Invasion of SUVs | TheArticle

The annual spend on advertising sport utility vehicles (SUVs) is £1.2 billion a year in the UK. Much as Marlborough cigarettes were once sold in advertising showing a rugged healthy-looking

cowboy smoking Marlboroughs, with no trace of lung cancer, in a beautiful wide open U.S. landscape, so the advertising of SUVs promotes an image of the open road and adventure.  The reality

of these vehicles, however, is very different: cities gridlocked by heavy idling engines, causing climate extremes and contributing to a catalogue of ill-health, including asthma and

Alzheimer’s. Since 2010 the number of SUVs has increased in the UK from 200,000 to 5 million. In the last 10 years they have been the second largest cause of increased global carbon

emissions, second only to fossil fuel production, but more than heavy industry, aviation and shipping. They emit 25% more carbon emissions than normal-sized cars and wear down roads faster;

brakes and tyres release more than double the particles into the environment.  Though sold as vehicles providing safety for the driver, their size encourages drivers to take greater risks

and because of their height they roll over more easily: drivers are 11% more likely to die in a crash, while pedestrians and cyclists are twice as likely to be killed due to the SUV’s high

bonnet hitting the victim’s upper body. As a cyclist in London, I have twice had near accidents with SUVs, but none with any other vehicle; friend and family cyclists also report being

barged and knocked off by them. “Ah,” but I hear some say, “people need an SUV for what they have to do in the countryside or for their children in child seats.” But it is not true. When our

children were growing up, we lived up a 200m dirt track and needed a car to pull a horse trailer. We had a 5 door Toyota RAV which was big at 1.6m high, yet today’s Ravs are 10cms higher

and Range Rover and Mercedes Wagons are 37 cms higher. Compared to our 1,710 kg Rav, these monstrous machines at 3,250 kg, are double the weight.  Even then, we didn’t drive our RAV in

London but used mopeds, bicycles or public transport.  As a friend who lives in a country village and has 7 children commented, the largest car she has ever resorted to is a people carrier.

  Living in London now my electric bike can carry an adult passenger front and back, or 4 children. SUVs are responsible for a million barrels a day in global oil, offsetting the savings of

150 million electric cars.  The EU is putting stricter limits on the average emissions of each manufacturer’s cars. Norway is banning the sale of new internal combustion engines by 2025. And

through the Norwegian government is actively promoting sustainable travel options, putting in place EV charging points and also incentivising behavioural change through high taxation of

petrol-run cars, the sale of electric cars in Norway has overtaken internal combustion engines, despite it having a spread-out population and a cold climate which depletes batteries more

quickly. Narrowing the streets and adding trees, as they do in Paris, makes oversized cars pointless and thereby gives the town or city back to the people, enabling children to play on the

street. The UK, however, seems to have opted out of such measures. Where is Government action — even something as easy as banning advertising of SUVs? Dominic Cummings berated Remainers for

being elitist, yet on his notorious trip to the North during lockdown he drove a silver Range Rover. His  car of choice for his one-child family is an embodiment of elitism, literally

looking down on other road users and pedestrians. Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Richmond, Battersea, Hammersmith and Sevenoaks, amongst other London boroughs, all resemble giant grey

air SUV salesrooms : architecture and people lost to battalions of armoured tank-like vehicles, apparently in an arms race to be the biggest and most aggressive. Some SUVs even have

military-style names, such as “Defender”. It can be no accident that their increase in numbers, size and weight coincides in the last 10 years with a government fallen prey to libertarian

“free market” ideology. Using the language of freedom, it has propounded the idea that the individual must be free to pursue their self-interest unfettered by constraints even of

responsibility. Instead of intelligent regulation and fair taxation, the unregulated market will self-regulate for the good of all. Though free marketeers frequently claim to be

Thatcherites, “freedom and responsibility go together” was Mrs Thatcher’s watchword. It is hard to see how such an ideology could become so dominant if it was not for it coinciding with the

interests of our billionaire-owned press, and big businesses whose business model is less one of generating value than exploiting breakdowns in the market. You don’t have to be told either

that London through its connection with overseas tax havens has become the laundromat for the world’s ill-gotten money. You just need to stand on the street and see all the obscenely large

cars. Not cool or dynamic any more, but in fact quite dark and menacing. It would be so simple for the Government to protect us from these harmful vehicles through regulation and

incentivising behavioural change. It would be an easy step towards decarbonising the transport sector, the largest emitter of carbon in the UK. Being free of their overwhelming dehumanising

presence might make us nicer to each other too. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make,

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