Urban gorilla
Mayor Ken's battle with 4x4s has been joined by fly-ticketing pedestrians and the green press. For, as Lucy Siegle reports, this is one WMD spoiling for war
Lucy Siegle
Sunday April 10 2005
The Observer


This week we begin with a multiple-choice question. If you were in grave danger of being part of the first generation to bequeath a planet in substantially worse shape than you inherited it, due, in part, to an unsustainable increase in climate-changing emissions, would you: a) try to consume less non-renewable resources, or buy a huge gas-guzzling vehicle with emission rates four times those of a normal car?At first glance this question seems like a 'no-brainer' (just to be clear, the correct answer would be 'a'), which is why the SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle), or 4x4, has become a kind of poster boy for irresponsible consumption.And yet, according to recent data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, sales of SUVs continue to do very nicely. The number of new registrations for 4x4s was up 12.8 per cent last year. Worldwide SUV sales total 4.5m a year, and worryingly, the automotive industry considers this to be a fledgling market.So what exactly is the appeal of a supersized vehicle that can only squeeze 12 miles from a gallon in urban traffic? As the 4x4's various pseudonyms - Chelsea Tractor, Montessori Wagon - suggest, it's not their ability to go off road. 'This is a car with doors that take the sill with them as they open, so trousers won't be muddied,' reads one glowing review. Hardly pitched at the traditionally outdoorsy type, then.In an insecure world it seems that the bigger the car, the more secure we feel. However, in the top 10 list of safest cars, there are no 4x4s. Meanwhile, their height and huge bonnets make them lethal to pedestrians. According to Ethical Consumer magazine, jaywalkers are two to three times more likely to die if hit by an SUV.As one of the founding members of environmental pressure group the Alliance Against 4x4s (www.stopurban4x4s.org.uk), Sian Berry has invested large amounts of time pondering their appeal. She also invests similar amounts of energy posting fake parking tickets on SUVs to raise awareness and lobbying, along with Greenpeace, for a £20 polluter-pays congestion charge for big cars. Furthermore, she wants to see the end of advertising promoting gas guzzlers as fashionable and aspirational; a recent study showed that one-fifth of drivers bought their 4x4 for style reasons.The Department of Transport's response, meanwhile, is a colour-coded labelling system (www.lowcvp.org.uk) for all cars. The scheme mirrors the energy efficiency tags we're used to seeing on fridges and washing machines, which rate an appliance's green credentials, running from light green (low emissions) through to the red zone - where 4x4s typically reside. But will this traffic light system stop the burgeoning SUV market? Hardly, say Berry and friends. 'People going to buy a 4x4 are aware of their environmental shortcomings before they get there. They can just remove the sticker in the showroom and drive off. It's hardly a deterrent,' says Berry, who is back to dishing out fake parking tickets.lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

a recent study showed that one-fifth of drivers bought their 4x4 for style reasons.

I should have made that point a little clearer.

In the UK it is an offence under section 139, of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to carry an article with a blade or sharp point in a public place. A folding pocket knife is not included, so long as the cutting edge is under three inches.

respectable (by US standards ) 26 miles per gallon

wait till the US gets european fuel prices

Depends how far you drive, I suppose.

*Ahem* I trust all the people complaining about SUVs *never* travel in aeroplanes just for pleasure

You are absolutely spot on in trusting such a thing NB.

No pleasure is involved at all except perhaps from hearing the anouncement, "Please return to your seats and fasten safety belts, we're about to land"
It's done to get from one side of the world to the other in under a week.

10 hours with ones knees wedged up round ones ears is not pleasurable unless you are into sado-masochistic yoga or a porn star that enjoys his/her work.

Joannie survived without a car at all until very recently so presumably her 25 pounds per week fuel consumption, (up from zero), isn't essential, (and is actually more than mine), yet nobody bats an eyelid because she doesn't have the audacity to drive a large car and rub people's noses in it. How many of the people complaining about the cost of SUV drivers to the environment drive to work every day, (in whatever car)? I drive mine to the station and then take the train into town. I hope you're all doing that too...

I can't remember who it was that said that it makes people feel superior to be 3 feet higher up than everybody else but has an SUV driver ever actually said that it makes them feel superior?

I used to take the train, and to be in to work in time for early lectures it was the expensive train. So in terms of personal expenditure, I actually spend less on petrol than I used to spend on train fares.

