High and Mighty: SUVs -- The World's Most Dangerous
Vehicles and How They Got That Way by Keith Bradsher
[Book reviews available on Amazon.COM
But It Makes Me Feel Powerful
In this book, veteran New York Times journalist, Keith Bradsher provides
one of the most comprehensive and brutally honest reports on the massive
station wagons improperly named sport utility vehicles (SUVs).
Bradsher spent years researching his subject when he served as the New
York Times' Detroit Bureau chief. In this capacity, Badsher was as
plugged in to the upper echelons of the American auto industry as anyone
could be.
When Bradsher began research on SUVs he found that many auto industry
employees -- especially engineers -- we're completely willing to disclose
their honest opinions about the design flaws and safety hazards of these
oversized station wagons. Even auto executives who did not like Bradsher
and his research topic were compelled to talk to him since he covered
important events in their trade.
It is important to remember, as another reviewer pointed out that
practically none of the findings in this book are Bradsher's own;
instead there are a recapitulation things the auto makers said themselves.
For example, in the chapter entitled "Reptilian Dreams"
Bradsher quotes the findings of auto industry market researchers who
determined that typical SUV drivers
The sad implication of this statement is that according to the automakers
(not Bradsher-this is the auto makers talking), if you buy an SUV then
there's a good chance that you possess an obnoxious personality and are
fundamentally timid and insecure beneath the surface.
Much of the market research performed by the automakers, according to
Bradsher, focused on the most basic archetypal images with which human
beings associate various emotions.
As a result of their findings, the automakers patterned SUVs after the
archetypal image of a monster with a large rounded body, eyes (large
headlights), and teeth (the grill).
One of the most primitive human emotions, according to the automakers'
researchers, is the urge to be ensconced within the safety of a
monster -- one that makes us feel much more powerful than we actually
are.
Bradsher also sites the automakers' own statistics in his discussion
of the horrible safety record of SUVs. Not only are these enormous
station wagons dangerous to occupants of other vehicles, but to their
own as well.
Because of their high center of gravity and poor brakes (SUVs use the
drum brakes of light trucks, not the disk brakes of cars), SUVs are
much more likely to roll over than smaller vehicles of mini vans.
Ironically, while the size of an SUV might make drivers feel safe it
actually puts them in much greater danger of death, whiplash, and spinal
injuries.
Those quaint little guardrails that we see on America's highways were
designed to bounce cars back on the road when they veer off course.
Since they were not designed for SUVs, they unfortunately have the
adverse effect of tipping these portly station wagons over upon impact.
One of the saddest of Bradsher's conclusions is that SUVs are
inadvertently fueling an arms race on the road. As the drivers of
non-excessive vehicles experience being blinded by SUV headlights, or
crushed by SUV collisions, they are becoming increasingly compelled
to purchase SUVs themselves as a matter of survival.
As a result, Bradsher argues SUVs increasingly dominate the roadways and
it is only a matter of time before they compel drivers who are not
insecure and self-hating to purchase their own obese station wagons in
order to increase the odds of survival during a collision.
SUVs, as Bradsher notes, are filled with irony.
Many people use or fantasize of using SUVs as off road vehicles when
in fact these corpulent station wagons are responsible for much
environmental destruction. (All of the oil to be extracted from the
proposed Alaska National Wildlife Refuge will cover the extra fuel
consumed by SUVs.)
Furthermore, many drivers of these plump family wagons view them as
emblems of freedom when in fact they owe their continued existence
to protectionism. The American government heavily subsidizes these
vehicles at home and blocks any significant import of safer, more fuel
efficient SUVs from abroad.
These are, as Bradsher's research implies, more a product of corporate
welfare than of free trade or choice.
And perhaps the most perverse aspect of SUVs is the manner in which
many drivers view them as patriotic vehicles, even going so far
as to sport American flags while lumbering along the road way.
But as Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington, and others point out, these pork
shaped wagons vastly increase America's dependence on foreign oil which
has at least two disastrous consequences:
As Bill Maher points out in "When You Ride Alone You Ride with
Bin Laden", much of the extra fuel consumed by SUVs greatly
enriches members of the Saudi Government and royal family, some of whom
are known to have financed anti-American terrorists or the alleged
charities from which they draw their funding.
Days after I read this book a colleague of mine narrowly escaped death
when his car was sideswiped by an SUV. He told me that the roads were
too dangerous to drive a non-excessive vehicle and that in order to
survive he too planned to buy a bovine station wagon.
High and Mighty: SUVs -- The World's Most Dangerous
Vehicles and How They Got That Way by Keith Bradsher
Price: $17.64
Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) have become the fastest-growing market
segment in the automobile industry. They have an image of being safer
and easier to handle in bad weather than traditional passenger cars.
But in this new expose, New York Times reporter Bradsher delivers
sobering facts about the conveyances: they protect occupants poorly,
inflict horrific damage in crashes, guzzle gasoline, spew emissions,
and are, in fact, difficult to control in bad weather or panic
situations.
He traces the checkered past of SUVs and how they came to be classified
not as cars but as light trucks, which are subject to softer federal
regulations regarding safety, gas mileage, and air pollution.
The recent recall of tires and SUVs by Ford and Firestone after scores
of roll-over deaths is apparently only the tip of the iceberg.
Bradsher makes a powerful case that SUVs are inflicting great damage
on their occupants, other motorists, pedestrians, and the earth.
While the information has been available for some time in bits and
pieces, this book is the first to put it all together with documented
facts and figures.
In the tradition of Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed, this
should be read by drivers of SUVs and all those who must share the
roads with them.
Eric C. Shoaf, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence
The behemoths among autos, SUVs are dangerous gas-guzzlers exempted
from the safety and environmental rules that apply to other autos
because they are classified as light trucks.
Bradsher, an award-winning journalist who reported on the
Ford-Firestone rollover controversy, details how SUVs came to enjoy
such protection and such enormous popularity.
From its precursor in the 1930s, favored by the funeral business,
through the twist of fate that saw trade protection for frozen
chickens morph into protection of SUV manufacturers, to the irony that
the baby boom generation that championed environmental safety is also
responsible for the huge popularity of the SUV, Bradsher offers
compelling reading.
The author interviewed the auto executives and engineers behind the
SUV and documents the danger to occupants, other motorists, pedestrians,
and the environment of a car model that continues to grow in size and
heft.
This fascinating history and troubling analysis of both the politics
and the design of the SUV should appeal to readers on both sides of
the debate. -- Vanessa Bush
Copyright (c) American Library Association. All rights reserved
This book is hard to put down
I have watched with complete bewilderment the growing popularity of SUVs.
They are too big to fit in many parking spaces and parking garages. Some
are so big that they don't fit in home garages.
They guzzle gas, they are dangerous (15% higher death rate for people
in SUVs), they are hard to maneuver, and let's face it they are UGLY.
Some people have legitimate reasons to buy an SUV, however for most
people a car is a better choice. Yet why the popularity of SUVs? I just
don't get it.
My confusion led me to buy this book. And it is a great book, which is
hard to put down. You might think that more than 400 pages of text about
SUVs could not be very interesting but it is.
The author starts with the history of the SUV (basically the Jeep).
Bradsher discusses the psychology of SUV buyers that was developed by
the SUV manufacturers themselves.
Because SUVs are so impractical for most people, psychology is the
only logical explanation for the popularity of these monstrosities.
The subtitle of this book is "The World's Most Dangerous
Vehicles and How They Got That Way" and Bradsher spends a lot
of time discussing how SUVs have managed to avoid government regulation
that would make them much safer vehicles for both their occupants and
other drivers.
He discusses the rollover dangers and lack of crumple zones. Because
SUVs either crumple very little or don't crumple at all in a collision
SUV occupants feel the full force and energy of a crash, causing injuries
that would not occur if they were in a car instead.
Cars are subject to bumper height requirements but SUVs are not.
The high bumpers on SUVs are deadly to occupants of cars when
hit from the side by the front of an SUV. The bumper will crush
the door hitting the person in the car in the head and upper body
guaranteeing death or serious injury.
If you own an SUV or are thinking about buying one please read this
book, so you can learn how you are endangering yourself, your family,
your fellow road users and the environment.
If you don't go off road or haul trailers, buy a car or minivan instead.
Extremely interesting and well written
When I got this book, I was dubious that it could be interesting.
I could believe there was enough info on SUV's to fill a chapter or
two, but not a whole book.
This book was interesting from start to finish, a lot of fascinating
detail on how our political system works, and history of the automobile
industry, and it is very engagingly written.
My only warning would be that this book can make just about anyone
angry: if you consider yourself an environmentalist, then learning the
history of how Detroit and our politicians are being very short sighted
regarding safety and pollution is infuriating.
If, however, you feel that government regulation has no place regulating
industry or you don't believe in global warming, then Bradsher's
writing will piss you off, because he very clearly comes down on the
side of the environmentalists.
Detroit's Incompetence and Greed Costs Us All
An excellent book that touches on the most egregious (and least
reported) design flaw of truck-based SUVs: impact incompatibility
with cars.
