bklynh2srock
02-11-2003, 11:35 PM
What Would Satan Drive?
America, they say, has come to despise SUVs. We hit the road to find out just how much.
By Brian O'Reilly
We are driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, waiting for the cellphone to ring. Normally we'd hope that the damn thing never made a sound. But today we are plumbing the depths of resentment that Americans bear toward those polluting, car-crushing, un-Christian, Osama-funding road monsters known as SUVs. Our vehicle is a canary-yellow, three-ton, 6 1/2-foot-high Hummer H2, with tires that look as if they came from an earthmover. On the rear is our phone number and a big sign inviting motorists to call.
Oh, it sounded like a great assignment at first. "I want you to do something with a Hummer," said the editor. I assumed it was an update of a story I'd done years ago about the testosterone-enriching off-road capabilities of the original Humvee, splashing across streams and creeping over boulders. Later my editor's intent became clear: Cruise the suburbs and the urbs, highways and bird sanctuaries, attracting and chronicling anti-SUV sentiment. Thanks, chief.
But today something's amiss. On the turnpike our fellow New Jerseyans are uncharacteristically restrained. We press on and park the Hummer at a rest stop on I-95 in Maryland. From a table inside, son Paul and I watch for someone in the parking lot to spew venom at the truck. Is the thing invisible? Later, as we rumble through Washington, D.C., nary a catcall, brickbat, or middle finger greets us.
We arrive at our destination: a Baptist church near downtown Washington, the ministry of Rev. Jim Ball. He is the guy who dreamed up the "What would Jesus drive?" campaign that has seemed to stir up a storm of Hummer hatred. His campaign distilled a free-floating hostility toward the giant sport utes that now account for about a fifth of all cars sold in the U.S. Pranksters slap stickers on SUVs' rear bumpers with the mocking message I'm Changing the Environment. Ask Me How . A television ad campaign argues that SUVs' thirst for gasoline is funding terrorists. Surely Rev. Ball will shake a wrathful fist at us.
"Wow. That really is a truck," he says, eyeing with amusement the way it towers over everything else in the parking lot. He explains gently that his campaign was a natural extension of the question evangelical types commonly ask--"What would Jesus do?" If we go to war with Iraq in part because of our huge demand for foreign oil, Ball says, well, that wouldn't be right, would it? We stare at our feet.
Ironically, Ball has gotten more heat from fellow evangelists about WWJD than we got cruising 500 miles (at 10 1/2 per gallon) in a Hummer. Televangelist Pat Robertson accused him of blasphemy. Rev. Jerry Falwell told Ball on a talk show that he wished he owned a Hummer. On the phone, a Falwell spokesman told us that the minister believes Jesus would have driven a Hummer too. We decided Falwell needed a ride in a Hummer, so we started off for his church in Virginia. But God had other plans: He hit northern Virginia with an ice storm, thwarting our exegesis of His taste in automobiles.
So we headed north to Atlantic City, figuring sinners might explain what the godly could not. On the way we spotted a remote wetlands environmental center--surely a hotbed of big-car antipathy. Anxious about our reception, we briefly drove the Hummer down what turned out to be a delicate footpath through the center's bird sanctuary. An elderly worker emerged from a building and pointed us in the proper direction. "Boy, you need tires like that on a day like this," she said admiringly.
In Atlantic City we spotted another Hummer parked near some casinos and waited for the owner to show up and tell us what it's like to be a pariah. He turned out to be a Danny DeVito-esque fellow named David Branderbit, owner of a local copier-repair business. He squinted and thought hard for a moment when asked if he'd been affected by the "What would Jesus drive?" campaign. "I think I heard about that," he said dubiously. Does he get any crap from strangers about what he drives? Branderbit gestured at his Hummer as though the answer were obvious. "They wouldn't dare."
We came to a startling conclusion: Nobody gives a damn what you drive. From New Hampshire to California, the answers from Hummer owners were the same. "The only negative comment I ever got was 'That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen,'" says Kelley McNally, a petite San Francisco woman.
Far from being defensive, a surprisingly large number of Hummer owners viewed their oversized, go-anywhere vehicles as helping them make the planet a tad better. Susan Andersen uses her Hummer to save giant Neapolitan mastiff dogs from being euthanized. The dogs can grow so big and unruly that their owners take them to be destroyed. Andersen once drove 25 hours from her home in Manhattan to Canada to transport a condemned mastiff to a new owner. "I was driving through three feet of snow. Nothing else would get me through."
Other Hummer owners say that their travels through the forest keep fire roads open or that they can help rescue stranded hikers and motorists. In Pennsylvania a Hummer owner who calls himself Biker Bill doesn't worry what Jesus thinks. Because his Hummer seats only five, he bought a Suburban, too, to collect his adult children and drive them to church on Sundays. "They had a habit of saying they'd meet us there. They didn't always make it."
So where does all the anti-SUV rhetoric come from? "It comes from you guys back there on the East Coast," says Michael Lawler, a founder of the Hummer Club in Los Angeles. "We love big trucks out here." Biker Bill says, "It's a West Coast thing. Back here, we leave each other alone."
There was time left for one last attempt to flush out the anti-SUV crowd. My son and I roared along the beach in Brigantine, N.J., up (legally) into a huge wildlife preserve. Aha! A woman was watching the birds. She spotted us. She raised her hand! This was it!
