Anyone reading the local paper is familiar with the recent back-and-forth between SUV drivers & holier-than-thou-critics that's waged intermittently in recent weeks.
It began with one couple proclaiming love & unabashed pride in their choice to own an SUV. A barrage of criticism followed, interspersed with SUV-drivers attempting to justify their choices to the PC judges. It capped with a letter entitled "Earth's Caretakers", a tongue-in-cheek jab at those seeking validation.
The problem here is that nobody needs society's approval or forgiveness for the type of vehicle they choose to drive, regardless of the reason they drive it.
Of course, I don't advocate running errands in a Hummer when you could just as easily walk to the corner store (or anything like that). But the idea that any person owes the rest of us an explanation is deplorable. Last time I checked, this was still a mostly free country & these vehicles are legal to own & operate.
The letter criticizes a man with 5 children for buying American when clearly the author feels a foreign model would be the better choice. He also says that a single-occupant SUV driver "might reasonably be called 'socially irresponsible', 'shallow' and 'self-centered'."
I beg to differ. Shallow & self-centered are more accurate descriptions for a person that deigns to judge a stranger solely based on the type of vehicle that person is operating. And social responsibility is defined by far more than choice of vehicle.
I know SUV drivers that make it a point to refuse to commute. They choose to live & work in close proximity (3 mile maximums), moving for new positions or finding jobs close to home in areas that offer nearby shopping so that they never travel far on a daily basis.
That's a more socially responsible choice than owning any vehicle, no matter how PC a certain model might be. One person doing that in a Hummer is still more socially responsible than a hybrid driver with an hour-long daily commute, or 10 people that bike to work but cause traffic snarls for thousands of motorists along the way.
Those SUV drivers may choose to live in areas that allow them to bike or walk frequently, while the hybrid drivers are guiltlessly hopping into their cars for a quick trip to the convenience store. Perhaps the SUV driver puts very little mileage on each year (half the norm or less), while the hybrid drivers rack up twice the norm, who knows?
But speaking to vehicle owners of all types, it seems to me that most SUV drivers have a reason for making the choice they've made & that they balance their vehicle emissions by making other environmentally responsible choice. On the other hand, I know hybrid drivers that shamelessly drive about 3 times the normal (12,000) miles per year. There's no way that 36,000 miles in a "good" car is better for the environment than 5,000 miles in a "bad" vehicle.
If you've ever been trapped on a busy highway behind a few "socially responsible" drivers that can't or won't even approach the speed limit, you know that they're not saving the environment so much as saving themselves gas money at everyone else's expense.
Yes, the stop & go, gently chugging motion of a car (or driver) that drives timidly -- whether in an effort to conserve fuel or for some other reason -- simply burns up the fuel of everyone stuck behind them. Just as the constant stop & go of buses that refuse to pull over or cyclists on a high-speed road waste fuel & cause gridlock, passive driving & vehicles lacking power greatly contribute to the very problem they claim to "solve".
One diligent reader has pointed out that many hybrid vehicles require batteries -- sometimes as many as 15 or 20. While the hybrid might be the better choice for fuel conservation, the battery waste is polluting the earth just as much, if not more, than vehicle emissions.
The point is that choice of vehicle just one way to be socially responsible. While the author cites a few basic recycling suggestions & mentions public transportation, he spends 4 looooong paragraphs criticizing others & only 2 1/2 sentences offering suggestions on how to be socially responsible.
Sounds to me like someone just wants to judge others instead of looking at the whole picture. That's certainly not socially responsible, as people are just as valuable as our environment & should be shown respect accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment