I own an SUV. Am I evil?

Great Debates
1

Technically, it’s a “crossover vehicle”, whatever that means, but the point is it’s a larger than average car.

I see a lot of comments on some of the message boards and blogs I read criticizing the ownership of large cars. Yes, they burn more gas. Whether because of environmental concerns or political concerns (e.g., increased dependence on foreign oil), that’s a bad thing. I get that.

But you know, there are benefits of large cars too. People always talk about how Americans “like big cars” as if it’s just an aesthetic preference. The reasons I bought a large car are more concrete:

(1) It fits more stuff. I have a wife, a child, and two dogs, and am planning to have at least one more child over the course of the life of my car. My daughter rides in a car seat (for safety and because it’s the law), and the dogs ride in a portable carrier (again for safety). Frequently, we all go places together as a family, whether it’s on a family vacation or just to Grandma’s house (an hour away, and we typically stay for the weekend). As far as I can tell, a small car won’t fit all our passengers, much less their luggage (at least if we aren’t willing to lock the dogs in the trunk and tell them to “hold their breath”).

(2) It’s safer. If large care hits a small car, the large car generally wins. Perhaps it would be just as safe if everyone drove small cars, but I can’t force them to do that, and in the mean time “setting a good example” isn’t worth putting my daughter at greater risk.

It seems to me, I have the perfect size car for my needs. And for what it’s worth, I was perfectly happy driving a smaller car until I found out I was having a kid.

Am I wrong? Those of you who are critical of large cars, please tell me what you think I should be doing differently.

2

Well, you might be evil regardless of what vehicle you drive. But I don’t think driving an SUV would make you evil if you weren’t evil already. Were you 49.995% evil before getting the SUV? It might have tipped you over.

Debating your specific usage of the SUV would be pretty silly of me since I have no idea how often you’re using it for things where another, smaller, vehicle would suffice. I can say that personally I have a smallish 4-door and it works just fine for myself, the wife and our kid. Should we have another kid, it’ll work fine for him or her as well. Granted, we don’t transport dogs. I could fit the cat carrier between two child seats with no problem except the cat doesn’t much enjoy car rides. We’ve gone on extended trips of a week or more in the car and the trunk held all of our stuff just fine.

In my personal, non-evidence-creating experience, most people I’ve known who owned SUVs didn’t need them. The few occassions they’d cite as their need for an SUV (“Last winter we had to get Sally’s coffee table to her daughter’s house”) could have been handled by renting an appropriately sized vehicle for a few hours and I’m not sure that the three times a year you need to move a coffee table or load 13 people into your ride validates the other 362 days a year. But, once again, that’s just my experience from knowing those people. I’m sure everyone else is hauling cabinets and horse trailers and crates of kittens six days a week.

3

No. You own a legal product that fits your needs. In a free country you do not have to justify your individual liberty. Stop worrying about what other people think and enjoy your SUV.:slight_smile:

4

Yes, you’re evil. Your income should be taxed at 90%.

What you should have done differently is have less children, NO pets and ride your bike to work. Many people around the world live their entire lives without a car. Some of them even live in New York and Seattle.

If the President needs to fly to Denver to sign a pork barrel spending bill on your behalf then the least you can do is conserve enough fuel to make that possible. Do what’s best for your country.

5

It’s not safer. Safety does not just include car vs car accidents, they include roll-overs and hitting stationary items, etc. And then there is accident advoidance.

SUV’s do very poorly in advoidance and roll-overs.

A regular large sedan is safest, say a Volvo.

SUV do about as well as a compact (not a sub-compact) car.

Your daughter is now “at greater risk”.

6

Yes, SUVs are often rated as higher risk than other cars. It’s one of those ironic things. They just look like they should be safer, but their comparably higher center of gravity tends to make them unsafe (your model may be okay). I know many brands of SUV have such poor safety rankings that they’re not allowed to use them for school trips here.

As for the big car v little car thing, especially as the bumpers are often higher than “normal” cars I see this as a design flaw and a potential lawsuit waiting to happen.
ETA: owning and SUV doesn’t make you evil. Assuming you actually typically haul more stuff around (wife, kids, etc) and don’t just use it to commute, solo, long distances to work. Even then, it would probably make you ill informed or selfish, not evil.

