Call me criminal. But my neighbours don't. They remember how we plucked them from the elements one stormy winter night. Their puny little car couldn't make it up the hill. We overtook them in our SUV as they were flailing through the drifts on foot. They were wearing their city shoes. We gave them a lift home. Now they've got an SUV, too.
The winter road conditions have been pretty wild around rural southern Ontario lately, especially in the country. On Saturday night, we made our way home from dinner at a friend's place. The road had disappeared beneath the drifting snow. We steered our SUV between the telephone poles, and arrived home safe and sound (a tiny bit of vodka didn't seem to diminish my passenger-seat navigation skills). On Sunday, we powered out again through a foot of drifting snow, and stopped a few times to offer aid to people in distress. They were stuck in snow banks and ditches. Not one asked us, "What would Jesus drive?"
It's high time for SUV owners to unite and strike back. We've helped dig you out, and we've taken enough of your abuse.
Down south along the eastern seaboard, last week's big storm turned SUV drivers into heroes. The Land Rovers and the TrailBlazers turned out in force to get doctors, nurses and patients to the hospitals. Suddenly, nobody was whining about fuel efficiency. "We were there when you needed us," beamed a local Hummer owner, who's got 30 inches of road clearance.
Contrary to what you may have read, SUV drivers are the opposite of vain, self-absorbed and arrogant. On the contrary. We're plugged in to Canada's deepest values. Read your Margaret Atwood. This country is all about survival. We've got more wilderness than any other nation in the world. We've got cottage country embedded in our souls. We've also got a lot of really nasty winter weather. In my view, the SUV ought to be declared Canada's official vehicle.
And don't tell me about high gas prices. (Aren't the very people who don't want us to drive gas-guzzlers the same people who demand price caps whenever gas goes over 80 cents?) Buying lots of gas is patriotic. All those nice oil revenues have helped make our country rich, and we won't run out of the stuff for another few thousand years or so.
I guess I could live with being called vain, self-absorbed and arrogant. But I draw the line at being called a natural-born killer. Writing on this page last week, SUV-hater Laura Robinson related how appalled she was to witness two incidents in which SUVs "nearly hit" women pushing baby strollers. According to her, this is why there's no world peace. "The nasty people who consider it unnecessary to watch for human beings on the sidewalk aren't that far removed from the ones now plotting war," she concluded.
Actually, I believe she's factually mistaken about that. Probably, she just ran across my friend Katherine. Kathy's no warmonger. (In fact she believes that George Bush Jr. is the Antichrist.) But she is a lousy driver. She drives an SUV because she's a gardening addict, and needs something to put trees in, and needs the clearance to get through the snow. She doesn't have any spatial sense at all. Her husband ought to take her keys away, only he's worse.
So call off the fatwas on us. People who dump on SUVs are like the mullahs who have appointed themselves the guardians of public morality. They are public scolds who think that conspicuous consumption is vulgar and having fun is worse. They're the type of people who snoop into your garbage to see if you recycle. If they catch you taking the kids to McDonald's, they think it's child abuse.
Deep down inside, these people really believe that all cars are wicked. In a more virtuous world, we'd get around on bikes and public transit. In their view, people who love cars for the freedom and mobility they bring (to say nothing of the six-CD players and heated leather seats) are like people in the olden days who had sex for fun. Dangerous and degenerate.
By the way, what would Jesus drive? You might not like the answer, but I'll tell you anyway. Jesus was a country carpenter. So if he lived in Canada, he'd drive an old, beat-up F-150, which is the vehicle of choice up in our neck of the woods. If he was a really successful carpenter, he'd drive a 250. And some of his disciples would turn them into mudders with gigantic tires and extra strong suspensions, and in winter they'd dig out the Pharisees from the big city for 50 bucks a pop.
As it happens, Ford pickup trucks get the worst emissions ratings of anything on the road. They outsell SUVs by a country mile. But if Ms. Robinson ever dares to wag her righteous finger at the country carpenters, they'll just tell her to hose off.
mwente@globeandmail.ca
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