High and Mighty : The Dangerous Rise of the SUV

Keith Bradsher has been at the forefront of critical SUV coverage since his posting as Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times from January 1996, through August 2001. While in Detroit, Bradsher won the George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for being the first reporter to cover the many problems created by SUVs.Winner of the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in JournalismWinner of The Washington Monthly's 2002 Annual Political Book AwardA New York Times Notable Book of the YearA BookSense 76 PickSince High and Mighty was published in the Fall of 2002, regulators and consumers have become increasingly suspicious of sport utility vehicles and their poor safety records, heavy air pollution, and misleading marketing. Yet SUV sales continue to rise, leading average fuel consumption of new vehicles to a twenty- two year low and pushing traffic deaths to the highest level since 1990. As aging SUVs enter the used market, the problem is likely to grow much worse.Bradsher makes a powerful case that these vehicles are much worse than cars-for their occupants, for other motorists, for pedestrians, and for the planet itself. In so doing, he pulls off a work of investigative journalism that shows how a flawed regulatory system, a desperate Detroit, and our national love for "bigger and better" have combined to create this highway arms race.The paperback includes an epilogue covering new developments and an appendix explaining how to drive an SUV more safely. High and Mighty - The Dangerous Rise of the SUV......Page 1 Praise for High and Mighty......Page 2 Copyright Info......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 TOC......Page 7 Acknowledgments......Page 9 Introduction......Page 12 Part One - The Birth of the SUV......Page 21 1 - Early Rumblings......Page 22 2 - Reviving A Corpse......Page 37 3 - Creating the Ford Explorer......Page 62 4 - Paving the Road to Ever Bigger SUVs......Page 80 5 - The SUV Economy......Page 100 6 - Reptile Dreams......Page 112 Part Two - The Dark Side of the SUV......Page 143 7 - The Myth of Four-Wheel-Drive Safety......Page 144 8 - Rollovers......Page 166 9 - Kill Rates......Page 183 10 - The SUV Insurance Subsidy......Page 224 11 - Trouble for Cities......Page 238 12 - Global Warming, Gasoline Mileage, and a Gentlemen's Agreement......Page 255 13 - Seducing the Press......Page 288 14 - The Green Prince......Page 299 15 - The Ford Explorer-Firestone Tire Debacle......Page 320 Part Three - The Future of the SUV......Page 356 16 - The Next Drivers of SUVs......Page 357 17 - Crossover Utilities......Page 368 18 - The Schwarzenegger Dividend......Page 376 19 - The Triumph of SUVs......Page 398 20 - Finding a Way Out......Page 429 Epilogue......Page 443 Myths and Realities About SUVs......Page 459 The Family Tree of Automobiles......Page 466 How to Improve Safety in Buying or Driving an SUV......Page 473 Notes......Page 475 Index......Page 488 SUVs have taken over America's roads. Ad campaigns promote them as safer and "greener" than ordinary cars and easy to handle in bad weather. But very little about the SUV's image is accurate. They poorly protect occupants and inflict horrific damage in crashes, they guzzle gasoline, and they are hard to control. Keith Bradsher has been at the forefront in reporting the calamitous safety and environmental record of SUVs, including the notorious Ford-Firestone rollover controversy. In High and Mighty, he traces the checkered history of SUVs, showing how they came to be classified not as passenger cars but as light trucks, which are subject to less strict regulations on safety, gas mileage, and air pollution. He makes a powerful case that these vehicles are even worse than we suspect--for their occupants, for other motorists, for pedestrians and for the planet itself. In the tradition of Unsafe at Any Speed and Fast Food Nation, Bradsher's book is a damning expos? of an industry that puts us all at risk, whether we recognize it or not. The Detroit bureau chief of "The New York Times" exposes the dangers posed to the people who drive SUVs and the drivers who must share the road with them, tracing the vehicle's history, environmental impact, and crashworthiness With a new Epilogue by the author, "High and Mighty" makes a powerful case that sport utility vehicles are much worse than cars for their occupants, for other motorists, for pedestrians, and for the planet itself