Under the flashy exterior and leather-trimmed interior of most
overpriced SUVs lies a heavy, crude, and most importantly for Detroit's
bean-counters, inexpensive chassis.
It offers little energy absorption during a collision and is attached
to a high bumper that defeats the side-impact protection of most
passenger cars.
All in the interest of profit and vanity.
Millions of Americans are injured and over 40,000 killed in automobile
zaccidents each year.
The combined human and economic toll is astonishing, dwarfing that of
terrorism, SARS, West Nile, and other media obsessions.
As an engineer, I find the SUV status quo appalling: unit body
construction, crumple zones, and car-compatible bumper heights would
significantly improve the safety of the SUV (for both its own occupants
and those of the vehicle it smashes into).
Read Bradsher's book, understand how Detroit's callous penny-pinching
led to this sorry state, and do something to change it.
Why SUVs, and their owners, are evil
Rarely have I read anything as evenhanded, fair, and well researched as
this book. The book explains the origins of SUVs, why they are so
dangerous (To both their drivers as well as the drivers of the cars
they hit - especially the more responsible owners of cars), it explains
the regulatory loop-holes that encourage auto-makers to build even
more dangerous SUVs, and perhaps most sickeningly, why SUVs are such
horrible substitutes for the cars they are replacing.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book however are the
insights into the marketing of SUVs, essentially that they are marketed
to the impotent, in order to make them feel safe - and it appears to
be working.
On the other side of the coin the author does argue that there are some
legitimate reasons for owning SUVs, though towing heavy loads while
carrying several passengers, on a regular basis, is the only one that
has much merit.
They don't have to be moving
A brilliant and disturbing profile of these senseless behemoths that
symbolize our greed, our vanity, and our determination to destroy our
planet.
What gets me is how dangerous SUVs are even when they're standing still.
When you're at an intersection with an SUV ahead of you or to either
side, your vision in that direction is cut off. And when you're making
a left turn with an SUV sitting across the intersection from you, you
can't see the oncoming traffic.
I can't think of a single good reason for them to be on the road
--- even when they're not going anywhere.
Our Roads are UNSAFE and Here's Why
Bradsher's book is stunning and shattering. Read it, and you'll
understand in no uncertain terms how dangerous SUVs are, and how the rise
of the SUV Culture & Economy will be increasingly make our roads
treacherous.
Bradsher puts the blame square at the feet of the Federal Government
that was basically castrated during the Reagen Years, the powerful UAW
(in terms of lobbying congress) the auto dealers and the auto companies.
With meticulous detail Bradsher takes you through the past 35 years
of the entire industry, in a well thought out and entertaining way; it's
a very fast read that will have you riveted and turning page after page
-- shocked and horrified.
After reading this book (and Eric Schlosser's highly entertaining and
informative Fast Food Nation), you'll come to realize that the
Republican platform of less government regulation has made the
United States a dangerous place for the less wealthy.
Republican Presidential administrations have scaled back the ability of
the government to actually protect its citizens.
Bradsher's book isn't into bashing the Republican presidents and the
congress, but you'll see that when big business has a friend in the White
House and on Capital Hill, the public at large is the loser -- in a big,
big way.
Do slip, read this book. If you don't want to buy, get it out of the
library. You're doing yourself a disservice not increasing your knowledge.
People here just don't get it...
There's one review here Amazon.COM
where the reviewer says "Here's an elitist tut-tutting people who
buy vehicles that meet their needs". That very statement is a glaring
show of ignorance. Did he even read the book? It wouldn't seem so.
Vehicles that meet their needs? What needs? The need to ride the biggest,
most obnoxious vehicle possible?
In this book, Bradsher makes allowances for those who NEED SUVs.
It's the people who can't even begin to need an SUV that Bradsher takes
issue with, and for good reason. It's the very height of arrogance to
drive a 4x4 vehicle that gets 13 miles to the gallon (or worse... Hummer
H2 anyone?) when you live in a completely paved, flat city.
Most people I know who own an SUV wouldn't know how to take it off-road
even if they knew where to go to do it...and they don't.
Off-roading is a learned skill. Buying the truck doesn't immediately make
you know how. Added to which, most SUV owners I know fit the profile
that Bradsher lays out to a tee: they're arrogant drivers who often don't
drive terribly well. They like being in an SUV because they
"know" if they hit something, they'll be protected (well, maybe
not, but that's too long a story to type).
They're willing to put others on the road at risk, and willing to spend
hundreds or even thousands of extra dollars a year putting gas in these
trucks...and for what? Some imagined idea of safety, or worse, vanity.
Oh and by the way... did I say "the profile Bradsher lays
out"? Sorry...I meant the profile the Auto manufacturers lay out,
because that's where Bradsher's profile comes from.
Auto makers know who their customers are. They know that people buy
trucks because of the fantasy of offroad and adventure, when a sweeping
percentage couldn't even imagine actually taking a truck up or down a
mountain. It's the idea that they COULD that attracts them, and therein
lay the brilliance of the marketing.
If you live in a suburb of a big city, have a couple of kids, and a good
job, you're statistically likely to buy an SUV, and yet you couldn't have
less of a need for one. Think you NEED it? You're wrong. Think it's
safer? Wrong there too. Think it doesn't make a difference, so why not?
Read this book.
Only after you understand the very nature of your ignorance and
arrogance, should you consider getting back on
Amazon.COM and writing reviews.
There is a clear difference
After doing as much extensive research on SUVs as Bradsher does, how
can you NOT hate them?
The only times I hear the popular myth: "SUVs are safe," are
when the people who own them try to validate their reasons for endangering
MY life.
Bradsher's research and conclusions are NOT one-sided, they are FACT.
Bradsher's character definition of SUV drivers (which by the way, he
clearly states is the auto industry's own view) is CLEARLY evident
through all of the 1-star reviewers.
The only arguments against this book are from the auto industry, auto
journalists PAID by the auto industry, and the mindless yuppies wasting
their money on these monstrous vehicles (their over-active defensiveness
certainly validates my suspicions).
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.
Physics anyone?
Keith Bradsher performs a public service for those who are listening.
An honest evaluation of these vehicles will lead a rational person to
conclude they are especially harmful to the people riding in them and
to others.
To round out this book, an alert reader will want to check out the
article "Roll over Newton" from Discover magazine.
In addition, there is a lesson as old as Plato here about business,
politics, and the corruption inevitable when the two mix.
SUV's make a mockery of the golden rule of civilization, do unto others
as you would have them do unto you.
SUVs are far worse than even their critics thought
This book is brilliant. It is important to first point out that Bradsher
is no lefty activist outsider, but a mainstream journalist who has spent
years covering the auto industry from the inside.
He takes on SUVs from all angles, and they fail in every regard. The two
key points that most people, even SUV critics often miss, that he heavily
emphasizes are:
My only complaint is that he didn't spend much time on the oil/terrorism
connection. Osama loves your SUV, because that is a prime reason pushing
up oil prices and consumption, funding the terrorists we are supposed to
be fighting.
The 1-star reviews made me buy it
This SUV topic must lie exactly on some faultline separating
middle-American self-consciousness and coastal elitism.
I just ordered this book based solely on the idiotic, uneducated,
I-love-my-suv and-you-are-my-crumple-zone so-screw-you-smarmy-liberals
and-you-pissant-little geo-metro-drivin-environment-lovers-too
quality of the 1-star replies to this book.
The funny thing is, I live in Greenwich and there must be more rich
a-holes needlessly driving these behemoths per capita than anywhere
else in the world. so it has NOTHING to do with whether you're a
redneck or a blue-blood and EVERYTHING to do with a dangerous fad,
a highway arms race, and a total lack of regard for fellow (and
future!) man.
The one poetic justice is that if you insist on refusing to believe the
dangerous statistics presented in this book, then Darwin will eventually
pay you a visit. hee hee
Please read this book.
I can't add much to what was said by other reviewers. But I think that
anyone considering buying an SUV (especially an urban or suburban
resident who does not realistically intend to need off-road capabilities)
should read this book.
The price of the book is far less than the extra price of an SUV, or the
price of a human life.
If this was required reading in schools and in the halls of Congress,
many lives would be saved and our oil supply would be less depleted.
I urge people to read it, or to at least read a thorough review of
its contents.
Only the selfish will squirm
With what is clearly profound research, over a period of years, Keith
Bradsher has acquired an all-encompassing knowledge of the now-ubiquitous
SUV.
His veracity is beyond doubt as he explodes the myth that people
travelling in SUVs are safer than the occupants of other vehicles.
Using NHTSA/IIHS statistics, he shows that SUVs are undeniably much more
likely to roll over -- sometimes at the least provocation -- and that if
they do roll, the occupants are in extreme danger of being killed.
He points out, too, that because of its inevitably high front end, an SUV
will usually ride up and over any normal car that it collides with from
the front or the rear, which is fine as long as you -- as a car occupant
-- don't like wearing an SUV's engine where your brain used to be.