My original plan was to drive to the station and get the train to work, mostly because I found the concept of driving to and in a large town frightening. But V helpfully pointed out that I'd be paying to keep a car on the road, plus the additional cost of £9 a day in train fares. It simply didn't make financial sense.

Is my fuel consumption essential? Well, people define essential in different ways. V used to have to ferry me everywhere before, as there's no direct public transport link to our village. He also had to do all the school runs, etc. That took up a lot of time when he was meant to be working. And we agreed that if I didn't get my licence, we'd have to move to town. So no, it wasn't essential if we were happy to move house, so that I could easily access public transport or be within walking distance of everywhere I needed to go, but I guess that would be true for pretty much everyone else, too, when you think about it. Driving is a convenience and a luxury which allows us more lifestyle choices, but just like anything else you can choose different ways in which to execute those choices, and some will always seem more responsible and considerate than others.

Of course the whole SUV thing isn't just about petrol. God knows the women who drive them round our way never go any further than the school and back, so they can't be using very much. I object to the fact that SUVs give an illusion of greater safety to the driver while reducing the safety of everyone around the car - which can be interpreted as kind of "sod you!" attitude - and the fact that I find them anti-social in the amount of space they use up in parking and on the road. Plus the fact that so many people who have them don't seem to know how to drive them. But that's okay - at least when they come crashing into me outside the school gates, it'll be my little tin can that gets squashed like a bug while they drive happily off to pilates...


I've been thinking for some time about the whole issue of socially responsible international travel. It is, of course, a luxury rather than a necessity, but we could say that about lots of things in modern life. The question is, are there alternatives means of international travel which are less harmful? At present, the answer is no.

I'm also annoyed by the use of SUVs, especially the Landcruiser, Freelander, Range Rover, Shogun type 4x4's, by people who can't drive.

I'm particularly incensed by those individuals who encounter what appears to be a flooded road in one of these vehicles.
It's perfectly true that they will not ford a river without mods to the air intake or the exhaust but they will, I promise you, go through 6 to 9 inches of water on a country lane. The owners, I won't call them drivers because despite having passed a 20 minute driving test they display all the motoring acumen of crash test dummies, the owners approach these puddles at less than walking pace and then try their utmost to drive on the side of the road that they believe will offer them the shallowest route. It doesn't matter that they're stopping people from the opposite direction. We are clearly unaware of how delicate these 4.2 litre all wheel drive vehicles with their dual use tyres are. We must keep well back as they negotiate the raging torrent ahead.

A quick look at the kerbside will indicate that the water is barely reaching the pavement. Which means that the depth must often be a whopping 5 inches!

And have you seen how wide a Taureg is? It WILL take up three parking spaces even if you get it exactly between the lines in a normal supermarket car parking space.
BTW if you have one just pray I don't park next to you because I love to exit through my hatchback just for the hell of it.
And just what exactly, please, somebody tell me, what the fuck is a Cayenne for?

CNN did a thing on international gas prices yesterday.  The only one I remember was the Netherlands was the highest at $6.49 per gallon (at which price it would cost $300 to fill an SUV).  I paid $2.13 per gallon last time I filled my tank).

I had no idea our gallons were smaller...

was your maths wrong or do the SUVs you describe have unfeasibly large tanks?

  If 0.1% of our population needed to fly to the US each day then within three years the UK would be empty.  They certainly acn't all be doing it for absolute need.

When I wait for my bus in the morning (I don't know how to drive and don't intend to learn - I don't need to so, what would be the point?)

I watch them go past and some of the newer ones are HUGE! I'm not talking your average LandRover thingy - I mean really really fucking huge.

When I wait for my bus in the morning (I don't know how to drive and don't intend to learn - I don't need to so, what would be the point?)

I should think a few of them return, and I hear that some New Yorkers occasionally visit... 

I saw my first British HUM-V a couple of weeks ago - on Oakham high street. This is a tiny market town, for god's sake!

My point, (as you well know ), was that it's not necessary to take a flight at all in most cases but people do because that is their 'choice' to do so yet nobody villifies them for making a 'choice' that damages the environment.

oh, Sarah. I got to age 37 in just that happy state!

But I think the issue of choice NB refers to is whether you need to go anyplace else at all.

I don't know how to drive and don't intend to learn - I don't need to so, what would be the point?

But I think the issue of choice NB refers to is whether you need to go anyplace else at all.