How Oversized SUVs Are Killing Us and the Environment

Writing in Jalopnik, Erin Marquis urges readers to watch a YouTube video produced by Not Just Bikes which “highlights the horror” of oversized SUVs.

It’s full of verifiable facts that will leave your jaw on the floor, such as: If all SUVs were a country, it would rank seventh in the world for carbon emissions (more than the Netherlands and the UK combine.) Or that the infamous Chicken Tax directly led to the rise of oversized vehicles. Or that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn’t crash test two different weight classes of cars against each other, despite these models sharing the same roads.

The video also offers solutions to the crisis, such as bringing back station wagons and minivans and taxing vehicles classified as ‘light trucks.’ Aside from the environmental impacts of bigger vehicles, Marquis writes, “the numbers don’t lie. As SUVs have risen, so too have pedestrian deaths, traffic fatalities, carbon emissions and the instances of children being run over, rather than backed over.”

See the source article for a link to the full video.