Mr. Bradsher then goes on to prove that buying one's own SUV, in order
to protect oneself from other SUVs is, perhaps surprisingly, not the
safest or the best zsolution.
Beyond all of the horrifying safety information that this excellent book
contains, Bradsher also gives a revealing and often startling insight into
the pressures placed upon auto writers to say good things about given
vehicles, and the utterly unacceptable and sometimes Mafia-like deals
that are struck between decision makers.
One earlier reviewer was vitriolic about the book, saying that it made
no allowances for people who needed an SUV to help with their
livelihoods. I can only guess that this person did not read the full
book, as Mr. Bradsher does make specific comments in favor of people who
truly do need off-road capabilities.
I am pleased to own the book. I have annotated the page margins more so
than in any other book I own, and I shall be referring to it very
regularly indeed.
This book should be compulsory reading, not only for existing owners of
SUVs (so that they can comprehend and, hopefully, restrain the destructive
power that they command) and potential owners of such, but also for any
adult who ever travels by road!
Mr. Bradsher has been the target of many barbed comments -- some by other
auto writers -- for him having the 'audacity' to write this book. Yet
reading the entire book will reveal that only those with narrow minds or
selfish motivation will squirm at what he has written.
Would that all investigative journalism was as perceptive and as clear-cut
as this book.
eye-opener
This a very well written book. It is great reading, hard to put down.
I highly recommend buying it or checking it out of the library (you
might have to wait - the book is popular).
Keith Bradsher intelligently shows how anomalies in both legal regulations
and the marketplace allowed the proliferation of the modern SUVs.
While there are legitimate uses and users of SUV's capabilities, most
people don't buy them to go off-roading, haul boats, etc.
The author reveals the marketing thinking of the SUV makers.
He also writes about the safety hazards SUVs pose for their occupants
and other drivers; this is combined with demographic analysis that shows,
among other things, how in the future a wave of cheap second-hand SUVs
will fall in the hands of unsafe drivers (teens, young males, drunks)
which will deepen the safety hazards.
Environmental hazards are not overlooked.
The financial impact, through insurance rates, of SUVs on the drivers
of other types of vehicles is examined in depth.
How magazine reviews of SUVs are written (and how companies pamper
journalists) is also explained.
There are tons of quotes from auto industry executives and engineers,
and there are references to scientific research.
Overall, this book presents a very thorough analysis of the SUV
phenomenon: history, legality, environment, safety, finances, politics,
marketing, cultural trends, future, etc.
This is some of the best non-fiction in recent memory.
Read it. It won't disappoint you.
Heavy Implications of "Light Trucks"
As other reviews of this book indicate, advocates and opponents of
S.U.V.s ("light trucks") will probably never agree about its
role in contemporary society.
What I found most illuminating in Bradsher's book is his analysis of the
vehicle's social, economic, and political history during the last 60 years.
The current S.U.V. "boom" is undeniable. How to explain it?
The S.U.V. contradicts recent movements to reduce air pollution while
increasing traffic safety.
Why and how has that been possible? What does the appeal of the S.U.V.
to so many different people reveal about contemporary values?
These are among the questions to which Bradsher responds and his answers
are thought-provoking, at times upsetting.
According to his account, very powerful forces in "Washington"
and "Detroit" (used as generic terms just as "Hollywood"
is used elsewhere) have achieved legislation which is beneficial both to
those who sell and to those who purchase S.U.V.s.
Bradsher argues that various concessions (e.g. luxury tax exemptions)
are not in the general public's interest. No one denies the economic power
of S.U.V.s: A single Ford factory in Michigan produced $11-billion in
annual S.U.V. sales which is about equal to McDonald's global sales.
But how safe are they? How cost-efficient are they?
Bradsher's answers to these questions help to explain his comment that
"Perhaps the saddest part of the S.U.V. boom is that it has been
so unnecessary."
A recent traffic accident in a suburb of Dallas resulted in the deaths
of several teenagers in an S.U.V.
Whether or not the accident is alcohol-related is a matter yet to be
determined.
I mention it because media coverage revealed what I had not previously
known: Those employed by municipal and state agencies are required to
complete special training before being allowed to drive larger S.U.V.s.
As one deputy fire chief explained, "You simply can't drive
the [name of large S.U.V.] the same way you drive a sedan. It's much too
dangerous, especially when you have to make a quick maneuver."
This single traffic accident proves nothing but the need for special
training (at least to drive larger S.U.V.s) is for me indicative of
an issue which has not as yet received the public attention it deserves.
Whether or not Bradsher's book has much impact remains to be seen. My
guess is that "the world's most dangerous vehicles"
will continue to be among the most popular (and most profitable)
vehicles sold.
Thanks to Bradsher's book, I now understand "how they got that
way." No doubt I will continue to ride in S.U.V.s driven by family
members. Also, I will continue to feel intimidated by other S.U.V.s (as
I am by tractor trailers) when surrounded by them in traffic.
And yes, I will resent those whose S.U.V.s take up so much room that
smaller vehicles (such as mine) cannot squeeze in next to them in most
parking lots.
SUV owners need to wake up
Mr. Rockatansky, did you even read this book? You seem to think that
you're safer in your SUV, when it's quite clear from the mountain of
statistical information presented in this book that you are not.
Unfortunately, while you're being deluded by macho sheet metal, and
misleading advertising into thinking you drive a safe truck, the rest
of us have to pay for it. Your truck is far more deadly to others than
a car, and the numbers show it.
As for people who think they can drive carefully and avoid rollovers and
other situations where an SUV would be unstable -- why do you think they
call them ACCIDENTS? You can't predict when a child is going to race out
in front of your car, or when you'll have to swerve to avoid an oncoming
drunk any better than you can tell when the stock market's going to recover.
Drive up 70 West of Denver after a snowstorm and just count the number
of rolled SUV's. Last time I counted 7 within a four mile stretch. All
had either rolled on their sides, or in several cases, completely over.
One was an Expedition that minutes earlier had barreled past doing 60,
even though you could barely see 100 yards in the swirling snow and ice.
Several cars were spun out, but not one had rolled.
If you really want 4 wheel drive, or AWD (that is one glaring mistake
in the book--they are very different) get an AWD car or station wagon.
It's all most people will ever need.
SUV's are ridiculous wastes. Wastes of gas, metal, air, and tragically,
lives. Detroit should be ashamed.
Maybe someday there will be a class action lawsuit and somebody will at
least start to pay. Detroit's making itself out to be big tobacco of the
future if this keeps up.
SUVs are No Safer, So Opt Out of the Highway Arms Race
Keith Bradsher's lively, lucid and fascinating new book on sport utility
vehicles is a major milestone and wake-up call for automotive safety.
Bradsher shows how these gas-guzzling highway behemoths arose from a long
history of special deals for the domestic automotive industry in the form
of import taxes, subsidies and countless regulatory loopholes, with
automakers left off the hook for everything from miles-per-gallon and
emissions standards to safety protections.
The tragic result of this piling-on of self-dealing and special favors,
as well as the industry's SUV marketing juggernaut, is the spread of this
most dangerous vehicle, which fails to protect its own occupants and poses
a serious menace to others on the road.
The loopholes also create an SUV cash cow for automakers, who are able to
zcut corners -- manufacturing shoddy vehicles on existing pickup-truck
chassis -- and to grossly increase profits in the absence of rules
requiring even basic safety and environmental features.
In producing these pickups masquerading as yuppie fantasy vehicles, the
automakers neglected years of highway safety research and created vehicles
deliberately designed to look boxy, macho and frightening.
But, in a crash, the high bumper, stiff frame and steel-beam construction
of SUVs override cars and roadside guardrails.
By failing to absorb crash energy or to crumple as they should, they can
ram into other motorists and shock their own occupants' bodies. And their
high, tippy design and weak roofs place SUV drivers at risk of death or
paralysis in a rollover crash.
As if this body count were not enough, the proliferation of SUVs is also
a disaster for the environment. Because of the weak rules governing fuel
economy and emissions standards for light trucks, the explosion of SUVs
has begun to turn back the clock on recent pollution reductions, including
emissions of carbon dioxide, which causes global warming.
Bradsher documents the enormous, undue influence of automakers and their
unions on Capitol Hill, showing how the industry blocked new regulations
over and over again.
Bradsher also points out that as SUVs start to flood the used-car market
and new SUV sales increase, the next wave of consequences will be even
more devastating.
In this spreading highway "arms race," more consumers may feel
they must compete by up-sizing the vehicles they buy, and less experienced
drivers will be behind the wheel of these hard-to-handle trucks.
So don't believe the auto industry's hype on SUVs, or its attempts to
squash the truth-telling in this important book.
As years of work at Public Citizen promoting automotive safety has
shown us, no issue will be more critical to shaping the future of
safety on our roads.
Bradsher, a Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times reporter with a years
of experience covering Detroit, chronicles this growing debacle in an
accessible, clear and impeccably informed style.
