ANTI-SUV AD HAS WRONG APPROACH

We have met the enemy in the battle against terrorism and it is. . .
you over there in the Cadillac Escalade and you in the Lincoln
Navigator. At least that's the message from an advocacy group in its
misguided TV commercials that equate driving sports utility vehicles
with supporting terrorism.

"This is George," intones a girl's voice on one commercial as viewers
see a man at a gas station. "This is the gas that George bought for
his SUV." With a map of the Middle East filling the screen, the
narration continues: "These are the countries where the executives
bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV."
Finally, over a scene of terrorists in a desert, comes the kicker:
"And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every
time George fills up his SUV."

It's enough to make a contrary American rush to the SUV dealership.
While it is true that large SUVs are fuel-inefficient and pose a
threat to their own drivers as well as other cars, the notion that
their owners are somehow in cahoots with terrorists is ludicrous. The
ads were patterned after antidrug ads and dreamed up by Arianna
Huffington, a political gadfly who wants everyone to match her moral
superiority. She traded in her SUV for a hybrid electric car that gets
50 miles per gallon.

The tactic is likely to backfire. Rather than trying to make SUV
drivers feel guilty, Huffington and others SUV detractors should focus
on correcting the vehicles's flaws. Congress should hold SUVs and
other so-called "light trucks" to the same fuel-efficiency standards
as cars. And automakers should redesign SUVs so that they are not such
a threat to roll over or to injure passengers in smaller cars whose
bumpers don't match up with the taller vehicles.

The SUV fad will eventually pass, but until Americans take
conservation seriously, we will still be stuck with gas-guzzlers. The
two cars with the worst mileage in 2002 weren't SUVs but small sports
cars made by Lamborghini and Ferrari. Nobody is linking wind-swept
playboys to terrorists, but don't give Huffington any ideas.