HIGH AND MIGHTY: THE DANGEROUS RISE OF THE SUV

Keith Bradsher has been at the forefront of critical SUV coverage since his posting as Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times from January 1996, through August 2001. While in Detroit, Bradsher won the George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for being the first reporter to cover the many problems created by SUVs.
Winner of the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
Winner of The Washington Monthly's 2002 Annual Political Book Award
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A BookSense 76 Pick
Since High and Mighty was published in the Fall of 2002, regulators and consumers have become increasingly suspicious of sport utility vehicles and their poor safety records, heavy air pollution, and misleading marketing. Yet SUV sales continue to rise, leading average fuel consumption of new vehicles to a twenty- two year low and pushing traffic deaths to the highest level since 1990. As aging SUVs enter the used market, the problem is likely to grow much worse.
Bradsher makes a powerful case that these vehicles are much worse than cars-for their occupants, for other motorists, for pedestrians, and for the planet itself. In so doing, he pulls off a work of investigative journalism that shows how a flawed regulatory system, a desperate Detroit, and our national love for "bigger and better" have combined to create this highway arms race.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE THE BIRTH OF THE SUV
1 Early Rumblings
2 Reviving a Corpse
3 Creation the Ford Explorer
4 Paving the Road to Ever Bigger SUVs
5 Reptile Dreans
PART TWO THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUV
7 The Myth of Four-Wheel-Drive Safety
8 Rollovers
9 Kill Rates
10 The SUV Insurance Subsidy
11 Trouble for Cities
12 Global warmin,Gasoline Mileage,and a Gentlemen's Agreement
13 Seducing the Press
14 The Green Prince
15 The Ford Explorer-Firestone Tire Debacle
PART THREE THE FUTURE OF THE SUV
16 The Next Drivers of SUVS
17 Crossover Utilities
18 The Schwarzenegger Dividend
19 The Triumph of SUVs
20 Finding a Way Out
Epilogue
Myths and Realities about SUVs
The Family Tree of Automobiles
How to Improve Safety in Buying or Driving an SUV
Notes
Index