His book is the clarion call necessary to continue the drive toward
safety begun by Ralph Nader in Unsafe At Any Speed, and is a
must-read for anyone concerned about this massive step backward and
the real and deadly costs of American's new highway narcissism.
-- Laura MacCleery Counsel for Auto Safety and Regulatory
Affairs, Public Citizen
About time the truth comes out
Thank goodness someone finally says the emperor has no clothes, the
most popular vehicle is dangerous to the driver and others on the
road... and to the environment... Unpatriotic people drive these
things - people who do not care if we are dependent on the middle east.
Selfish people drive these cars who do not care about the safety of
those of us in "common cars" With those black windows and
massive steel surfaces, these drivers menace us all on the road and
in the parking lots!
Thus far these drivers are in the minority, but it is a fast- growing
minority and will soon be a majority if we do not make our voices heard.
Next time you can't see an exit sign, or scan the sides of the road for
deer or pedestrians, or can't see your way out of a parking slot - let
others know what you think of SUV's Now we have a good reference book!
Now we need a web site!
SUV Owners, Time to face the facts!
SUV Owners, it is time to face the facts!
Your vehicles use up precious resources and pollute the air at an alarming
rate, kill and maim thousands of automobile drivers, increase traffic
congestion, and drive up insurance rates.... all for the sake of being
stylish!
Shame!
Bradsher tells it like it is. This is the indisputable truth that the
automakers wished you didn't know!
More books such as this will probably follow. Eventually, the idea will
catch on, and the "Selfish Ugly Vehicle" will be legislated
out of existence! The sooner the better!
Finally...
finally a book out that voices how I've felt about SUV's over the past
few years!
I'm tired of veering out of the way when an SUV comes careening full speed
on my side of the road, when I have the right away.
I'm tired of driving behind SUV drivers that toodle along in stop and go
traffic and I'm unable to see around them.
I'm tired of SUV's hogging parking spaced.. I could go on and on. I
always thought they were a safety hazard and gas hogs, bad for the
environment, now we have proof.
Drivers of SUV's should pay for a special license like truck drivers do.
You must read this book, especially if you drive an SUV.
This book was a revelation, even to someone already deeply uneasy about
SUVs. I'd known that SUVs guzzled gas, polluted excessively, and were a
hazard to other drivers. But I'd thought the trade-off was that SUV
drivers, overall, might make themselves safer.
But Keith Bradsher makes eloquently clear, in abundant detail, how much
SUV drivers endanger themselves, too, through a greatly increased chance
of rollover, greater stopping distance, and other factors.
And they're killing and maiming themselves, and wreaking havoc on
the nation's highways, for what? For an inefficient, clunky
vehicle with poor maneuverability that, in most models, lacks the cargo
space of a minivan.
And four-wheel drive? Off-roading? That's a joke. Bradsher cites a
typical ``off road'' adventure -- a woman who needed her Lexus SUV to
get over curbs to park at Beverly Hills lawn parties.
How was this national nightmare created? Bradsher is eloquent in explaining
this, too: advertising, advertising, advertising, plus Americans' unfortunate
tendency to embrace, whole-hog, the latest fad.
And how did regulators and lawmakers let it happen? As Bradsher details so
brilliantly, everybody was afraid of hurting a vital American industry, no
matter the horrific cost.
Critics accuse Bradsher of biased ranting, but this book is anything but
a rant: He piles fact upon fact, quoting many industry insiders,
painstakingly building his damning case.
I challenge all open-minded SUV drivers to read this book -- and then have
the nerve to go back on the road with their deadly vehicles.
Garbage Trucks for the Uninformed
It seems very human that people who are taken in by sales people parrot
the baloney.
SUV manufacturers want you to feel good about the superiority of the
safety of SUV's. Unfortunately, all you get is a feeling of Superiority.
I am glad someone has come forward with this book about bad choices by
bad drivers.
SUV's are a horrible investment, unsafe and usually haul around a single
occupant-sounds like a truck to me.
Darwin will prevail
This book has shown me that the droves of ill-mannered SUV drivers will
eventually eradicate themselves due to
High and Mighty
This is a well-written and well-researched book. The evidence for the
danger posed by SUV to riders in other cars has never been so well
presented. Anyone who cares about automobile safety needs to read this
book.
The Truth is Offensive
It seems like the reviews from this book are either hot or cold. I would
probably be offended if I drove an SUV. However, I don't for the same
facts that are brought forth in this book.
The auto industry does not want the public to know the facts and statistics
about SUVs. The facts cut profits from their lobby power and billion dollar
SUV industry.
The automotive industry and SUVs have a great parallel to tobacco and the
tobacco companies. Cover-up the facts to make maximum profit.
It is great that we have people in the media who will take risks to expose
the truth to the informed American public.
Learn the Truth From this Book!
Keith Bradsher is brutally honest in this fearless book about the worst
cars on the road in America today.
He's done his research and what he tells us is not only scary, but
fascinating.
This book definitely is worth buying if you drive a Civic.
I praise you Mr. Bradsher! You've given us the vitriol to speak out
against these Stupid Ugly Vehicles! Fight the power!
Worth the read, fair and honest
Despite what other reviews have to say, Bradsher offers a level-headed
and fact-based look into how SUVs have grown so popular and the effects
they are having on our roads and environment.
Other reviews can talk about environmental extremism, but the fact remains:
These are facts and Bradsher presents them honestly.
SUV Owners Are Mad!
SUV owners are mad! Mad at Keith Bradsher's controversial new book,
High and Mighty SUV's: the World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and
How They Got That Way
In addition to Bradsher's historical survey of how SUVs got to be so large
and so profitable, he's managed to produce the most important look at
motor vehicle safety since Ralph Nader's 1965 landmark Unsafe At
Any Speed.
Many of us owe Mr. Nader our lives, even though Unsafe At Any Speed
was attacked in much the same manner as Bradsher's Book is now.
Today even Detroit's Big Three agree that Nader spoke the truth 37 years
ago, keep that in mind when you read the negative reviews of Bradsher's
book.
The vast majority of Americans trust the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) to keep unsafe cars and trucks off America's
roadways. I don't, NHTSA's relationship with Detroit remains much the
same as Arthur Andersen's is to Enron.
The sport utility vehicle is a uniquely American phenomenon originally
created for the Army during WWII. Since then it has become the vehicle of
choice for middle and upper class executives and soccer moms, few of
whom (less than 5%) will ever use its off-road capabilities.
This book should be required reading for anyone thinking about purchasing
an SUV, especially since most current SUV owners mistakenly believe
themselves to be safer than motorists driving regular cars.
Bradsher points out that SUVs contribute to more than 3000 needless
highway deaths annually - a toll greater than that of Sept 11th's World
Trade Center disaster.
The public needs to know that rollover death rates for sport-utes are
double those of regular passenger cars and that SUVs kill non-passengers
as well, causing an additional 2,000 deaths a year in vehicles they strike.
Less well known is the tendency of SUVs such as the Ford Explorer to flip
over after striking a guardrail or having a tire fail - problems that
don't effect cars.
Combined with the facts that sport-utilities pollute more, are harder to
control, utilize under-sized brakes and consume more fuel than cars (all
because of increased weight), SUV buyers need to think twice before
purchasing these tanks on wheels.
He concludes, "SUVs represent the biggest menace to public
safety and the environment that the auto industry has produced since
the bad old days of the 1960s."
Not surprisingly, Detroit doesn't want prospective SUV buyers to read
this book. Fearful of biting the hand that feeds them (SUVs account for
the majority of the Big Three's profits), automotive journalists have
publicly dismissed the book as nothing more than one man's Jihad
against SUVs.
In case you're unaware, auto manufacturers give automotive journalists
free use of a new car 24/7 in addition to frequent press junkets to Europe
and elsewhere to test-drive or observe their latest models. No wonder they
started attacking the book weeks before it came out.
As the publisher of
crashtest.com,
smartmotorist.com,
smartcarguide.com, and
carshownews.com I'm no stranger
to the SUV controversy, as I've been campaigning against SUVs online for
the past 7 years.
Bradsher is a well respected, Pulitzer Prize nominated reporter, known
primarily for his investigation of the Ford-Firestone rollover scandal.
High and Mighty accurately portrays the facts as I know them and
provides insight into the way Detroit and the Federal Government cooperate
behind closed doors. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested
in cars, trucks or highway safety.
I couldn't agree more...
The automotive industry argues that people are using SUVs for jobs that
cannot be done with cars like carrying/carpooling 6 or more passengers,
towing boats, campers, and trailers, hauling home improvement supplies,
and safely traversing in inclement weather, but people living in big
cities know that's hogwash.
I live in NYC and I've never seen an SUV hauling anything behind it. And
they tend to have one driver, yakking on a cell phone, and no passengers!
Read High and Mighty and learn what is a myth and
what is true about SUVs.
In the tradition of Fast Food Nation
High and Mighty will do for the auto industry, what Fast Food
Nation did for the fast food industry: Expose all of its harmful
shortcomings.
High and Mighty shows that SUVs are NOT merely a guilty pleasure,
they are dangerous and costly.
