Judging from TV, Americans
seem to think the only thing needed to sell a product or solve a
problem is a catchy slogan. You’ve probably got the tinkly
music from some jingle running through your head right now —
even if you’ve tried to remove it with an ice pick.
So I’m starting my crusade to change our driving habits this
way: Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive SUVs.
Like
most mottoes, it sounds familiar because — following standard
advertising practice — I stole it.
Repeat after me:
Friends don’t let friends drive SUVs. Catchy, isn’t it?
A good slogan often ignores logic, but here’s my
thinking: Almost anyone can now see the serious consequences of our
American obsession with the biggest everything. We’re chubs
in gluttonous cars. Whining into our cell phones about gas prices
and the economy, we drive to the mall to buy plastic trinkets made
overseas.
No matter what you believe about our fossil
fuel supplies, most of us know waste is shortsighted. We
Westerners, who have always lived with limited resources,
understand scarcity — or at least we ought to — so I
propose we lead the demand for practical transportation.
But how do we convince the woman in a Yukon, pretending she’s
mushing through the Arctic instead of heading to the cubicle? How
to convert the Safari driver who sees himself muscular in a leopard
loincloth instead of wimpy in pin stripes?
Friends
don’t let friends……
Nobody wants to think about
the ozone layer, but we can’t afford to allow the
reality-impaired to rule. America’s energy crisis is likely
to be permanent. Sure, everyone deserves a few illusions.
Pretending to be hacking through the jungle is more fun than
reality — cutting ahead of a mother with three kids in the
rust heap.
But most of us don’t really need an SUV;
the sales slogans prove it. In one, a big square vehicle heads down
a cliff above the words: “No intelligent life out here. Just you.”
Reinforcing the car maker’s idea of your intelligence, the ad
continues: “Stay ahead of your better judgment.”
A pickup
sales pitch says, “If you brought this truck to the playground,
you’d be king of the dirt pile.”
Rather than noting
capacity or power, the maker of the world’s biggest truck say
it’s “for kids over 20 who miss playing with trucks in the
sandbox,” and “the ultimate toy for extreme work and play.”
Isn’t it time we grew out of the sandbox?
It is
true that driving is here to stay — if you can call it that.
Statistics compiled by the California State Assembly in Sacramento
show that the projected average speed of cars on that state’s
highways in 2010 will be 11 miles an hour. The only speeders will
be on skateboards.
Besides wasting resources, tall,
square machines are unsafe because they are aerodynamically
unstable. Why aren’t fish square? Submarines? Airplanes?
Curved bodies move more easily through air or water. I’ve
seen a square SUV hit black ice in the backwash of a speeding
18-wheeler on I-80 with a 70-mile-an-hour wind. It crumples like
tin foil as it rolls. Cars shaped like watermelon seeds slip right
past the wreckage.
We can change our habits. Remember
when everyone smoked? With enough slogans, we can break this
addiction.
The VW Bug was arguably the most beloved car
in our history. Tough, compact, efficient — and you could
replace the fan belt with panty hose. Maybe, given enough public
pressure, car makers will start to manufacture efficient cars. Then
ad writers could change their focus, naming them for little
critters with big abilities. Say, the Hummingbird: flies 30 hours
without touching down. The Pocket Gopher: carries a heavy load and
can tuck itself in anywhere.
Young couples might buy the
Gnat: tiny, but powerful enough to drive men and moose insane. The
Microbe: it can bring an elephant to its knees. Such names would
make a lot more sense. Who’d want to be caught in an
Avalanche? Ride in a Typhoon?
Since Westerners will take
the lead in this effort, we might campaign for Western monikers:
Drive the desert in a Pronghorn: Goes For Days Without A Drink.
Want honest advertising? The Turtle: You Always Get There. Jack
Rabbit: 0 to 50 in 10 seconds. Animal lovers might like the Prairie
Dog: Takes a licking, but keeps on digging. I’d like to hold
out for the Polecat: Goes anywhere it wants.
Linda M. Hasselstrom is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org).
She ranches in South Dakota and writes in Cheyenne,
Wyoming.
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