big and bad

I was cycling around Warwickshire in an eco-friendly sort of way at the weekend, and in between the excessively frequent stops to repair the damage caused by the visits of the puncture fairy I was thinking about SUVs. Probably prompted by the amount of time one has to spend as a cyclist trying to avoid being killed by them, I was trying to figure out why a) they existed at all and b) why they sold in such numbers. Engineers are generally rational people, so why would they create something quite as preposterous as a Porsche Cayenne Turbo? Obviously, they did it because they wanted to keep their jobs and feed their children, but apart from relishing the challenge of building a 2 tonne off-roader that will go from 0-60 in under 5 seconds, can they really have felt happy about what they were doing? Engineering is about solving problems, but the modern SUV solves very few problems while creating rather a lot of them. In the beginning, SUVs existed as workhorses, to be used by farmers, foresters, explorers and construction workers to get places ordinary cars couldn't go. If you've ever been in a Willys Jeep or a Series 1 Landrover, you will appreciate just how utilitarian these utility vehicles were. Then for many years, the Range Rover was the only 'luxury' 4x4, sold to the landowners rather than their staff, and just as acceptable in Mayfair as in the country. The wider popularity of alleged off-roaders was driven by the American market (the Cayenne and the BMW X5 were created for that market), and according to the American Automobile industry, SUV purchasers

"tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities."

(Keith Bradsher, "High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV")

So the problem SUVs solve is how to sell more vehicles to vain, selfish, nervous people, and for that the rest of us must accept unnecessary levels of pollution, increased accident risks and many other reductions in our quality of life. Would it not have been a btter engineering solution to invest in some education and therapy?