If Mr. Bradsher's many critics would actually read High and Mighty,
they would see that the classification of SUV owners as being vain,
insecure drivers is NOT his opinion, it is taken directly from the market
research conducted by the car manufacturers.
Yes, the very people you are buying your SUV from have stereotyped you...
Intelligent readers, pro and anti SUV alike, I strongly urge you to buy
High and Mighty, and to read it. Learn the truth!
High and Mighty
Honestly, at this point I have only read excerpts from our Detroit paper
but I plan on reading this book. I drive a VW Beetle and the larger SUV's
(Escalade, Navigator, most of the Ford SUV's) look like the T-rex chasing
me down from Jurassic Park.
It's scary and can be intimidating.
I also find the amount of SUV drivers speed and never use turn signals.
I don't think they put turn signals on Ford SUV's as a matter of fact.
Enjoy your living room on wheels just stay at least 2 feet away from the
back of my car as we're driving 50 mph down our suburban streets not the 2
inches it seems you like to drive from me.
Down With SUVs
HIGH AND MIGHTY is an outstanding book, that documents the many
negatives and downfalls of the SUV.
Keith Bradsher does an excellent job of explaining his points and
conclusions with well researched evidence.
Bradsher is aiming to persuade his readers not to give into the false
sense of security that SUVs imply. He wants the reader to know "the
dark side of the SUV", one part of Bradsher's book.
HIGH AND MIGHTY has three parts with in his book.
First Bradsher starts with The Birth of The SUV, then he moves into The
Dark Side Of The SUV. Both these parts explain the beginnings and the
problems of the SUV in many detailed ways.
The last part of Bradsher's book is The Future of The SUV. This part
touches upon the future drivers of the SUV, an increase in SUVs, and
also solutions that can help with America's SUV problem.
Inconvenient for SUV folks, but solid nonetheless,
Like other high-raters, I'm not persuaded by Bradsher on every point.
Sometimes he describes SUV design progress in ways that are quite
reassuring, even in the middle of arguments for the SUV's poor safety.
A passage about Expedition braking distances ends with Ford's admission
and a promise to do better, and some other quoted SUV distances are only
8 or 11 feet more than regulation (that's half a car-length, though
-- a collision!).
But overall, "High and Mighty" is a reasoned, clear-headed
book, well-researched and told in plain, straight-forward language. It is
full of quotations from auto execs and engineers, researchers, and even
the words of auto magazines -- and they themselves, the SUV makers, are
saying all of the things that the make the one-star reviewers violently
angry, things about rollover odds, centers of gravity, dangerous after-market
grille guards, fuel efficiency, Americans buying huge cars to make up
for poor driving (page 107), even the dictates of SUV fashion.
When Bradsher asks Ford's truck engineering director why there's a huge
excess of headroom in some SUV's and full-sized pickups, the director
responds, "In Texas, you have to be able to wear your cowboy
hat" (page 245). Ah, utility!
I found especially interesting the chapters "Reptile Dreams"
(about how auto makers used research and interviews to suit their cars
to a vain, safety-ignorant clique) and "Trouble for Cities"
(about the ludicrous incompatibility between SUV's and their biggest
markets, the big urban centers).
And Bradsher has other valid warnings, like how aging SUV's will flood
the used car market in years to come, filling our highways with large,
ungainly, unbalanced, and mechanically aging heavyweights not up to the
rigors of day-to-day driving.
Problems even he admits are being worked out in the last year or so will
persist as those older SUV's -- the majority -- are sold used.
The chapter called "The Next Drivers of SUV's," about SUV-hungry
teenagers, makes those used bombers a terrifying prospect.
In sum, while the book is deeply critical of SUV's, it is not groundlessly
so. Indeed, one low-rating reader says Bradsher blew a chance to write
something as good as Fast-Food Nation, and I would say Bradsher actually
came very close.
As of January 26, 2004, two thirds of the reader reviews for this
eye-opening book are (properly, I think) four and five star reviews.
The rest are basically vehement, wounded defenses of the SUV from the
standpoint of violence, ignorance, and the very sort of festering
self-absorption that the SUV's makers say populate their giddily
manipulated market-base.
As a reviewer below has noted [
Amazon.COM], Bradsher is quoting
the auto industry's own research about SUV buyers' strange admixture of
ego and insecurity. Bradsher isn't posing his own guesses about SUV
owner personality, but rather quoting the very guys who sell SUV's to
America.
One angry one-star reviewer tells Bradsher to listen to auto engineers
and do some real research: this reader obviously has not read the book
(or even opened it randomly) or even its press, for Bradsher did exactly
that, spoke to many times more engineers and auto chiefs than any of us
could possibly name, and for many years.
Many of the low-reviewers just fall back on long-winded, self-righteous,
poisonous rhetoric, which is ironic since those reviewers swear the book
itself is unforgivably guilty of being poisonously and self-righteously
political.
Their SUV defenses are as devoid of real (versus merely assertive)
supporting details as they hilariously accuse the book of being.
One reviewer actually fantasizes Bradsher standing in front of his SUV,
ripe for the killing.
Such nauseating responses do not disprove the case, though; they only
prove how necessary this book is, and what the government and regulators
and even the auto industry itself are up against.
Excellent Book, Whiny Critics
As soon as I started reading this well-researched and interesting book,
I could hear the right-wingers grinding their teeth..."Stupid commie
liberal pinko pantywaist trying to tell ME what to drive?! This isn't
Russia...blah, blah, blah..."
And sure enough, that's the tone in a number of critical reviews posted
here.
Well folks, Bradsher isn't proposing banning SUVs, but he does propose
ways to make them safer, and suggests for most people, a large sedan or
a minivan would serve them just as well, and be a lot safer for the driver
and everyone else on the road.
Although this thoughtful book is well worth a read, I don't expect any of
its suggested reforms to be implemented any time soon. Certainly not with
our current crop of leaders...
Reptiles rule! Road warriors in the automotive arms race ...
Like handguns, sport utility vehicles represent a major cultural faultline
in America today. In this brilliant book, High and Mighty, SUVs: The
World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way, Keith
Bradsher clearly explains why the SUV has become so controversial.
In the process, he makes a convincing case for discouraging anyone from
ever choosing to buy or drive one of these so-called "light
trucks."
First of all, however, it must be said that SUVs tend to arouse powerful
emotions and bring out the worst in people on both sides of the debate.
Those against SUVs often adopt an infuriating tone of sanctimonious
self-righteousness and moral superiority on the subject.
On the other hand, SUV enthusiasts frequently seem unwilling or unable to
accept the unpleasant facts about their cherished, monster-sized chariots.
For the record, I am horrified by how much SUVs contribute to air pollution,
the consumption of our natural resources, and the safety hazards on our
roads, but I also have friends who own SUVs. And while I would never want
one myself, I respect their freedom to have a different opinion.
This is something many SUV opponents apparently fail to understand. It is
just plain stupid for The Detroit Project to air asinine TV commercials
that equate driving an SUV with sponsoring international terrorism. You
cannot guilt-trip people into changing their behavior.
This is where High and Mighty performs such a great service. It is
an excellent and even-handed work. Rather than merely preaching to the
converted, Bradsher puts forth a balanced and persuasive argument that
appeals to the reader's common sense.
As a former "New York Times" bureau chief in Detroit, Bradsher
developed valuable contacts within the American automobile industry, and
he goes out of his way to be fair to the many chief executives, mechanical
engineers, and marketers he so carefully cultivated as sources.
Critics who condemn this book as being biased or one-sided are revealing
more about their own insecurity than accurately describing the author's
commitment to professional standards of journalism.
Yes, it is true that Bradsher espouses a particular point of view (and it
is obvious that he considers SUVs an ecological and public health menace),
but he also gives the Big Three automakers credit where credit is due.
For example, he devotes an entire chapter to covering how Ford chairman
Bill Ford tried to clean up the fuel emissions and improve the gas mileage
of his company's SUVs, only to find his efforts derailed when 'The Ford
Explorer-Firestone Tire Debacle' exploded in his face and brought an
abrupt end to his good intentions.
Indeed, the reviewers who accuse Bradsher of having a liberal ax to grind
should surely be honest enough to admit that he reserves some of his most
scathing criticism for environmentalist tree-huggers.
According to Bradsher, the environmentalists are more or less a loosely
organized demographic of dilettantes and hypocrites who mean well but are
incapable of helping to solve the problems caused by SUVs.
He essentially says that groups like the Sierra Club were slow to recognize
and respond to the destructive impact of these vehicles because:
Unfortunately, SUV die-hards appear not to want to be confused with facts.
One of the most interesting parts of High and Mighty is the chapter
called "Reptile Dreams," where Bradsher uses the auto
industry's own psychological profiles of the "typical"
customer who purchases an SUV.
It is not a pretty picture.
Generally speaking, the market for these "light trucks" is
composed of people who place appearance over practicality and style over
substance.
Although certainly not true of everyone who gets an SUV, this impression
would seem to be borne out by the increasingly menacing designs of the
bigger vehicles and the overheated language many SUV owners use to defend
them.
