They’re big, they ooze status appeal and they carry with them an unmistakable sense of entitlement – even the driver’s elevated seating is called a “command” position. So is it any wonder that SUVs have transfixed motorists since they started to emerge in the US in the brash 1980s and self-serving 1990s?
Rugged off-roaders, built like tanks and boasting all the subtlety of a Donald Trump meet-and-greet, are hardly new to our roads. It was only a couple of years ago that Land Rover’s bestselling and much-cherished Defender celebrated its 70th birthday. But these are 4x4s that were built to do a proper job of work. A real 4x4 is a prodigious feat of automotive engineering that ensures you can drive into the teeth of the most inhospitable environment on the planet and stay warm, dry and safe.
Farmers, builders, the military and emergency services all needed chunky vehicles with plenty of heft, grunt and the off-road ability to cope with anything that was going to be thrown at them. These days, however, all that gets thrown at SUV drivers is the abuse of fellow road users. Big SUVs are no longer the preserve of working people. Instead they are the trusted rides of school-run parents, commuters and, yes, the leader of the Labour party.
When Sir Keir Starmer left home last Sunday morning to make the short trip to his tailor and dry cleaners, little did he know that his SUV would collide with a Deliveroo rider on an electric bicycle, nor that the crash would reignite the long-running and increasingly toxic debate over our shared road spaces and the way we travel around our cities.
Accidents do happen, and there is no suggestion that this was anything more than that. The rider, fortunately, was not seriously hurt and the collision did not result in another figure being added to the grim tally of cycling deaths on the capital’s roads. Last year, five people died cycling in London, which is down from the 12 who died in 2018. However, the huge uptake in riding in the city has been accompanied by an overall increase in less serious accidents. Injuries to cyclists were up 36% to 4,634 last year.
The other figure that is rising, and alarmingly so, is the rocketing popularity of SUVs. One report has estimated that they now outsell electric cars in the UK by 37 to one. As a result, the overall level of exhaust emissions from new cars has been increasing, not declining, says the UK Energy Research Centre. Over the past four years, there have been 1.8m SUV sales, compared to a total of just 47,000 electric vehicles. This year, not surprisingly, sales in all car sectors have plunged dramatically, so it will be a while before motoring trends can be correctly forecast. But if they pick up where they left off before the pandemic, you can expect to see even more large SUVs on our cramped city streets.
It’s good to see that the figures for electric vehicle sales are slowly creeping up. But even if more motorists start to swap their gas-guzzlers for clean-running electric and hybrid motors, the market for SUVs will continue to grow apace as manufacturers are now feeding our enduring love of big, bold and imposing cars by simply creating electric SUVs. For car producers, it’s a no-brainer: motorists like SUVs, and some of them now want electric power, so let’s give them what they want.
This leads neatly into the tedious and long-running “size matters” debate. Big cars may be status symbols but our cities were built long before the age of the car. Roads are narrow, yet cars are getting bigger all the time. It boils down to a simple equation: large cars plus narrow streets equals chronic congestion.
But there is an obvious solution. If you can, get out and walk – or cycle. It’s good for you, good for your city and, these days, with backed-up traffic everywhere, you’ll probably get there sooner too. If only Starmer had chosen to walk to his tailor, his only cost would have been a bit of shoe leather.
