Are we being fair when we judge our neighbours on their choice of SUV, or should we look at the issue again, asks Tim O'Brien
I have an octogenarian relative who has had problems with his sight. So he bought himself a new Land Rover Discovery because he wanted to feel that in the event of a crash, he had the best protection available.
Some family members just gasped at the implications for other road users and the great debate on the use of SUVs was off again.
Are the owners all selfish pigs, driving aggressive, large-scale boxes behind which a child on a bicycle might not be seen? Are they leaving a massive carbon footprint for which the whole planet has to pay? And should they be sneered at in the street, charged extra for parking, and taxed to the hilt?
Or in fact, are they no more polluting than many mainstream cars? Are there, in fact, SUVs which offer enhanced safety to the occupants while dumping less grammes of carbon dioxide per litre of fuel than conventional family cars? And as for size, are we to ban all mini-vans and small buses on the same logical basis? Is the debate in fact about jealousy?
A recent website debate on this subject included the following post: "The ideal solution for two adults and four children plus luggage is not the sports utility vehicle. There is a more practical solution.
"It's called an estate (or variant) which provides three rows of seats. There is also the minivan: Opel Zafira; VW Touran; Fiat Multipla; Ford S-Max and the new Citroën C4 Picasso. These models all have seven seats in three rows.
"These named vehicles are designed for your family. The SUV is designed for off-road usage." So is that true?
Well, according to the British Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), it isn't, at least not entirely. The VCA figures on new car fuel consumption and exhaust emissions indicate some SUVs produce surprisingly less carbon than even small family cars.
Take for example the Nissan Qashqai 1.5 diesel, admittedly one of the smaller SUVs, which compares favourably with a range of conventional cars.
It produces 145 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre. This is actually less than the 1.4-litre Micra, also by Nissan which comes in at 154 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
The least polluting Opel Zafira referred to by our blogger, a 1.9CDTi, five-door diesel contributes 162 grammes of carbon to the atmosphere for every one kilometre driven. The Qashqai is also ahead of the least CO2 emitting versions of the VW Touran (158g/km); Fiat Multipla (173); S-Max (164); and the C4 Picasso (159).
And it is not just the Quashqai. There are other examples of SUVs which have similar-sized engines and less carbon emissions than conventionally shaped cars. For example, at the other end of the spectrum, the Vectra 2.2 litre V6 petrol engine comes in at 262g/km while the BMW X5 3.0-litre diesel comes in slightly less at 260g/km.
The lesson seems to be that appearances can be deceptive. We tend to admire large Mercedes Benz cars and gawp longingly at Bentleys but snarl at the SUV. So is it the size? Another blogger complained that a neighbour had a very large SUV which he insisted on parking outside his house, much to the neighbours disgust. But the question must be asked, if it was a 17-foot long Bentley, would the neighbours whinge?
As regards safety, SUVs are portrayed as menaces because when they are involved in collisions with smaller cars, the smaller cars almost always suffer much more damage.
But instead of suggesting that people who value their lives should consider driving larger, inherently more crashworthy vehicles including SUVs, critics urge that SUVs and large passenger cars be penalised by taxation and punitive parking charges.
If everyone drove cars the size of Honda Civics the logic implies we would all be safer.
But that's demonstrably questionable. If you are run off the road and hit a telephone pole, or a big oak tree, you've got a much better chance of living to tell the tale if you are driving a larger vehicle rather than a very small-sized one.
And in high-speed accidents, larger, heavier vehicles such as SUVs are inherently more crashworthy than small ones.
It is true that SUVs are more prone to rollover-type crashes. If driven aggressively - high-speed cornering, abrupt lane changes and violent maneuvering - an SUV can be rendered unstable more quickly and will be harder for the driver to recover control than in a typical passenger car.
The SUV safety issue needs to be viewed in its totality. Greater susceptibility to certain types of accidents in extreme situations is counter-balanced by superior occupant protection in most types of collisions.
The SUV undoubtedly has advantages in poor weather, such as rain and snow, when it is much less likely to be involved in an accident resulting from loss of driver control.
Research form the National Center for Public Policy Research in the United States shows the issue of safety is more properly linked to driver behaviour. Yes, the size and shape of SUVs make them unsuitable for a school playground, but then supporters argue, no vehicle is suitable for a school playground.
And the octogenarian relative? Should he be on the road in anything? That's a family question.