As peak-oil enthusiasts keep vigil over world petroleum statistics, they can find comfort in America's sudden, rapid descent from a different summit: the peak of sport-utility vehicle (SUV) production. In the early 2000s, combined sales of SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans (which together make up the "light truck" class) caught and surpassed sales of passenger cars. But last week, automakers announced that high gas prices have caused their sales of SUVs and full-size pickups to plummet by as much as 50 percent compared with a year ago.
In May, for the first time in 17 years, the top-selling vehicle model in America was not a pickup truck. In fact, Ford's F-150, the perennial leader, was overtaken by three small import-car models. Ford's June truck sales were down 41 percent from a year ago, and its SUV sales are now in free-fall, down 55 percent. Sales of Dodge Ram pickups tumbled 48 percent. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler were hit hard, and all have announced plans to close or suspend production at plants that make trucks and SUVs.
The post-SUV world will come to pass only gradually, but as it does, we can look forward to getting at least some relief from the damage that the reign of the big boxes has done:
Less gas will be burned, reducing greenhouse gas emissions: The average SUV is driven 20 percent more miles per year than is the average car. That, along with its low fuel efficiency, means that it burns more than 800 gallons of fuel per year. The average pickup is only slightly less thirsty, at 700 gallons, compared with just under 500 burned by the average car.
Drivers of all vehicles will be less likely to die in a car crash: Michael Anderson, assistant professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, has done the math showing that increasing popularity of SUVs and pickups led to an increase in annual traffic fatalities. Of the additional deaths, he wrote, "approximately one-fifth accrue to the light trucks' own occupants, and the remaining four-fifths accrue to the occupants of other vehicles and pedestrians." To put it another way, getting most SUVs and pickups off the road will make everyone safer -- especially those who don't drive them.
In High and Mighty, his definitive 2002 book on the SUV, journalist Keith Bradsher described how the taller vehicles block the vision of car drivers and contribute to accidents. Statistics show that a person who's at the wheel of a small, nimble car and appropriately aware of the need to avert danger is much safer than a complacent driver relying solely on the protective bulk of an SUV -- a vehicle "designed to overcome its environment, not to respond to it," in the words of writer Malcolm Gladwell.
Fewer children might be run over: Some, but not all, surveys have shown that, presumably because of poorer visibility to the rear, SUVs and pickups are more likely to be involved in what are called driveway "backover" accidents, most victims of which are children. In one study, backovers were fatal most often when the vehicle was a pickup truck.
There will be more room on the road for everyone -- and maybe less road construction: Small-car drivers know that bottom-of-a-well feeling that comes when you're surrounded on all sides at a traffic light by 3-ton, black-windowed behemoths. Bradsher cites studies demonstrating the various ways in which SUVs clog roadways: that a length of road or street able to accommodate, say, 100 cars can hold only 71 SUVs or 87 pickups; that at busy intersections dominated by SUVs, fewer vehicles can get through a green light before the next change; and that large SUVs sap taxpayers by increasing wear and tear on roads. Indeed, as big-vehicle pressures decline, states and municipalities may be able to give drivers, and the environment, a little break by canceling some of their road-widening plans.
Will we be contending with less road rage?: A 2004 Canadian study in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention found that in "serious" road rage incidents, in which drivers "intentionally damaged or attempted to damage another driver's vehicle, and/or intentionally hurt or attempted to hurt a driver or passenger in another vehicle," SUV drivers were more likely to be perpetrators than were drivers of other vehicle types.
What Will SUV Drivers Drive Next?
Despite being prized for their roominess, most SUVs haul only slightly more people than do cars -- on average, not enough riders to fill even the front seat. In advertisements, SUVs are parked on cliff tops, but in real life, 76 percent are parked in urban streets, driveway and garages most nights. And despite their hardworking country-and-western image, 60 percent of pickup trucks are owned by urban households and typically ply the streets with empty cargo beds.
Only 13 percent of SUVs are owned by families of 5 or more persons, and a big 40 percent are found in households of only one or two. A report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy in August 2000 cited a survey of car buyers that found: "The average SUV customer is male, married, aged 45 years, in a household with an income of $94,400. ... Because SUV owners are fairly affluent, the price of the vehicle and of fuel is not sufficiently important to cause them to consider changing the type of vehicle they drive."
But at the time that paper was published, gasoline was at $1.43 per gallon, a price we're certain never to see again. Recent price shocks appear to have changed attitudes even among well-to-do car shoppers, despite the fact that people who can easily afford a $100 dinner check should be unfazed by a $100-plus tank of gas.
Without a national survey on the issue, it's hard to predict what will fill the garages of the most affluent drivers in coming years, according to Pamela Danziger. As president of Unity Marketing in Stevens, Penn., a firm specializing in analysis of luxury markets, Danziger predicts that current high-end SUV drivers "will keep them going until their current leases are up or it's time to buy a new vehicle. Then it is likely that they will trade down to a more economical, but no less luxurious vehicle."
Where Will the SUVs Go Next?
Production of new SUVs and pickups could eventually taper off somewhere near its level of the early 1980s, when sport-utility vehicles were used primarily for, well, sport and utility. Meanwhile, prices of SUVs and pickups sink into a seemingly bottomless pit.
Many of the oldest, least expensive gas-guzzlers may end up parked with those families who can least afford to feed them. Historically, poor folks have big old cars because they depreciate fast, yet they are tough enough to keep on going. Keeping them running is actually cheaper for everything other than fuel and oil, because they're rugged and generally understressed mechanically. The luxury doodads and electronic gizmos are expensive to repair, but you can usually get by without them.
If fuel costs keep rising, they could overwhelm those other expenses. Nevertheless, many low-income earners, always strapped for cash, may end up stuck with big, cheap trucks or SUVs. The question of how to keep them running will have to be left for another day.
Source: AlterNet
