| Subject: Americans pay the price for their overweight cars |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 05:38:42 09/05/05 Mon
I don't have much sympathy for the guy who pulled his big, black Hummer H2 into the gas line the other day.
There's no greater a sign of conspicuous consumption is the fat, 8,600-pound, pseudo-military SUV that escapes federal fuel-efficiency guidelines because it is, in a perverse twist of logic, too big.
Yes, it is this man's free choice as an American to drive what he darned well pleases. Now he can live with that choice.
As the Hurricane Katrina tragedy spikes gas prices beyond 3 dollars a gallon and sparks fears that there won't be enough fuel to go around, we are all living with choices.
We have chosen as a society to drive bigger and bigger vehicles with little regard for their practicality or environmental impact.
Yes, the burden of higher gas prices pales compared to the burdens of those still trapped in the deadly grip of Katrina. With its despair, pain and lawlessness, New Orleans less resembles a major American city than it does Darfur or Fallujah.
It also lays bare the deepening chasm between this wealthy nation's haves and have-nots and saps some of our swagger on the international stage.
Now the world is coming to our aid, even the Germans and the French.
But maybe it has shaken us out of our complacency that we will consume, consume, consume, the consequences be damned.
And maybe it will restore some sense of individual responsibility and sacrifice, which we seem to have forgotten, even in a time of war.
But back to those SUVs.
Some psychologists say our vehicles have grown so huge and ostentatious because they make us feel safer and stronger. If not smarter. They are imposing, muscular, macho vehicles that look cool even at the day care or the Seven-Eleven. (Only 5 percent of us ever actually take them off-road.)
Making matters worse are wacky federal standards in fuel efficiency that reward gluttony and fly in the face of all the heady rhetoric from Washington about less dependency on foreign oil.
Those standards set fuel-economy requirements for new passenger cars at 27.5 miles per gallon. But the SUV is exempt from that standard because it is considered a "light truck" instead of a car.
Some SUVs are so humongous that they don't qualify as light trucks and are not required to meet any type of fuel standard.
Soon it may cost a small house payment to fill one up.
Meanwhile, there is some good news behind the bad news in gasoline prices.
Where common sense has failed, higher prices may succeed. Although consumers stubbornly cling to gas-gulping luxury cars and pickup trucks, sales of domestic, full-sized SUVs are down 12 percent this year. At the same time, more and more hybrid SUVs are appearing in dealer showrooms.
Some say this is as it should be -- that "the market" will force our hands instead of government.
But why must we be made to be better stewards of our resources?
"Imagine if President Bush used his bully pulpit and political capital to focus the nation on sharply lowering energy consumption and embracing a gasoline tax," New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in February. Friedman cited such vision not only as more environmentally sound, but as a way to reduce oil dependency on dangerous regimes overseas.
The administration still isn't listening.
In its new proposed fuel standards, it proposes to tighten standards on SUVs such as the Jeep Cherokee and Ford Explorer. Fair enough.
Then it gets downright silly, allowing some of the heftiest SUVs, such as Dodge's Megacab, some of the most lenient standards.
As for the Hummer H2, the administration's new rules still exempt it from fuel-efficiency standards altogether, classifying it as a "commercial" vehicle.
Now, I don't begrudge a guy his pickup who needs it to haul stuff.
But SUVs typically are discretionary buys, not necessities. Not many people "need" a Hummer.
So, while the long, hard recovery from Katrina will continue in New Orleans and elsewhere, the administration will seek public comment on the new fuel-efficiency standards until Nov. 22.
We should tell them no. And we should ask if any of them have been paying attention to what's happened in the world lately.
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