We will never shake the Americanism SUV with articles like this (SUV mentioned more than 20 times):
As for the rest of the articles content, I will not even go there...
Article from The Mercury (Tas)
SUVs battle 'axles of evil' tag
By SIMON BEVILACQUA
26sep04
GRANDMOTHER Jan Spoward is short -- touching "five feet tall", she reckons. "When I stretch."
But when Jan drives her Toyota Rav4 she can look down on those around her.
"The vision for me is much better, sitting up higher," Jan explained. "It's a great women's car because in a
sedan I'm so low I can't see."
Jan is among thousands of Tasmanians turning to sports utility vehicles.
SUVs are a new breed of passenger vehicle. They are four-wheel-drive but seldom go off-road.
One industry insider quipped; "the only time most leave the road is when they miss the driveway at 3am".
They sit higher on the road and nowadays feature all the creature comforts -- airbags, air-conditioning, CD players, cruise control, the lot.
They come relatively small, like Jan's Rav4, and big like a Nissan Patrol.
Tasmanians, and Australians, are following the
United States where a huge market for SUVs grew from nowhere.
Automobile experts have struggled to explain the love affair with SUVs.
American author Keith Bradsher wrote High and Mighty about the SUV phenomenon.
In it. Bradsher reveals that internal industry research found SUVs were often bought by people who were insecure, vain, self-centred and self-absorbed.
They were also more frequently nervous about their marriages and lacked confidence in their driving skills.
Other research found people bought them because they felt safe.
Jan Spoward's reasons for joining the SUV club fit the "safety" theory.
"We've had ours for six weeks and I love driving it," Jan explained.
"You get a feeling of sturdiness, I feel comfortable and more confident in it being a four-wheel-drive."
One French cultural anthropologist reckons buyers of SUVs want everything surrounding them to be soft, there should be air bags everywhere and the driver should be higher up.
It made the SUV drivers feel safe.
Some suggest SUV drivers feel less vulnerable and, because of that, take more risks such as tail-gaiting and overtaking.
But in many cases SUVs have not been as safe as standard passenger cars.
Due to the higher centre of gravity, SUVs are more likely to roll in certain accidents.
More than a third of the most popular 2004 model SUVs showed a tendency to roll over, US federal car safety regulators reported last month.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 4451 people died in the states last year in SUV accidents -- rollovers occurred in 61 per cent of those fatal accidents.
Only 23 per cent of those killed in normal cars were the result of rollovers.
An Australian Transport Safety Bureau analysis of 1998 crash data showed 25 per cent of 4WDs involved in fatal collisions rolled over -- compared with 13 per cent of passenger cars.
The US NHTSA says people driving or riding in a recreational vehicle in 2003 were nearly 11 per cent more likely to die in an accident than people in cars.
There are also concerns that SUVs are more dangerous to others.
Their height made them more likely to plough through a normal vehicle when in an accident.
Research has shown the propensity for four-wheel-drives to cause injury to other drivers in a collision is higher than for other vehicles.
Four-wheel-drives do not have to comply with the same Australian Design Rules as passenger cars.
New cars must pass a standard set down in ADR73, which involves an offset frontal crash test, but four-wheel-drives do not.
Safety aspects of SUVs, however, have improved dramatically in recent years.
Before 2000 some vehicles fell far short of standard passenger cars.
Larger SUVs, in particular, were less likely to crumble and absorb impact in a collision.
But regardless of the statistics suggesting SUVs have safety concerns, buyers feel safer.
And it seems, feeling safe is more important than being safe.
SUV sales grew by 12 per cent in 2003 in the US. They were the fastest growing sector in the American market.
But just as the SUV bug is biting in Australia, the US has started to change.
Detroit is starting to suffer a drop in sales.
Safety concerns, higher fuel consumption and a series of campaigns against them are having an impact.
A campaign launched in 2002 by the National Council of Churches in the US features car stickers saying "What would Jesus Drive?"
The campaign is attacking SUVs as environmentally unfriendly and calls them Axles of Evil.
Last year opponents of SUVs in the US set alight vehicles in Pennsylvania.
In Washington DC, the windows of SUVs were smashed and in Massachusetts SUVs were spray-painted with the slogan "No Blood for Oil".
RACT chief Doug Ling said there had been major improvements in SUV safety in the past five years.
"Most of the larger four-wheel-drives have good occupant protection, they're built as passenger vehicles rather than commercial," Mr Ling said.
Mr Ling said new SUVs blurred the distinction between an off-roader four-wheel-drive and a passenger car.
However, he said most had a higher centre of gravity which caused safety concerns.
"The higher centre of gravity means they can't go around corners as fast as a passenger car," Mr Ling said. "The rollover issue is a real issue."
Mr Ling said government subsidies made some SUVs more competitive.
The Federal Government in effect subsidises imported SUVs by 5 per cent.
Imported passenger cars attract a 15 per cent tariff.
The tariff is a legacy from the pre-1980s when four-wheel-drives were designed as a rural industry resource. The tariff advantage is planned to be phased out next year.