Sell the Escalade and save a tree

Anyone who’s taken their kids to school knows the problems surrounding the habits of bad driving. There’s always that one motorist who wants to bend the rules, take a shortcut, or act discourteously toward other drivers. The driving around Oak Park schools is notorious. Calabasas is getting better, but still a challenge every morning and afternoon.

The problems are made worse because many of the vehicles being used to drop Johnny off or pick him up are SUVs. These are trucks masquerading as passenger cars and in the tight confines of our local schools, they block views and clog traffic.

Is there a correlation between SUV drivers and cell phone abuse? Could be. And we know for a fact that some SUVs are easier to roll than automobiles and often have bigger blind spots. Every try to back up a U-Haul truck? It’s not easy. Our belief that bigger cars are safer cars doesn’t always hold true.

SUVs are special purpose vehicles that function well in certain environments. It’s time to take the tank off the highway and put it back in the field.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the growing gasoline crisis, sales of SUVs have fallen 25 to 30 percent among most manufacturers. We’re sorry it took a disaster to open America’s eyes, but it’s about time. Who wants to spend $60 to fill up their tank anyway?

What’s surprising is that 30 years ago we were told to think small, conserve fuel and save a tree. Today, if everyone’s driving smaller cars, then nobody’s undersized and nobody’s endangered. And if we drive more fuel-efficient automobiles, aren’t we helping ourselves and our country in the long run?

For your next automobile purchase, try a small minivan or a little sport wagon. They do the same trick and the obnoxiousness factor is a whole lot less.