7

I’m actually in a very similar situation. We recently bought a crossover, after having only owned smaller, usually two-door cars previously.

If you’re legitimately asking about the morality of this, you can consider your “the large car generally wins” idea. It seems that in the accident scenario you’re considering, you’ve increased the safety of your family, while decreasing the safety of the other car. The total danger of such an accident is increased by your larger car, but it’s just distributed more to the other car. The average safety of all drivers on the road is decreased by your choice, even if your own safety is improved.

That’s aside from the other stuff mentioned above about SUVs not really being safer.

8

An SUV will be safer in a vehicle to vehicle crash but it is also more likely to roll so the statistics get skewed by people who don’t wear seat belts. Without a seatbelt you are more likely to be ejected in a rollover.

An SUV with stability control will be a much safer vehicle to drive than a compact car. I’m still going to drive a compact but I have no illusions of winning a confrontation with a truck.

Probably the most unstable vehicle is an extended van that has a large amount of weight behind the rear wheels. Very bad vehicle for hauling people.

9

Really a proper calculation would have to include gallons of gas used per year. For example, a person with a more fuel efficient car that has a longer commute than someone with an SUV could be burning more fuel. So then we would have to say that the person with the longer commute is being selfish because they could live closer to work.

But then you would have to calculate cost of living in the area and availability of other jobs that would require less of a commute, or availability of housing closer to the job, etc. etc.

Bottom line, it’s pretty tough to make any kind of apples to apples comparison of peoples lives without a lot of work.

10

My wife has a new SUV – a small one, a RAV4. Not for safety but simply because she really does need to lug large loads to and from work on a regular basis.

Ed

11

She has an evil job.

12

What do you care?

And, as pointed out, it’s not safer. Mostly because of perceptions like your own, believing it’s safe. More here, as well as an interesting retrospective view of auto industry strategies:
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html

13

Then what are you worrying about? It seems that you understand quite well the reasons that environmentalists complain about the UNNECESSARY ownership of large and fuel-ineffiicient cars. But as you’ve just explained, you don’t fall into that category, so you need not take their complaints as applying to you.

Yes, it is true that many American car-owners like to own big gas-guzzlers even if they don’t need them. This is wasteful and not good for the environment. However, many other American car-owners, like you, do need to own big cars, and that’s just the way it is.

Focus your eco-conscience on reducing your environmental footprint in other ways (and especially on teaching your kids about environmental responsibility), rather than angsting over whether mushy-minded fanatics might vilify you as a selfish planet-destroying hog just because of what you drive.

14

Nay, Nay! 110%!

Nay, Nay! He should jump into that big vat of boiling green stuff and be done with it all!

Nay! Nay! He should become the fuel itself that the President uses at a whim!

The evil, IT BURNS!

15

I have a Toyota Echo, but I fuel it with the blender-mulched remains of orphans and kittens.

16

Okay, but do you always have to have lots of stuff with you? Could you just rent a bigger car for trips that require more space?

Alternatively, what about a station wagon? Those are much easier on the environment.

I’m no expert on the issue, but I believe I’ve read that this amounts to a B.S. reason.

17

IMHO you are wrong for any sense of guilt. God wants us to enjoy life and let Him provide our resources, He wants to provide if we just let Him.

Enjoy it.

18

As has been mentioned above, large vehicles like vans and SUVs are often not permitted for school trips because of safety concerns. How many news stories about such accidents start with the words, “A van full of children”?

When I was growing up, the main cargo carrying vehicles were minivans and pickup trucks, with the odd station wagon thrown in the mix. I’m hard-pressed to think of a situation where an SUV would be a better choice than one of those, especially with all the extended cab trucks on the market now.

19

As others have already noted, it depends solely on the reasons why you own an SUV.

For example:
[ul]
[li] Not evil: Owning a slingshot.[/li][li] Evil: Owning a slingshot so you can shoot rocks at kids in the schoolyard.[/li][/ul]

Were they dead prior to the mulching?

20

Coffee, meet keyboard.