The War Room

A forum for SUV activism: Let's get SUVs off the road now!

Welcome to my anti-SUV forum. The purpose of this page is to share and develop ideas about reducing the number of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) on the road. Many people share my view that SUVs are an enormous problem. Unfortunately, a cohesive strategy to deal with the problem has not been developed. MANY web sites have been created by people who care deeply about the SUV problem which provide some great ideas that are worth implementing. Rather than replicating the existing sites, this page is intented to be a resource for people who are actively working on solving the SUV problem. Instead of pushing a specific agenda, I felt that it would be useful to create an environment for sharing and developing ideas. If we work together, we can identify the most effective strategies and implement them in a co-ordinated manner. The ultimate goal is to put together a road map that can be used by environmental groups, auto safety groups and individuals who care about this issue.

To get the conversation going, I have posted some ideas, some more realistic than others. Overall, the strategy that I am developing involves two major branches. First, we need to erect barriers to the use of SUVs. Anything that we can do that makes driving an SUV more difficult/expensive/inconvenient will provide important negative re-enforcement. Second, we should provide incentives for people to drive fuel efficient cars. Go to The War Room now or read on.

Positive reenforcement ideas:

• Make it cheaper for people to buy a compact car - Tax cuts for compacts. This is one that even republicans can agree with. I think that it would work so well that I can't imagine why it hasn't been pushed.
• Let drivers of compact cars know they are appreciated - This is an idea I came up with. Buy a dozen roses and give one to every single person at your job who drives a fuel efficient vehicle. Make sure you do it in such a way that everyone knows (especially nearby SUV drivers) why they are getting the love from you.
• Make it easy to sell your SUV - For every used SUV that changes hands, it drops down the price of SUVs. I propose creating a web page called SellYourSUV.com. The idea would be to steer people who think they need an SUV (I believe that even people who are eight feet tall with huge families don't need an SUV) to buy a used one, rather than a new one.

Negative re-enforcement ideas:

• Increase the price of gas - I think we should really push for this one: increase the tax on gas. It is probably the most effective strategy out there. When an SUV driver pulls up to the pump and has to fork over $80, that provides a strong disencentive to driving an SUV. The recent spike in oil prices (last time I looked it was over $40 a barrel) has caused a sharp decrease in SUV sales estimated at between 5-15%. This is just amazing.
• Make it hard to park 1 - SUVs take up a ton of space. I can't imagine why people think its OK to drive these things in the city, but they do anyway. I propose efforts to exapnd the number compact car only parking spaces. I've seen them before. I'm sure just seeing this might be enough of a deterant for purchasing an SUV. It also provides a nice incentive for people to drive fuel efficient compact cars.
• Make it hard to park 2 - If you drive a normal sized car, and are parallel parking on a city street where there are going to be spaces left either in front or in back of you, park in such a way that only a compact car can fit (hehe). I'm trying to come up with a name for this, perhaps "defensive parking".
• Make it hard to drive - It always bothered me that the way the auto makers got around all the hard work our legislators did to limit the consumption of fossil feuls by cars, was to classify these things as "light trucks". Well, if they are trucks, then they should only be allowed to drive where trucks can drive. The bottom line is its just not safe to drive a normal sized car around the huge trucks (imagine getting sandwiched between two Hummers in your VW golf!). If you drive an SUV, you should have to take truck routes. Perhaps we should push for a new driver's license class that you need to get certified for to drive these things.
• Make people feel guilty - This is the strategy that most environmentalists have been using. The logic is that if you educate SUV drivers about what the consequences are for the environment, they might get a different vehicle. I don't think it works that well since it requires a lot of work, and most people know that their SUVs are big polluters anyway. Unfortunately, the strategy is similar to telling someone who smokes that they might get cancer. It involves getting a forum (like getting on TV), and saying SUVs are bad, please stop driving them. The main problem that I see with this approach is that it has the potential to alienate people.
• Embarass/humiliate SUV owners - I've noticed a great deal of anti-SUV sites that involve "tagging" SUVs with bumper stickers with an anti-SUV slogan, many of which are quite funny. I've also noticed that this practice is controversial. While I sympathize with the sentiment, I'm not sure if it achieves the desired result, e.g., getting SUVs off the road. Instead, it may just cause SUV owners to hate environmentalists.