When Carnosaurs Ruled The Roadways

This weekend I read Keith Bradsher’s recent book High and Mighty: SUVs—The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way. It’s a sordid tale, and not one for those who have low tolerance for accounts of raw greed. A favorite quote:

Who has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.

No, that’s not a cynic talking—that’s the auto industry’s own market researchers and executives.

Bradsher sees little relief from the scourge, and worries about what will happen when the current crop of SUVs starts to age and have mechanical problems, and show up on the used market to be purchased by less capable drivers such as youths and drunks.

Some good SUV links today: Philip Greenspun wonders how SUVs can remain fashionable when only unfashionable people (e.g.. middle-aged suburban parents) drive them. On a geekier note, he also considers Java to be the SUV of programming tools.

Kos meanwhile finds it a bit ironic that Arnold Schwarzenegger is campaigning on a platform of clean air, water, and the environment when he drives a Hummer. Actually, it’s worse than Kos realized: he owns six Hummers, and as Bradsher recounts, Schwarzenegger was the person most responsible for the commercial introduction of the formerly military-only vehicle.

Finally, a look at the SUV of the future, at the classic SUV poseur site.