Letter: Banning SUVs is ridiculous

Thursday, June 7, 2001 | 8:24 a.m.

As do many blinded by the hollow promises of a utopia system of socialized mass transit, reader Dan Olivier, in his June 3 letter attacking personal transportation, fails to see the obvious shortcomings in his own proposal.

To suggest that the manufactured energy woes of the world will be solved by banning admittedly silly, gas-guzzling SUVs in exchange for "mass transit trains and buses" is ridiculous.

Converting Americans from freedom-loving personal transport worshippers to lock-step mass transit riders will not mean an end to our dependency on the internal combustion engine, nor will such social engineering solve the energy problems of the future.

Buses and trains do not run on the misty-eyed dreams of social engineers. They run either via direct internal combustion engines or by electricity generated primarily through the burning of fossil fuels. Shifting those limited fuel supplies from personal transportation systems to mass transportation systems neither solves the purported problem of greenhouse gasses nor offers a long-term solution to the eventual forced end of the world's dependence on fossil fuels. It only delays the effects of fossil fuel depletion, at the cost of personal freedom.

World dependence on fossil fuels will be solved when fossil fuel reserves are depleted. At that time (or, more likely, before), new energy technologies will be put into use. Until then, for whom, exactly, are we saving the fuels? Even today, automobile and technology experts are developing new sources of energy to, among other things, drive personal transportation devices.

It makes largely no difference to me whether my convertible is powered by gasoline, hydrogen, or solar power, as long as it takes me where I want to go, when I want to go there, without the burden of hour-long waits, cramped quarters, and decreased personal security.

JAMES P. REZA