asfgioandfionio

A station wagon solves the same problems. People just think they're lame.

I understand being afraid of a car crash. I can understand doing the wrong thing out of fear. Driving an SUV is wrong, but hardly an unforgivable sin.

But I don't think you can be let off that easy. You seem to have come up with some way to technically admit you are in the wrong without really confronting it. What is "totally cool" supposed to mean? Does being "totally cool" with something mean it is moral, or does it just mean you don't feel angry about it? Why would you defend a decision based on whether or not it makes you "feel bad"? These words are weaselly. They dismiss the moral element of your actions without really addressing it.

If you're in the right, prove it. If you're in the wrong, admit it.

I'm sure nothing I have to say is news, but it bears repeating that the common excuses for driving an SUV are either selfish or irrational.

The only advantage SUVs offer in safety is that they're likely to flatten the other car in a crash. Aside from size, the characteristics of an SUV make safety worse—they handle badly, tend to roll, and their design is unsafe to pedestrians and cyclists—so buying an SUV makes the roads as a whole less safe. People buy SUVs to avoid being killed by SUVs. It's a negative-sum arms race.

SUVs have atrocious visibility, and this has its cost in blood. They are so high off the ground that it's impossible to see what is near to the vehicle. Thousands of children are injured every year from drivers not seeing them over the hood. Hundreds are killed. This kind of incident has a name: the frontover.

SUVs are a major cause of poor visibility. The need to see over other cars mainly exists because cars are so stupidly tall. Buying an SUV to see over other SUVs is another negative-sum arms race.