Customer Reviews

High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the Suv

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SUV owners are mad! Mad at Keith Bradsher's controversial new book, High and Mighty SUV's: the World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way ...In addition to Bradsher's historical survey of how SUVs got to be so large and so profitable, he's managed to produce the most important look at motor vehicle safety since Ralph Nader's 1965 Landmark Unsafe At Any Speed. Many of us owe Mr. Nader our lives, even though Unsafe At Any Speed was attacked in much the same manner as Bradsher's Book is now. Today even Detroit's Big Three agree that Nader spoke the truth 37 years ago, keep that in mind when you read the negative reviews of Bradsher's book. The vast majority of Americans trust the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to keep unsafe cars and trucks off America's roadways. I don't, NHTSA's relationship with Detroit remains much the same as Arthur Andersen's is to Enron.

The sport utility vehicle is a uniquely American phenomenon originally created for the Army during WWII. Since then it has become the vehicle of choice for middle and upper class executives and soccer moms, few of whom (less than 5%) will ever use its off-road capabilities. This book should be required reading for anyone thinking about purchasing an SUV, especially since most current SUV owners mistakenly believe themselves to be safer than motorists driving regular cars. Bradsher points out that SUVs contribute to more than 3000 needless highway deaths annually - a toll greater than that of Sept 11th's World Trade Center disaster. The public needs to know that rollover death rates for sport-utes are double those of regular passenger cars and that SUVs kill non-passengers as well, causing an additional 2,000 deaths a year in vehicles they strike. Less well known is the tendency of SUVs such as the Ford Explorer to flip over after striking a guardrail or having a tire fail - problems that don't effect cars. Combined with the facts that sport-utilities pollute more, are harder to control, utilize under-sized brakes and consume more fuel than cars (all because of increased weight), SUV buyers need to think twice before purchasing these tanks on wheels. He concludes, "SUVs represent the biggest menace to public safety and the environment that the auto industry has produced since the bad old days of the 1960s."

Not surprisingly, Detroit doesn't want prospective SUV buyers to read this book. Fearful of biting the hand that feeds them (SUVs account for the majority of the Big Three's profits), automotive journalists have publicly dismissed the book as nothing more than one man's Jihad against SUVs. In case you're unaware, auto manufacturers give automotive journalists free use of a new car 24/7 in addition to frequent press junkets to Europe and elsewhere to test-drive or observe their latest models. No wonder they started attacking the book weeks before it came out.

As the publisher of crashtest.com, smartmotorist.com, smartcarguide.com, and carshownews.com I'm no stranger to the SUV controversy, as I've been campaigning against SUVs online for the past 7 years. Bradsher is a well respected, Pulitzer Prize nominated reporter, known primarily for his investigation of the Ford-Firestone rollover scandal. High and Mighty accurately portrays the facts as I know them and provides insight into the way Detroit and the Federal Government cooperate behind closed doors. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cars, trucks or highway safety.

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To the "reader from hartford ct" (but more likely an auto industry plant from Detroit) who's review is dated Sept 19, 2002: For someone who says he/she read the book, you're extremely dishonest when you misquote Bradsher as saying: "They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities." He didn't say this!! He was quoting the AUTO INDUSTRY's market reports! It's the people who are selling you the SUVs who think you are insecure and vain, not Bradshaw.

My recommendation to people in the market for a vehicle: Be informed about saftey for you and others, fuel economy, air pollution, etc., and make sure you balance this with what you need/want in a vehicle. If you really will go off-roading, tow a boat, etc., then go ahead and get the SUV, but please don't use 2 parking spots or ones that are too narrow for your SUV, and don't tailgate.

High and Mighty will do for the auto industry, what Fast Food Nation did for the fast food indsutry: Expose all of its harmful shortcomings. High and Mighty shows that SUVs are NOT merely a guilty pleasure, they are dangerous and costly.

If Mr. Bradsher's many critics would actually read High and Mighty, they would see that the classicficatoin of SUV owners as being vain, insecure drivers is NOT his opinion, it is taken directly from the market research conducted by the car manufacturers. Yes, the very people you are buying your SUV from have stereotyped you...

Intelligent readers, pro and anti SUV alike, I strongly urge you to buy High and Mighty, and to read it. Learn the truth!