For instance, as with gun nuts, a lot of SUV fans love to talk
endlessly about their "right" to drive (or "shoot")
whatever they want, but you never hear them acknowledge their concomitant
responsibilities to their community or to the other people around
them.
This is an ultimately unsustainable approach to life in a civilized
society and it raises disturbing questions about the future of our country.
Bradsher is basically a business reporter at heart, though, and he leaves
these troubling implications largely unexplored.
He talks at length about how SUVs are accidents waiting to happen (among
other reasons, because they are so tall that they block the view of the
car drivers and pedestrians behind them), but he does not recommend any
actions that could be taken to reduce the popularity of these vehicles.
On the contrary, Bradsher grimly refers to the paradox of "network
externalities" (best defined by the old adage, "If you can't
beat 'em, join 'em") in which he speculates that the number of SUVs
on the road may soon reach such a critical mass that people break down and
buy one just out of sheer survival instinct or a desire to conform.
Americans like their vehicles to be as big as possible, and now the
logical consequences of that mentality are proving more lethal than ever.
In that context, High and Mighty is a meticulously researched and
well written warning about how corporate greed, misguided regulatory
loopholes, and consumer vanity combine to keep traffic fatalities so
depressingly common.
For anyone with an open mind, this book will be a refreshing change from
the commercial cheerleading of most of the automotive press. High and
Mighty is 468 pages of subversion that challenges the conventional
wisdom of "bigger is better" and will make you reconsider what
you drive and why.
Bigger is Better: An Archetypal American Obsession
This book belongs on the mandatory reading list of any American who is
concerned with America's relentless outlook on the entire planet as little
more than a mass of raw manufacturing material for ultimate conversion
into consumer superfluity.
The focus of this book is specific to our present cultural obsession with
large SUV type vehicles, but the basic source of the concern goes much
deeper and penetrates to the very core of contemporary American cultural
values and economic philosophy.
With less than 300 years of social history, the United States was for the
greater part of that period essentially a continuously expanding frontier
nation, blessed with seemingly endless resources and no perceptible limits
of any sort on either economic or demographic development.
Now, as the stark reality of palpably finite limits settles in on our
nation, the average, unreflective 'Texas-style' American finds himself
wincing under the pressure of uncomfortable and unavoidable constraints,
as our increasingly congested population finds itself in a daily battle
for a share of all available things (i.e. resources, lifestyle, luxuries,
material goods, basic amenities, products, real estate, et al).
Amazingly, this same 'average American' simultaneously doesn't seem to
understand why he/she feels so pressured, squeezed, and pummeled as the
value of everything continues to rise beyond the affordable and the
formerly accessible becomes increasingly dear.
In other far more densely populated parts of the world (such as Europe,
Japan, etc.), the harsh realities of finite resources have for centuries
forced populations to reflexively think within a set of constraints that
are inherently economical, conservative in nature, and to value that
which is small, unobtrusive, and yet ultra-utilitarian in nature over
that which is wasteful.
Thus, the Japanese concept of 'Shibumi' (or "small, beautiful
thing"), and the philosophy of E. F. Schumacher ("Small is
beautiful").
In the USA, on the other hand, the entire national economic and cultural
paradigm has historically consisted of a continuously expanding and
limitless economic process of remorselessly exploiting all available
resources to exhaustion.
The American obsession with the ever-larger, ever-more bulky 'Sport Utility
Vehicle' is at its most basic level simply another thoroughly ingrained
symptom of this national "bigger is better" disease that our
economic system has consequently grown into, over the past 100 years.
When reading this book, one needs to come to terms at the onset with the
fact that if it weren't for this historical American economic status
quo, quite likely everyone would be driving 1979 Honda Civic station
wagons, rather than grossly obese Mercury Navigators and Ford Expeditions.
Not coincidentally, I personally drive a bright orange 1979 Honda Civic
station wagon myself, a beautifully practical and utilitarian urban
vehicle that meets 90% of all my intra and extra metropolitan needs.
I consider it (not without some humorous irony) a "Small Urban
Vehicle" that is superbly suited to meet the parameters for which
all motor vehicles should be designed & engineered: function, utility,
simplicity, efficiency, environmental purity, and economy of operation.
I would no more own a monster SUV than I would consciously pollute or
litter the environment, but the 'average American' still has not been
forced to confront the reality that EVERYTHING in life is subject to the
laws of economic conservation. To the contrary and not surprisingly, the
auto manufacturers find it contraindicative to their profit objectives
to foster any awareness of this sort; if anything, they actively exploit
and deliberately cultivate a sense of wastefulness on the part of the
consumer (not exactly news, is it?) that simply speeds us further down
the highway towards ultimate economic disaster.
SUVs are not the safest vehicles!
I was reading Mr. Rockatansky's review and realized his thoughts were
consistent with the general populations' views of SUVs.
In fact, while the 4WD vehicle might give you better traction, our society
does not train drivers in driving vehicles with high centers of gravity
in bad conditions.
In fact, on one snowy winter day while slowly driving my Pathfinder to work
I counted 23 SUVs, 4 vans, and 2 cars in various stages of accidents.
The cars and vans were just spun out in the shoulder, the SUVs, however,
were almost all (19 of them) showing signs of roll-over.
The problem was that all of those SUV drivers thought "I have 4WD. I
am invincible." and found out that 4WD doesn't prevent accidents in
the snow.
Yes, in emergencies, calls go out to get 4WD because they can go places
a car cannot. But the vast majority of people driving these vehicles behave
as if they are the only ones on the road and you just have to give way to
them.
On the subject of Mr. Bradsher only picking on the big three. Well, just
look at an average parking lot and compare the sizes of the SUVs from
different manufacturers. On average, the big three vehicles will be much
larger and with higher bumpers.
I feel small in my Pathfinder, which only goes out in the snow and when
I go camping (I'm one of the few that actually take my 4WD into the
mountains and off the paved roads). I am terrified every time I see an
Excursion near me when I drive my sedan.
The front bumper of one of those only comes down to the bottom of my
windshield. If I were ever in an accident with one of those monsters,
I would be killed, no questions.
Overall, I think its great the work Mr. Bradsher did to uncover the
problems with the NTSHA (is that the correct abbr.?) policing the auto
industry. There is too much of that going on in all kinds of other
industries.
High and Mighty: SUVs -- The World's Most Dangerous
Vehicles and How They Got That Way by Keith Bradsher
Introduction
Sport utility vehicles have taken over America's roads during the last
decade, and are on their way to taking over the world's roads. The
four-wheel-drive vehicles offer a romantic vision of outdoor adventure
to deskbound baby boomers. The larger models provide lots of room for
families and their gear. Their size gives them an image of safety. The
popularity of SUVs has revived the economy of the upper Midwest and has
helped power the American economy since the early 1990s.
Yet the proliferation of SUVs has created huge problems. Their safe image
is an illusion. They roll over too easily, killing and injuring occupants
at an alarming rate, and they are dangerous to other road users, inflicting
catastrophic damage to cars that they hit and posing a lethal threat to
pedestrians. Their "green" image is also a mirage, because they
contribute far more than cars to smog and global warming. Their gas-guzzling
designs increase American dependence on imported oil at a time when
anti-American sentiment is prevalent in the Middle East.
The success of SUVs comes partly from extremely cynical design and marketing decisions by automakers and partly
from poorly drafted government regulations. The manufacturers' market
researchers have decided that millions of baby boomers want an adventurous
image and care almost nothing about putting others at risk to achieve it,
so they have told auto engineers to design vehicles accordingly. The result
has been unusually tall, menacing vehicles like the Dodge Durango, with its
grille resembling a jungle cat's teeth and its flared fenders that look like
bulging muscles in a savage jaw.
Automakers are able to produce behemoths that guzzle gas, spew pollution,
and endanger their occupants and other motorists because of loopholes in
government regulations.
When the United States imposed safety, environmental and tax rules on
automobiles in the 1970s, much tougher standards were set for cars than
for pickup trucks, vans and the off-road vehicles that have since evolved
into sport utility vehicles.
Many of these loopholes still exist, and have spread to other countries
that have copied American regulations. The result has been a public policy
disaster, with automakers given an enormous and unintended incentive to
shift production away from cars and toward inefficient, unsafe, heavily
polluting SUVs.
No automotive safety issue has ever captured the nation's attention with
such intensity as the many rollover crashes of Ford Explorer sport utility
vehicles equipped with Firestone tires that failed. Ford and Firestone
have been rightly condemned for cutting corners in the design and
manufacturing of the Explorer and the tires, and for doing little for
several years as some of their employees learned of problems with the
tires.
Yet terrible as the tire-related crashes have been, killing as many as 300
people worldwide over the last decade, they are just a tiny part of the
safety and environmental problems associated with sport utility vehicles.
These problems are already needlessly killing thousands of Americans
each year. Hundreds of people are also dying unnecessarily in other
countries that are starting to use large numbers of SUVs.
