The Columnist Manifesto

Marginal Utility makes a trenchant report that the "what'll they think of next?" quality of SUV names has exceeded the absurdity threshold with the "Subaru Tribeca." I personally felt this had been acheived with Porsche's "Cayenne," which promised to open the world of herb and spice names to the SUV industry.

When will they ban those things? Gas guzzling aside, they are a danger to themselves and others. It has been well documented that, although they win in head-on collisions with smaller vehicles, they are much less safe for everyone because they get into more collisions in the first place due to their poor maneuverability. They spill over the edges of parking spaces like a fat guy in an airplane seat, they block the sight-lines of other drivers, and based on personal observation, an SUV driver is ten times more likely than a normal-sized-car driver to have at least one hand holding a cell phone. Or to paraphrase the old joke, one hand holding the cell phone, one hand picking his nose, and the third hand on the wheel.

For my part, I try to have at least one hypothetical involving an SUV accident in any suitable law school course course I teach.