Despite what other reviews have to say, Bradsher offers a level-headed and fact-based look into how SUVs have grown so popular and the effects they are having on our roads and environment. Other reviews can talk about environmental extremism, but the fact remains: SUVs get worse gas mileage than regular passenger cars. In an accident involving an SUV and a passenger car, the SUV almost always wins. These are facts and Bradsher presents them honestly.

Bradsher's only arguable flaw in this book is that he was SO exhaustive in his research and documentation. Reading the history of the auto execs who designed and developed early models of SUVs can be a bit dry, but you can't say he didn't do his homework.

The book addresses every angle of the SUV "experience" in our society:

*The legislation loopholes that tacitcly support and subsidize them;

*The marketing campaigns that *imply* safety without promising anything specific (and actionable);

*The design teams that focused on a more "aggressive" image with wasteful, unnecesssary features to sell to fearful, self-indulgent consumers;

*The engineering and crash tests that prove how unsafe they really are;

*And the pollution stats that prove how wasteful and environmentally damaging SUVs have been.

Any one of the chapters on these topics makes for fascinating reading, but I was especially interested in Ch. 6: Reptile Dreams. In this section on marketing, Bradsher discusses how marketing and advertising execs cynically estimated the insecurity and self-doubt of their target audience and made plans to exploit it. He describes how the image of taller, more "powerful" vehicles was used to generate record sales of a vehicle that's provably less safe... all the while getting the suckers--err, *consumers*--to claim that they were buying an SUV for its SAFETY factors. Which is a lie; they buy it largely for status.

The SUV makers and marketers know this, and they exploit it: why else design a vehicle that explicitly says "Buy this so you can look like you don't care about fashion and status"? The so-called legitimate reasons for owning an SUV are diligently picked apart, one by one. No, they're not safer (minivans are). The four-wheel drive isn't useful (that's for offroad driving, which--despite the ads--90% of SUV owners never do). The cargo capacity isn't that great--in fact, many SUV interiors are awkwardly designed and arranged to have LESS carrying capacity than comparable trucks, minivans, and even station wagons.

The bottom line is simple: SUVs are not safer in collisions, rollovers, or impacts. The data proving this is widely available... but SUV owners don't want to hear it. They crave the illusion of power and control; they want to feel intimidating; they want to indulge their selfishness and callous indifference for the sake of pretending they're Powerful Adventurers; and no mere facts are going to get in their way. The owners gleefully fork over huge shovelsful of cash in exchange for pure image--all form and no substance.

And as we should all know in this cynical consumerist society, image beats reality every time.

As other reviews of this book indicate, advocates and opponents of S.U.V.s ("light trucks") will probably never agree about its role in contemporary society. What I found most illuminating in Bradsher's book is his analysis of the the vehicle's social, economic, and political history during the last 60 years. The current S.U.V. "boom" is undeniable. How to explain it? The S.U.V. contradicts recent movements to reduce air pollution while increasing traffic safety. Why and how has that been possible? What does the appeal of the S.U.V. to so many different people reveal about contemporary values? These are among the questions to which Bradsher responds and his answers are thought-provoking, at times upsetting.

According to his account, very powerful forces in "Washington" and "Detroit" (used as generic terms just as "Hollywood" is used elsewhere) have achieved legislation which is beneficial both to those who sell and to those who purchase S.U.V.s. Bradsher argues that various concessions (e.g. luxury tax exemptions) are not in the general public's interest. No one denies the economic power of S.U.V.s: A single Ford factory in Michigan produced $11-billion in annual S.U.V. sales which is about equal to McDonald's global sales. But how safe are they? How cost-efficient are they? Bradsher's answers to these questions help to explain his comment that "Perhaps the saddest part of the S.U.V. boom is that it has been so unnecessary."

A recent traffic accident in a suburb of Dallas resulted in the deaths of several teenagers in an S.U.V. Whether or not the accident is alcohol-related is a matter yet to be determined. I mention it because media coverage revealed what I had not previously known: Those employed by municipal and state agencies are required to complete special training before being allowed to drive larger S.U.V.s. As one deputy fire chief explained, "You simply can't drive the [name of large S.U.V.] the same way you drive a sedan. It's much too dangerous, especially when you have to make a quick maneuver." This single traffic accident proves nothing but the need for special training (at least to drive larger S.U.V.s) is for me indicative of an issue which has not as yet received the public attention it deserves.