The height and width of the typical SUV make it hard for car drivers behind
it to see the road ahead, increasing the chance that they will be unable to
avoid a crash, especially a multivehicle pileup.
The stiff, trucklike underbody of an SUV does little to absorb the force
of collisions with trees and other roadside objects.
Its size increases traffic congestion, because car drivers tend to give
sport utility vehicles a lot of room, so fewer vehicles can get through
each green light at an intersection.
Most of the nation's roadside guardrails were built for low-riding cars,
and may flip an SUV on impact instead of deflecting it safely back into
its lane of traffic.
The trucklike brakes and suspensions of SUVs mean that their stopping
distances are longer than for a family car, making it less likely that an
SUV driver will be able to stop before hitting a car.
And when SUVs do hit pedestrians, they strike them high on the body,
inflicting worse injuries than cars, which have low bumpers that flip
pedestrians onto the relatively soft hood.
For all their deadliness to other motorists, SUVs are no safer than cars
for their own occupants. Indeed, they are less safe. The occupant
death rate per million SUVs is actually 6 percent higher than the occupant
death rate per million cars.
The biggest SUVs, which pose the greatest hazards to other motorists, have
an 8 percent higher death rate for their occupants than minivans and the
larger midsize cars like the Ford Taurus and Pontiac Grand Prix.{BN1}
How is this possible? SUV occupants simply die differently, being much more
likely than car occupants to die in rollovers, as well as being much more
likely to send other drivers to the grave.
SUV occupants also face a higher risk of paralysis.
While no national studies have been done, statewide studies in Arkansas
and Utah have found that rollovers account for nearly half of all cases
of paralysis. Put another way, rollovers cause almost as many paralyzing
spinal injuries as all illnesses, falls and every other form of traffic
accident combined-even though rollovers make up less than 1 percent of
all crashes.
Worst of all, we have only seen the beginnings of the SUV problem, which
is certain to become much bigger and much deadlier in the years to come.
The safety hazards of SUVs have been mitigated until now because they have
mainly attracted the safest drivers in America.
The principal buyers of SUVs in the 1990s and early 2000s have been baby
boomers in their 40s, with some sales to people in their 30s and 50s.
These affluent first owners of SUVs tend to be the most cautious drivers
on the road, because they are mostly middle-aged people who have plenty
of driving experience and still have acute vision, hearing and mental
faculties.
Half of them also have families, so they are much less likely to be out
driving in the wee hours of the morning, when crash rates soar.
There are 20 million SUVs on the nation's roads and more than half of them
are less than five years old.
Three-quarters of the full-size SUVs, the largest models, are also under
five years old.
As affluent, cautious-driving baby boomers begin to sell their SUVs or turn
them in at the end of leases, the used-vehicle market will be flooded with
these vehicles.
Falling prices will make them more attractive to younger drivers and
drivers with poor safety records-including drunk drivers.
The only thing more frightening for traffic safety experts than a
drunk or young person behind the wheel of a new SUV is a drunk or young
person behind the wheel of an old SUV with failing brakes and other
maintenance problems.
SUVs are terrible not just for traffic safety but for the environment.
Because of their poor gas mileage, they emit a lot of carbon dioxide, a
gas linked to global warming.
A midsize SUV puts out roughly 50 percent more carbon dioxide per mile
than the typical car, while a full-size SUV may emit twice as much.
The Sierra Club likes to point out that driving a full-size SUV for a
year instead of a midsize car burns as much extra energy as leaving a
refrigerator door open for six years.
SUVs also spew up to 5.5 times as much smog-causing gases per mile as cars.
Automakers made surprising progress in the 1980s and 1990s in improving
the fuel economy of cars, but these gains are being slowly erased by the
rise of SUVs.
Chrysler boasts that its full-size Concorde sedan now has better
acceleration and exactly the same interior room as a 1978 Chrysler New
Yorker luxury sedan, but gets nearly the same gas mileage as a 1978 Dodge
Omni subcompact, 23 miles per gallon.
Yet sales of the Concorde and other large cars have eroded, displaced by
full-size SUVs like Chrysler's Dodge Durango-which get the same mileage
as the 1978 New Yorker, about 14 miles to the gallon.
We have only seen the beginning of the SUV problem so far.
Traditional SUVs, which use the same underbodies as pickup trucks, have
climbed from 1.78 percent of new vehicles sold in 1982 to 6.7 percent in
1991 and 16.1 percent in 1997, and have since leveled off at about 17
percent.
The change has been even swifter at the luxury end of the auto market, with
SUVs rising from less than one-twentieth of the market in 1990 to half the
luxury market by 1996. But SUVs still make up only 10 percent of the
vehicles currently registered in the United States.
Most of the automobiles built in the 1980s are still on the road, and these
are mostly cars, so this has been holding down the percentage of all
vehicles on the road that are SUVs.
As older model years of vehicles are scrapped, they are being replaced with
new model years in which a much larger proportion of the vehicles are SUVs.
This will eventually make SUVs nearly twice as common as they are now. Add
in the shift toward less responsible drivers as SUVs become more common in
the used-vehicle market and the result is a frightening threat to automotive
safety and the environment in the years ahead.
So how many people is the SUV boom already needlessly killing? My
best estimate is that the replacement of cars with SUVs is currently
causing close to 3,000 needless deaths a year in the United States - as
many people annually as died in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade
Center in New York on September 11, 2001.
Roughly 1,000 extra deaths occur each year in SUVs that roll over,
compared to the expected rollover death rate if these motorists had been
driving cars.
About 1,000 more people die each year in cars hit by SUVs than would occur
if the cars had been hit by other cars. And up to 1,000 additional people
succumb each year to respiratory problems because of the extra smog caused
by SUVs.
This conservative estimate excludes a lot of problems that are hard to
calculate, like SUVs' harm to pedestrians, or their contribution to global
warming. It also excludes the growing problems overseas, where SUV sales
are also starting to rise, especially in Europe, South America and Australia.
Government intervention in the automobile market, through safety and
environmental regulations issued in the 1970s-and never adequately
updated since then-has made matters worse. The SUV boom is to a considerable
extent the result of a series of disastrous public policy mistakes that have
encouraged manufacturers to build gas-guzzling, pollution-belching, unsafe
SUVs instead of safe, clean, fuel-efficient cars.
SUVs are the world's most dangerous vehicles because they represent a new
model of personal transportation that is inherently less safe for road
users and more harmful to the environment than cars. SUVs also threaten
to displace cars because of a phenomenon known as "network
externalities."
This economic concept holds that if enough people start using a certain
product, everybody else will start buying the same product just for the
advantages of being able to work with people who already have the product.
Consumers will do this even if the product chosen is technologically
inferior to the alternatives.
The best example of network externalities lies in the computer industry.
Once enough people started using Microsoft DOS, and later Microsoft Windows,
then practically everybody had to use it, even though Apple arguably had a
much better product in its Macintoshes.
Another good example of network externalities lies in VHS video recorders.
They represent a less sophisticated technology than the Beta machines with
which they initially competed. But once enough people owned VHS video
recorders, most movie rentals became available in a VHS format and then
everybody had to buy VHS machines.
SUVs are inferior to cars in safety, pollution, comfort and driving
performance. Yet their sales have benefited from network externalities. It
is becoming harder and harder to see down the road while sitting in a car,
because of the impossibility of seeing through the tall SUVs, minivans and
pickups ahead in traffic.
At night, the glare from SUV headlights is blinding for car drivers.
Backing a car out of a parking place between two taller vehicles has become
an exercise in hope that no one is about to come barreling by.
The sheer size and menacing appearance of SUVs inevitably make car owners
feel less safe. The result has been a highway arms race.
If nothing is done to check this trend, automakers will gradually make more
and more people feel as though cars are obsolete.
The sale of SUVs is creating strong demand for yet more SUVs, as Ford
Explorers and Toyota Sequoias displace Ford Tauruses and Toyota Camrys
in garage after garage.
Advertising reinforces this trend. The auto industry completely dwarfs
every other industry in advertising, accounting for one in every seven
dollars of advertising in the United States and bankrolling the nation's
media to a remarkable extent, especially the television and magazine
industries.
The auto industry outspends on advertising the next three largest
industries combined: financial services, telecommunications (including
local, long-distance and cell phone service) and national restaurant
chains. A big chunk of the automakers' ad money has gone toward ads that
subtly or blatantly undermine people's confidence in cars.
Picking the most offensive SUV ad is hard, because there are so many
candidates. My favorite is the nearly full-page newspaper ad that Cadillac
ran for its huge Escalade in early 1999.
The Escalade was photographed from a point about five feet in front and
about two feet off the ground, so that the vehicle's huge grille looms
over the viewer. The windshield above is entirely black, giving no hint
of who inside is bearing down on the viewer. Trees are a blur of motion
around the sides of the vehicle but the SUV itself is in perfect focus
as it hurtles forward.
It looks just like what you might see in the last second of your life as you
looked out the side window of your car and suddenly realized that a big SUV
had failed to stop for a red light.
