Attack of the four-wheeled giants.

• Author: Cooper, Peter J.
• Position: Life in America

ATTACK of the four-wheeled giants: This almost sounds like the title of a bad 1950s horror film. However, the attack is not a series of images on celluloid from the past, or a figment of a science fiction writer's imagination. It is a very real threat to all Americans who venture out upon the nation's highways, posed by some of their fellow citizens. Moreover, those imposing the threat are themselves imperiled by it. The death of several thousand individuals annually is the price to be paid for continued production and proliferation of those battle cruisers for the road called Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs).

The public is cautioned by the media of the hazard SUVs embody with increasing regularity, particularly their inherent tendency to roll over. Many disregard graphic accident reports and dismal test results, instead choosing to look at this issue merely as one of freedom of choice for the consumer. Pat Buchanan of MSNBC summed up this view on "The McLaughlin Group" with a proposition that has become a slogan: "My life, my choice." On the face of it, this sounds compatible with thinking appropriate in a free nation, yet stops short of reality. If people wish to jeopardize themselves and their loved ones in a rollover, they are free to do so. However, SUVs are not operated in a void. What of the rights of people who must share the road with them, especially those in small cars who inevitably come out second best--if they come out at all--in crashes with larger, heavier SUVs? It is an established fact that people in automobiles, particularly those in smaller cars, are much more likely to be seriously injured or killed in aptly nicknamed "mismatch" collisions. The high, blunt front ends of mid-size and larger SUVs represent a formidable challenge to the structural integrity of any automobile. The government classifies all but the largest SUVs as light trucks. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, collisions between light trucks and passenger cars account for the majority of traffic fatalities in the U.S. Automobile occupants constitute four out of five deaths in these occurrences.

The inevitable conflict between the ethical propositions "My life, my choice" and the equally valid "The good of the many comes before the good of the few" must be considered. At what point do individual rights violate those of the public? A short answer is: When actions unnecessarily expose a community to clear and present danger, public interest should prevail. Given this context, legislation based purely on fact and logic would recognize that some vehicles pose a deadly and therefore unacceptable hazard to others and their occupants due to their design. Accordingly, their use on public roads would be circumscribed. Naturally, any such measure would appear to be a...