Columnist Scott Dickensheets: SUV column prompts letters from readers

THINGS ARE rarely over when we think they are. You type "the end" on a column about, say, sport utility vehicles, then crack your knuckles and set out after the next quarry. Subject closed. Only when you say mean things about animals or the recently departed are you guaranteed enough response to keep the case open.

Or, it seems, if you say nice things about sport utility vehicles, as I did a few columns back. My modest goal then was to have a little fun with the Yuppie-bashing class enmity attached to SUVs. Mission accomplished, subject closed. Except things are rarely over when we think they are.

"You failed to mention that they have a proclivity to roll over frequently and are basically unsafe," read the first letter. "In addition ... they are not subject to the safety standards required (of) automobiles. ... The Pinto is a horrible reminder that manufacturers care more about profit than consumer safety."

While Pinto to Isuzu Rodeo seems like a monster leap to me, I'm willing to acknowledge the rollover potential. The solution is simple: Drive normally! I also understand recent impact tests indicate that SUVs inflict greater damage in crashes with ordinary cars. The solution is simple: Don't buy an ordinary car!

That argument smacks of simplistic free-market thinking to my friend The Raving Socialist, who took it as evidence of a conservative fist beneath my liberal glove. I talk a good lefty game, he says, but when push comes to SUV, I wimp out. He'd like to see sport-utes yanked from the asphalt, for the safety of other drivers and the good of the pollution-choked planet. "I know that's social engineering," he says, "but so what?"

Forget test results and the pollution argument, advises a reader named James. Instead, "focus on what getting into an SUV does to people psychologically ... SUVs are marketed as aggressive, bully-type vehicles, resulting in just what we need more of on our roads, aggressive and bullying drivers." Bewitched by the bad juju of evil SUVs, sweet mothers with babies become speed demons swerving arrogantly across "four lanes of 70 mph traffic to make an exit."

"These folks don't feel compelled to follow even the most basic rules of the road," he says. Well, maybe, but I've had worse run-ins with arrogant luxury car owners and long-haul truckers. Crack down on them first. Until then, you can have my Isuzu keys when you pry them from my cold dead driving gloves.

Happily, I'm not alone. "Like you, I like 'em," wrote my junior high Spanish teacher. She drives an SUV and is about to buy a new one. It's not a decision she reached without some interior dialogue, of course. "Why do I, in my declining years, want this screaming macho vehicle?????" she writes, momentarily losing control of her typing fingers. "God knows, as a woman I absolutely do not covet 'machismo"'! As a man, I don't covet machismo either. Just a vehicle big enough to haul the kids and small enough to parallel park. "Meanwhile, I drive my 4Runner," she writes, "and get tickets for speeding! Granny my foot! Go SUVs! Hog that gas! Yeh!" If only she'd displayed that sense of humor about my homework.

At least she wasn't the only correspondent on my side. "Loved your SUV yarn," wrote a dude named Frank. "Much better than when you try to be an art 'critic."' Uh, thanks ... I think.

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