Let’s All Be Primitive and Drive Behemoths

Mr. Halogen was bearing down rapidly on me from behind, the high-powered headlights of his SUV boring through the back of my skull and taking detailed pictures of my brain.

I changed lanes.

Nowadays, of course, there is no secure lane to move to, no portal of escape. They traverse the landscape like T. Rex of yore -- fearsome, oversized, intimidating. They go where they want, flicking aside whoever or whatever gets in their way.

SUVs, minivans, pickups, wagons -- the bigger the better. Who needs a stupid old car these days?

As more and more of these creatures began appearing over the years, I originally dismissed them as just another mutant strain of American consumerism -- but one doomed to certain extinction. Having little confidence in my fellow drivers’ ability to handle subcompacts, I couldn’t conceive of large numbers of them mastering these unwieldy beasts.

How wrong can a guy be? Who knew we were a nation of wannabe Greyhound bus drivers? I obviously misread the appeal of riding high atop the pavement and looking down on mere mortals below.

By now, you’ve rightly concluded that I didn’t sign up for the movement. In the land of Navigators, Rams, Jimmys and Yukons, I plod along in a 10-year-old Celica, a prissy four-cylinder tin can that doesn’t aspire to block anyone else’s view of the road.

Call me old-fashioned. It’s just the way I was brought up.

Once upon a time, you had to be on a two-lane highway out in the country to have a pickup truck run you off the road. Now it can happen to you on MacArthur Boulevard.

And it’s just as likely that instead of being a good ol’ boy behind the wheel, it’ll be the president of the local PTA on her way home.

I hear you: “Hey, what’s with the attitude, fella?”

OK, I’ll tell you.

When I see these big boys stacked up at the gas pumps, swallowing fuel at $3.30 a gallon and getting (as many of them do) less than 20 miles per, I’m tempted to walk over and confront them about their guzzling. Of course, I don’t, because I’m afraid of anyone who drives a large vehicle, but the resentment is real.

Then, there’s the issue of time-per-pump-visit. Because they go through fuel like Paris Hilton through boyfriends, these people are always at the pump. And if you happen to be stuck in line behind one of them, you can read the sports section waiting for them to fill up.

Let’s talk parking lots. Is there anyone in America who knows how to park one of those behemoths? Let me be more specific; I mean, between the lines?

When it comes to such things, their universal slogan seems to be “Aw, that’s close enough.”

I’d wager that lots of folks, as timid and resentful as myself, are equally put out. At a time when we’re clearly overly oil-reliant, what do our fellow citizens do? Drive bigger and bigger vehicles.

A generation ago, we envisioned smaller cars and no more Middle East oil reliance. Then, we discovered there was no shortage and, boy, did we go to town.

It seems there’s renewed chatter about returning to more fuel-efficiency. It’s irritating to know we’d already be there if we’d started back when Jimmy Carter was talking about it and was being called a sissy.

But we’re not there now, and so the cowboys and moms and teenagers and IKEA shoppers blithely motor around in their war wagons that are the size of starter apartments.

The rationale is that big vans are safer and can transport entire soccer teams. Two good reasons for having one, but their owners shouldn’t complain if the patriots among us increasingly hold them in quiet contempt.

Nothing to do in the meantime but hold our tongues in gas lines and mutter as we inch out of a parking spot while wedged in between two houseboat-sized vans. And, most important, just try to stay the heck out of their way on the road.