Alas, she waved. She smiled.
America, they say, has come to despise SUVs. We hit the road to find out just how much.
By Brian O'Reilly
We are driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, waiting for the cellphone to ring. Normally we'd hope that the damn thing never made a sound. But today we are plumbing the depths of resentment that Americans bear toward those polluting, car-crushing, un-Christian, Osama-funding road monsters known as SUVs. Our vehicle is a canary-yellow, three-ton, 6 1/2-foot-high Hummer H2, with tires that look as if they came from an earthmover. On the rear is our phone number and a big sign inviting motorists to call.
Oh, it sounded like a great assignment at first. "I want you to do something with a Hummer," said the editor. I assumed it was an update of a story I'd done years ago about the testosterone-enriching off-road capabilities of the original Humvee, splashing across streams and creeping over boulders. Later my editor's intent became clear: Cruise the suburbs and the urbs, highways and bird sanctuaries, attracting and chronicling anti-SUV sentiment. Thanks, chief.
But today something's amiss. On the turnpike our fellow New Jerseyans are uncharacteristically restrained. We press on and park the Hummer at a rest stop on I-95 in Maryland. From a table inside, son Paul and I watch for someone in the parking lot to spew venom at the truck. Is the thing invisible? Later, as we rumble through Washington, D.C., nary a catcall, brickbat, or middle finger greets us.
We arrive at our destination: a Baptist church near downtown Washington, the ministry of Rev. Jim Ball. He is the guy who dreamed up the "What would Jesus drive?" campaign that has seemed to stir up a storm of Hummer hatred. His campaign distilled a free-floating hostility toward the giant sport utes that now account for about a fifth of all cars sold in the U.S. Pranksters slap stickers on SUVs' rear bumpers with the mocking message I'm Changing the Environment. Ask Me How . A television ad campaign argues that SUVs' thirst for gasoline is funding terrorists. Surely Rev. Ball will shake a wrathful fist at us.
"Wow. That really is a truck," he says, eyeing with amusement the way it towers over everything else in the parking lot. He explains gently that his campaign was a natural extension of the question evangelical types commonly ask--"What would Jesus do?" If we go to war with Iraq in part because of our huge demand for foreign oil, Ball says, well, that wouldn't be right, would it? We stare at our feet.
Ironically, Ball has gotten more heat from fellow evangelists about WWJD than we got cruising 500 miles (at 10 1/2 per gallon) in a Hummer. Televangelist Pat Robertson accused him of blasphemy. Rev. Jerry Falwell told Ball on a talk show that he wished he owned a Hummer. On the phone, a Falwell spokesman told us that the minister believes Jesus would have driven a Hummer too. We decided Falwell needed a ride in a Hummer, so we started off for his church in Virginia. But God had other plans: He hit northern Virginia with an ice storm, thwarting our exegesis of His taste in automobiles.
So we headed north to Atlantic City, figuring sinners might explain what the godly could not. On the way we spotted a remote wetlands environmental center--surely a hotbed of big-car antipathy. Anxious about our reception, we briefly drove the Hummer down what turned out to be a delicate footpath through the center's bird sanctuary. An elderly worker emerged from a building and pointed us in the proper direction. "Boy, you need tires like that on a day like this," she said admiringly.
In Atlantic City we spotted another Hummer parked near some casinos and waited for the owner to show up and tell us what it's like to be a pariah. He turned out to be a Danny DeVito-esque fellow named David Branderbit, owner of a local copier-repair business. He squinted and thought hard for a moment when asked if he'd been affected by the "What would Jesus drive?" campaign. "I think I heard about that," he said dubiously. Does he get any crap from strangers about what he drives? Branderbit gestured at his Hummer as though the answer were obvious. "They wouldn't dare."
We came to a startling conclusion: Nobody gives a damn what you drive. From New Hampshire to California, the answers from Hummer owners were the same. "The only negative comment I ever got was 'That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen,'" says Kelley McNally, a petite San Francisco woman.
Far from being defensive, a surprisingly large number of Hummer owners viewed their oversized, go-anywhere vehicles as helping them make the planet a tad better. Susan Andersen uses her Hummer to save giant Neapolitan mastiff dogs from being euthanized. The dogs can grow so big and unruly that their owners take them to be destroyed. Andersen once drove 25 hours from her home in Manhattan to Canada to transport a condemned mastiff to a new owner. "I was driving through three feet of snow. Nothing else would get me through."
Other Hummer owners say that their travels through the forest keep fire roads open or that they can help rescue stranded hikers and motorists. In Pennsylvania a Hummer owner who calls himself Biker Bill doesn't worry what Jesus thinks. Because his Hummer seats only five, he bought a Suburban, too, to collect his adult children and drive them to church on Sundays. "They had a habit of saying they'd meet us there. They didn't always make it."
So where does all the anti-SUV rhetoric come from? "It comes from you guys back there on the East Coast," says Michael Lawler, a founder of the Hummer Club in Los Angeles. "We love big trucks out here." Biker Bill says, "It's a West Coast thing. Back here, we leave each other alone."
There was time left for one last attempt to flush out the anti-SUV crowd. My son and I roared along the beach in Brigantine, N.J., up (legally) into a huge wildlife preserve. Aha! A woman was watching the birds. She spotted us. She raised her hand! This was it!
Alas, she waved. She smiled.