Whether or not Bradsher's book has much impact remains to be seen. My guess is that "the world's most dangerous vehicles" will continue to be among the most popular (and most profitable) vehicles sold. Thanks to Bradsher's book, I now understand "how they got that way." No doubt I will continue to ride in S.U.V.s driven by family members. Also, I will continue to feel intimidated by other S.U.V.s (as I am by tractor trailers) when surrounded by them in traffic. And yes, I will resent those whose S.U.V.s take up so much room that smaller vehicles (such as mine) cannot squeeze in next to them in most parking lots.

This is an excellent book written by a Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times. He worked on and off on the book for almost five years and has produced a compelling and fact filled read of 440 pages plus notes. Excellent job.

I would not call the book "anti-SUV" per se, but rather it is a comprehensive review of the vehicle with some related comments on mini-vans. The facts speak for themselves. An SUV is a passenger vehicle that uses a truck base (motor, frame, suspension) with a special body made from a combination of truck parts and custom parts with luxurious interiors and lots of sound proofing. It costs the same to make as a truck but sells at the price of a luxury car - or higher - and has a marketing prestige value now associated with the vehicle.

The book covers the history of the SUV vehicle type, how the vehicle evolved from the early Ford SUV built by Henry Ford for camping trips at the beginning of the last century, panel delivery vans, the history of the WWII Jeep, the GM Suburban, the Jeep Cherokee, and the Ford Explorer, etc

The author covers the costs to make the vehicle, the taxes on the vehicle, the import barriers on imports, how the unions viewed the vehicle, how the gas consumption CAFÉ regulations were circumvented, how politicians have supported the vehicle, and how environmental groups have tacitly supported the vehicle, etc. The bottom line is that the basic construction is relatively cheap while the selling price is high. So the SUV's have become the cash cows of the auto industry leading to economic revival at GMC, Ford, and Chrysler with similar revivals of the local economies in Michigan, Detroit, and Ohio. Many auto executive careers have been tied to the SUV success and this is discussed in the book.

From a marketing viewpoint the turning point for the industry was the black 1986 Cherokee Limited with gold exterior trim. That car and the SUV's that followed were big seller in the cities and became a substitute for the luxury car. That vehicle was followed by products from GM and Ford, of ever increasing size and profit including the Lincoln Navigator, Cadillac Escalade, etc. These latter vehicles generate huge profits for the auto makers and have in fact displaced the luxury car and have become very popular in unlikely places such as New York city.

Cars and SUV's are marketed and sold by appealing to emotions not common sense. Despite the truck base technology that gives poor handling compared to a car, and the heavy weight and truck engines that give poor gas economy, the car companies have pushed the SUV in order to capitalize on the simple truck technology for the sake of fat profits. In a free society that makes good business sense. However the down side is that unlike Europe that has managed to keep oil consumption relatively constant over the past decade or so the US has increased its oil consumption by 50% due in part to these high gas consumption vehicles - fed by imports of oil from the unstable Middle East. In addition to the increased fuel consumption, the environment has been burdened with more pollution by less efficient (truck) vehicles that has compounded the insult to the environment. Finally, because of the truck construction such as the weight and the high center of gravity of these vehicles - although seeming to be safer, the SUV has a poorer safety records both for their occupants and for the cars they hit - as recorded by the insurance agencies - than for regular mid sized cars. So based on the record the SUV is more expensive, has poor truck like handling, wastes gas, and is even less safe than a mid sized car. One can draw their own conclusion.

The author does an excellent job summarizing the facts. He describes the auto executives running the companies, the technology, how the CAFÉ laws were circumvented, safety, etc. It is a compelling read.

Highly recommend 5 Stars.

Keith Bradsher's lively, lucid and fascinating new book on sport utility vehicles is a major milestone and wake-up call for automotive safety. Bradsher shows how these gas-guzzling highway behemoths arose from a long history of special deals for the domestic automotive industry in the form of import taxes, subsidies and countless regulatory loopholes, with automakers left off the hook for everything from miles-per-gallon and emissions standards to safety protections.

The tragic result of this piling-on of self-dealing and special favors, as well as the industry's SUV marketing juggernaut, is the spread of this most dangerous vehicle, which fails to protect its own occupants and poses a serious menace to others on the road. The loopholes also create an SUV cash cow for automakers, who are able to cut corners -- manufacturing shoddy vehicles on existing pickup-truck chassis -- and to grossly increase profits in the absence of rules requiring even basic safety and environmental features.

