KimC, not having accidents in a Jeep and having accidents in other cars is not a valid argument. It's like saying "When I wore last wore red shoes I got short-changed by the shop assistant, so I'll wear black shoes so he doesn't short-change me".

Whether an SUV is actually safer - hmm. If you hit something head-on at low speeds, your bull-bars will demolish whatever's in front of you, and leave your car unscathed. Unfortunately, if this is a kid who's run out into the street, they're dead. Bullbars were designed in Australia to kill kangaroos which run out in front of cars, in preference to the car's crumple-zone taking the impact and trashing the car but allowing the kangaroo to survive. If you hit a person with a car with bull-bars on it at any sort of speed then they're dead, no questions - it's like having knives stuck to the front of your car.

Bull-bars are also dangerous to the driver if you hit something at speed. Crumple-zones take the impact on normal cars and minimise the shock to the passengers. If you've not got a crumple-zone (and bull-bars are designed NOT to crumple) then the passengers take a lot more shock, so there's much more chance of injury from impact with the car and other passengers, and of neck and internal organ damage. Not nice.

And for rear and side impacts, often SUVs are much less protective than smaller cars. Most quality saloon cars (and we're talking makes like BMW and Mercedes here who know how to build cars, not over-sized under-engineered monsters like Cadillacs) give you a much better chance of surviving an accident than an SUV.

Next up - SUV efficiency. They all have enormous tyres which are designed for off-road use. That gives a much higher rolling resistance, which increases fuel consumption. The frontal area is much bigger, which increases air resistance. And they're usually heavier than normal cars so there's more energy required to accelerate them.

Your mum having a V8 Cadillac as personal transport is equally bad - there's no need for that much engine. SUVs are just the most obvious example of lack of consideration for fuel consumption, so they get most of the flak, but high-consumption cars are just as bad. And 20mpg is VERY bad - maybe you don't think so when a V8 is a typical car to use for around town, but in the UK we'd reckon that anything under 30mpg is seriously expensive. But petrol's so cheap in the US, there's no incentive for anyone to cut down.

Tall/short drivers - some cars fit them, some don't. A friend of mine is 6'4" and has no problems getting in a Rover. My wife is 4'10" and we've had to pick cars carefully so that she can reach the pedals! Not good as the only reason to buy an SUV.

A good reason for an SUV or a minivan is that you've got a lot of stuff (or ppl) to transport or you're going somewhere where the off-road facilities are useful. I fly hang-gliders, and I've appreciated a lift from ppl who've used 4x4s to get to the top of rough tracks. But those ppl generally don't use the 4x4 as the main car - they'll have an Escort or something that size. Tools for the job...

Ppl do dislike the danger posed by large trucks, and in an ideal world the various governments would try to shift that transportation to railways, so that road traffic is minimised. But that means investing in and subsidising rail networks, and for some reason subsidising railways is seen as wrong whilst subsidising road transport (by building and maintaining roads) isn't.

McGrath, all we know so far about global warming is that it's happening, and sea levels are rising. Most computer models reckon that CO2 is the culprit, and I'll go along with that if the scientists reckon so. But temperature fluctuations have happened naturally to the planet throughout its history, so that's also something to consider as a cause, and a new computer model (see the BBC site) which does more detailed modelling than any so far seems to think that the sun is having a major effect. It's still "news", not anything definite, so I'm waiting with interest to see what they reckon. But cutting down on pollution is something that should be done in any case - stopping global warming is merely a good excuse. Acid rain, smog and childhood asthma are more good excuses too.

Grab.