Extreme Off Roading

Trucks reign supreme in a large portion of the country, despite environmental concerns.
Forget the pending oil crisis or the damaging effects of automobiles on the environment. Like it or not, this is America, where everything is big - including the cars.
Light-duty trucks (vans, pickups, 4x4s, and SUVs) reported increased sales for the eighth straight year, reaching an all-time high of 8.2 million units in 1999, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. In fact, light trucks' share of the new vehicle market currently stands at a record 48.5 percent, up from 40.3 percent in 1994. These vehicles are heavier, stronger, and more powerful than their counterparts of 20 years ago. They're also less fuel-efficient than your typical passenger car. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that all gains made over the past two decades in the fuel efficiency of light trucks has been offset by the increased weight and horsepower of models on the market today. According to the bureau, this environmental loss has been driven primarily by the consumer battle cry of "bigger is better."
But sitting behind the wheel of a big rig doesn't automatically make you an environmental hazard. Truckers, it seems, mirror their passenger car counterparts in terms of environmentally-friendly consumer choices. According to Simmons Market Research Bureau, 40 percent of truckers buy products in recycled packaging, and 38 percent believe there should be a ban on products that pollute the environment. (These attitudes and behaviors are on par with the national average of 40 percent.) In this issue of American Demographics, we take a look at the truck-phenom, and the drivers behind the wheels of these big autos. Doctors have joined the chorus of attacks on 4x4 vehicles with a warning that owners are recklessly putting other road users at risk by flouting laws over the use of mobile phones and seat belts.
Researchers who studied the behaviour of drivers of the off road vehicles say that they took more risks because they felt safer than drivers of smaller cars. Scornfully known as Chelsea tractors due to their increasing appearance on urban streets, few 4x4s have seen more mud than can be picked up on a private school sports field. Teachers have tried to ban them and politicians want to impose penal tax rates on them - up to pounds 2,000 a year, 10 times the normal road tax, in the latest proposal from the Liberal Democrats. They have been widely condemned as gas-guzzling, road- hogging and environmentally damaging. And the new front opened by the medical profession is bound further to inflame the debate on Britain's most controversial vehicle.
Although passengers in a 4x4 are less likely to suffer harm in an accident than those in a smaller vehicle, their owners are increasing the risk of injury to themselves and others by their failure to observe common safety measures, according to research from Imperial College, London, which is published in the British Medical Journal.
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