The text of the ad is even more frightening. "YIELD," it commands
at the top, in inch-high, underlined letters.
In half-inch letters under the Escalade is another warning, delivered in
parentheses: "(Please Move Immediately To The Right)" The large
type text below continues in the same tone: "You might as well give
in now.
Because this is the new Cadillac Escalade. The one luxury SUV so powerfully
zbuilt and intelligently equipped, it's designed to be, well, irresistible.
With the standard go-everywhere support of the OnStar system, Escalade
brings you virtually unlimited personal concierge services, emergency
assistance and directions, right at your fingertips.
And no other SUV in the world can make that claim. So tell the other luxury
SUVs to yield the right of way. Because Escalade is coming through."
Underneath was the Escalade slogan, in white lettering against a solid
black box. "Escalade: It's Good To Be The Cadillac."
You might be more likely to survive if you were in the Cadillac in the ad
than in whatever lower-riding car it was about to hit. But few people
reading the ad carefully could possibly conclude that "to be the
Cadillac" was "good" in a moral sense. Nor is it good for
public safety and the environment to have even some people "be the
Cadillac" in the sense of this ad.
The ad's advice for other drivers to yield is actually pretty good advice,
however, as the Escalade can be a hard vehicle to control even for an
experienced driver.
The steering is sluggish, the suspension vague and the brakes not as
effective as car brakes.
I climbed in one of the early Escalades in early 1999 at Detroit's airport
for a test drive, but was so appalled by its unresponsive steering that I
drove straight home.
I called Cadillac and asked them to pick up the vehicle and take it away.
Cadillac has improved the Escalade somewhat since I first drove it, but
it still has the nimbleness and ride quality of a pig on stilts.
While the Escalade's sheer bulk may provide some protection in collisions
with cars, that does not mean it is especially well designed for safety
in other crashes.
Regulators give it a so-so three-star rating (on a scale of one to five)
for driver survival in a frontal crash with another vehicle of the same
weight or with a solid object, like a bridge abutment.
Many large cars and minivans now carry five-star ratings and the rest
typically earn four stars. The regulators also took the extremely rare
step of noting that while thigh injuries are not included in calculating
survival odds, Escalade drivers are at unusually high risk of a fractured
femur in a serious frontal crash.
Cadillac, a division of General Motors, rushed the Escalade onto the market
in 1998, a little over a year after the Lincoln Navigator went on sale and
was an instant hit. To make the Escalade, GM essentially put lots of chrome
and optional equipment on a GMC Yukon SUV, which in turn is little more
than a fancy version of a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV.
The Tahoe, in turn, uses the underbody and a lot of other parts from the
full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. So Cadillac was essentially
taking a $20,000 work truck, tricking it up with lots of chrome, leather
seats, and a fancy stereo, and selling it for close to $50,000. This is how
automakers have earned enormous profits on full-sized SUVs.
GM has been the most aggressive automaker over the last several years in
stepping up sales of large, pickup-based SUVs. GM executives like to defend
their decision to make vehicles like the Escalade by saying that they are
simply building what Americans want.
As long as gasoline prices remain low, government regulations remain tilted
against cars, and Americans remain enamored of big, macho vehicles worthy
of the American frontier, executives at GM and other automakers plan to go
on making SUVs.
Harry Pearce, the powerful vice chairman of GM, put it best as he was
leaving a press conference in August 2000: "If pigs are big and
popular, I guess we'll make pigs."
Copyright Keith Bradsher 2002. All rights reserved.
Friday, September 27, 2002
SUV critic defends his controversial book
By Mark Truby / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- In his controversial new book, "High and Mighty --
SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That
Way," Keith Bradsher upbraids the auto industry for ignoring
safety concerns, labels sport-utility vehicle drivers vain and self-centered
and censures his fellow auto writers for lax coverage.
On Thursday, the former Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times
appeared before the Automotive Press Association and defended the book,
which traces the rise of the SUV and argues that their popularity has
made America's roadways more hazardous.
"The United States is evolving from a nation of car drivers to
increasingly a nation of sport-utility drivers," Bradsher said at
the Detroit Athletic Club. "It's a dangerous trend."
"High and Mighty," billed as an expose in the mold of
Ralph Nader's influential 1965 book "Unsafe At Any Speed,"
contends that SUVs are unsafe gas guzzlers that unnecessarily pollute the
environment.
Detroit's automakers, which make the majority of their profits from SUVs,
have said little publicly about "High and Mighty."
However, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry trade
group that represents Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and others,
commissioned a 15-page response to Bradsher's book.
The point-by-point rebuttal, prepared by the public relations firm
Stratacomm, mines federal data and asserts that SUVs are actually safer
than most vehicles.
"Fatality rates continue to decline and are currently at the lowest
point in history," the document states. "This decline occurred
while there has been a corresponding large increase in the number of SUVs
and other light trucks added to the nation's vehicle fleet."
"High and Mighty" contends that SUVs are "a triumph
of image and marketing over practicality," and that most drivers
don't need four-wheel drive vehicles.
Bradsher, who drove a 1999 Mercury Sable while in Detroit, refers to market
research conducted by automakers that he says show SUV drivers "are
people who tend to be more restless, more sybaritic and less social than
most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than
off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing
volunteer work to help others."
The characterizations have touched a nerve with some SUV owners and drawn
fire from critics. CNN's Connie Chung, during an interview with Bradsher
Monday night, called the book's description of SUV drivers
"ridiculous."
On Thursday, Bradsher defended the statements.
"Market research shows that people who buy SUVs tend to be people who
are particularly worried about their own needs and less concerned about
others," Bradsher said.
Asked if he personally believes SUV owners are vain and self-absorbed,
Bradsher replied: "In any large group of people, you will get a
tremendous variety. All that I say is what (SUV drivers) tend to be."
Bradsher's book chides the press corps in Detroit for failing to more
closely scrutinize the automakers that churn out dangerous SUVs.
Bradsher himself has been criticized by those who believe he has tilted
some facts and ignored others in his zeal to prove that SUVs are unsafe.
On Thursday, Bradsher said the book was intended to be a journalistic
expose but certainly included some of his own opinions.
While "High and Mighty" may put a dent in the image of
SUVs, which now make up 25 percent of all new vehicle sales, even Bradsher
acknowledges that America's love affair with the vehicles isn't likely to
flame out any time soon.
"The SUV boom," Bradsher said, "is here to stay."
You can reach Mark Truby at (313) 222-2082 or mtruby@detnews.com.
December 30, 2003
Reviewer: C. Colt "It Just Doesn't Matter" (San Francisco, CA United States)
"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."
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
May 11, 2004
Reviewer: A reader
January 2, 2004
Reviewer: J. Israel "jaisrael" (San Francisco, CA United States)
August 23, 2003
Reviewer: Chris Fuller (Bay Area, CA)
June 4, 2003
Reviewer: Steven T Andersen (Dubuque, IA)
May 17, 2003
Reviewer: Ander (Vancouver)
April 3, 2003
Reviewer: C.B. Derrick (From the 2.20 Aspect Ratio)
April 2, 2003
Reviewer: Barry V Lubov (Bayside, NY United States)
February 7, 2003
Reviewer: "scarlethue" (Santa Monica, CA)
February 6, 2003
Reviewer: Mark S. Schaffer (Las Vegas, NV USA)
February 5, 2003
Reviewer: "mmaclachlan@idc.com" (San Francisco, CA United States)
January 21, 2003
Reviewer: Peter Marreck (Cos Cob, CT USA)
January 15, 2003
Reviewer: David Colburn
December 30, 2002
Reviewer: Eddie Wren (NY State, USA)
December 16, 2002
Reviewer: Alberto (Seattle, WA USA)
November 29, 2002
Reviewer: Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas)
November 11, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
November 4, 2002
Reviewer: Laura MacCleery (Washington, DC)
October 23, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
October 7, 2002
Reviewer: "rwmiller5" (San Jose, CA United States)
October 5, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
October 4, 2002
Reviewer: "grinch2" (Dobbs Ferry, NY USA)
October 3, 2002
Reviewer: Frank Norris (Huntington Beach, CA United States)
October 3, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
September 29,
2002 Reviewer: Robert Johnson (Ann Arbor, MI USA)
September 25, 2002
Reviewer: "kraemerjn" (Patuxent River, MD)
September 25, 2002
Reviewer: Jamie (Chicago)
September 24, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
September 23, 2002
Reviewer: Mark Theobald - crashtest.com
September 21, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
September 21, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
September 20, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
May 5, 2004
Reviewer: Ramone Sanders (Milwaukee, WI)
January 26, 2004
Reviewer: "christopher_wren" (Denver, Colorado United States)
October 14, 2003
Reviewer: Harrison Bolter "hbolter2" (San Diego, CA United States)
August 1, 2003
Reviewer: Paul Hickey (Fairfax, VA USA)
January 3, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
October 22, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Public
Affairs. No part of this book may be reproduced without
written permission from the publisher.
Author says popular vehicles have made roads dangerous
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