wherever (out to the property line of your ranch, exploring the badlands, picking up bales of toilet paper at Costco). It makes sense to a lot of people for very practical reasons, hence the popularity of the big box design. And in America, success breeds success. As soon as one family down the block gets a Ford Explorer, it's not long before other familes start following suit.

But I think it's time we start regulating SUVs like we regulate other dangerous industries with hardened goals to make them fuel efficient and mimimize the pollution they emit. We can't have nearly half of our populace (48 percent) driving vehicles that get only 20 miles per gallon--or less. Here's a tidbit from an article by Gregg Easterbrook at The New Republic:

In 2003, new regular cars averaged 24.8 miles per gallon, new SUVs averaged 17.8 miles per gallon, and new pickups averaged 16.8 miles per gallon, according to Bush administration figures. And these are just "laboratory standards" of fuel consumption--calculations based on extremely unrealistic tests in which SUVs and pickups are accelerated gently with their air-conditioners turned off, and never, ever driven above the speed limit. Real-world fuel economy is usually about 20 percent less than the official government number, suggesting the real-world MPG of new SUVs is a pathetic 14 miles per gallon.

That is pathetic, especially considering the fact that most trips taken by an SUV contains a single passenger--the driver. (I don't have a scientific study to back me up here--just what I see on the roads around Seattle every day.)

All kinds of rules have been passed regarding what can be operated on public roads, and courts have upheld these rules. In the cases of SUVs and pickup trucks, Congress has simply failed to enact adequate rules. (SUVs and pickup trucks are held to lower MPG standards than regular cars, or are exempt from fuel standards altogether; they do not have to meet the pollution-control standards applied to regular cars till 2009; lower safety standards apply to SUVs and pickup trucks.) It's time that changed.