Free Republic

A different America By Elizabeth Scanlon Thomas August 10, 2004 THE FIRST CLUE I had that today's America is different from the America I grew up in came shortly after my son and I flew in from England to attend a funeral. I was trying to drive my normal-sized rental car carefully because I hadn't taken out collision insurance, and I was surrounded by enormous vehicles larger than run-of-the-mill SUVs. My little car was overwhelmed by these monsters. I had trouble pulling out of places as they blocked my vision the way skyscrapers steal sunshine from city dwellers.

More people were killed last year in rollover-type accidents involving pickup trucks and SUVs than in previous years--statistically speaking, about 1.51 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. But despite alarmist reportage by the major media and SUV-haters in the punditocracy, that is still pretty low by historical standards. (There were 5.5 million deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in the mid-1960s, and 1.75 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 1992.) Moreover, it's rarely mentioned in anti-SUV rants that rollover-type accidents account for just 2.5 percent of all crashes. Or that the actual number of people killed...