The Sport Utility Vehicle Automobile Incarnation of...

The Sport Utility Vehicle: Automobile Incarnation of Irresponsibility Drive down any city street in Portland, Oregon, and you will instantly be surrounded by massive, gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs). They will block your view of traffic, claim more than their share of street parking space, and intimidate you with their monstrous size. And ironically, though their tires have been manufactured to crash over only the roughest of terrains, these SUVs will almost exclusively remain on paved city streets, serving as passenger vehicles for posh urbanites who enjoy the rugged ambiance their monstrous automobiles emanate. True, sport utility vehicles succeed in enveloping their owners in an aura of ruggedness.†¦show more content†¦Car passengers account for 80 percent of the deaths that result from the collisions of cars and light trucks. Incredibly enough, in the name of safety, Ford Excursions have been installed with Blockerbeams, bars beneath their front bumpers that prevent them from riding over smaller cars in head-on collisions (Welch, sc. 1). The mere fact that such an apparatus is necessary suggests that SUVs pose unnecessary safety threats to other drivers. Furthermore, because they threaten other vehicles, they raise a question of corporate responsibility. Is it ethical to drive a vehicle that so blatantly endangers others? SUVs may easily survive front-side collisions, but they are not free of safety risks. Though they contain safety systems such as antilock brakes, independent suspensions, and computerized monitoring systems (Gibney, sc. 1), they also have narrow tracks, soft suspension, and a high centers of gravity. Such qualities make them unstable enough that they require a High Rollover Risk warning brand from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). According to NHTSA statistics based on a proportional comparison between a vehicles center of gravity and the width between its tires, the Ford Explorer, for example, registers a 30-40% risk of rolling (Gibney, sc. 1). Together, SUVs roll as often as 240,000 times per year, causing 25,000 injuries and 10,000 deaths annually (Muller and Welch 51). NHTSA further estimates that as