In producing these pickups masquerading as yuppie fantasy vehicles, the automakers neglected years of highway safety research and created vehicles deliberately designed to look boxy, macho and frightening. But, in a crash, the high bumper, stiff frame and steel-beam construction of SUVs override cars and roadside guardrails. By failing to absorb crash energy or to crumple as they should, they can ram into other motorists and shock their own occupants' bodies. And their high, tippy design and weak roofs place SUV drivers at risk of death or paralysis in a rollover crash.

As if this body count were not enough, the proliferation of SUVs is also a disaster for the environment. Because of the weak rules governing fuel economy and emissions standards for light trucks, the explosion of SUVs has begun to turn back the clock on recent pollution reductions, including emissions of carbon dioxide, which causes global warming. Bradsher documents the enormous, undue influence of automakers and their unions on Capitol Hill, showing how the industry blocked new regulations over and over again.

Bradsher also points out that as SUVs start to flood the used-car market and new SUV sales increase, the next wave of consequences will be even more devastating. In this spreading highway "arms race," more consumers may feel they must compete by up-sizing the vehicles they buy, and less experienced drivers will be behind the wheel of these hard-to-handle trucks. So don't believe the auto industry's hype on SUVs, or its attempts to squash the truth-telling in this important book. As years of work at Public Citizen promoting automotive safety has shown us, no issue will be more critical to shaping the future of safety on our roads.

Bradsher, a Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times reporter with a years of experience covering Detroit, chronicles this growing debacle in an accessible, clear and impeccably informed style. His book is the clarion call necessary to continue the drive toward safety begun by Ralph Nader in Unsafe At Any Speed, and is a must-read for anyone concerned about this massive step backward and the real and deadly costs of American's new highway narcissism.

-- Laura MacCleery
Counsel for Auto Safety and Regulatory Affairs, Public Citizen

This a very well written book. It is great reading, hard to put down. I highly recommend buying it or checking it out of the library (you might have to wait - the book is popular).

Keith Bradsher intelligently shows how anomalies in both legal regulations and the marketplace allowed the proliferation of the modern SUVs. While there are legitimate uses and users of SUV's capabilities, most people don't buy them to go off-roading, haul boats, etc. The author reveals the marketing thinking of the SUV makers. He also writes about the safety hazards SUVs pose for their occupants and other drivers; this is combined with demographic analysis that shows, among other things, how in the future a wave of cheap second-hand SUVs will fall in the hands of unsafe drivers (teens, young males, drunks) which will deepen the saefty hazards. Environmental hazards are not overlooked. The financial impact, through insurance rates, of SUVs on the drivers of other types of vehicles is examined in depth. How magazine reviews of SUVs are written (and how companies pamper journalists) is also explained. There are tons of quotes from auto industry executives and engineers, and there are references to scientific research.

Overall, this book presents a very thorough analysis of the SUV phenomenon: history, legality, environment, safety, finances, politics, marketing, cultural trends, future, etc. This is some of the best non-fiction in recent memory. Read it. It won't disappoint you.

I was reading Mr. Rockatansky's review and realized his thoughts were consistent with the general populations' views of SUVs. In fact, while the 4WD vehicle might give you better traction, our society does not train drivers in driving vehicles with high centers of gravity in bad conditions. In fact, on one snowy winter day while slowly driving my Pathfinder to work I counted 23 SUVs, 4 vans, and 2 cars in various stages of accidents. The cars and vans were just spun out in the shoulder, the SUVs, however, were almost all (19 of them) showing signs of roll-over. The problem was that all of those SUV drivers thought "I have 4WD. I am invincible." and found out that 4WD doesn't prevent accidents in the snow. Yes, in emergencies, calls go out to get 4WD because they can go places a car cannot. But the vast majority of people driving these vehicles behave as if they are the only ones on the road and you just have to give way to them.

On the subject of Mr. Bradsher only picking on the big three. Well, just look at an average parking lot and compare the sizes of the SUVs from different manufacturers. On average, the big three vehicles will be much larger and with higher bumpers. I feel small in my Pathfinder, which only goes out in the snow and when I go camping (I'm one of the few that actually take my 4WD into the mountains and off the paved roads). I am terrified every time I see an Excursion near me when I drive my sedan. The front bumper of one of those only comes down to the bottom of my windshield. If I were ever in an accident with one of those monsters, I would be killed, no questions.

Overall, I think its great the work Mr. Bradsher did to uncover the problems with the NTSHA (is that the correct abbrev?) policing the auto industry. There is too much of that going on in all kinds of other industries.