Dear FRONTLINE,

In your program what haunted me most was the images of large vehicles crushing smaller ones. Like, that's a selling point for big cars?

Wednesday 4:35pm, Nancy looks down to change a CD track. She looks up and Whoa! Stupid skateboarder rolls into the street. Her reaction is quick and she misses the kid, but her Navigator leans and loses stability as she struggles with the wheel and BAM! Accidents happen, could be anyone’s fault, but because people died in the Civic she hit, the moment just before impact will be thoroughly dissected. Was she speeding or breaking any laws at 4:35? How many glasses of wine did she really drink at that lunch meeting?

Let’s say she was a perfect citizen at 4:35pm. She no longer has to deal with passing the victim’s family members at the courthouse and she finally gets to go home and quietly live with herself. Although she rarely leaves home anymore, Nancy becomes a statistic favoring big cars.

And what if the science guys are right? Picture climate change, your grandkids wandering through the deserts of Oregon and Idaho searching for water. Unthinkable, "Fuzzy Science", perhaps, but shall we passively gamble our kids futures on it? World leaders who gathered in Kyoto to address climate change were stunned when America walked away. When we buy SUVs, we say no to the Kyoto Protocol, Drill in Alaska, and keep gas cheap.

Detroit didn’t do this to America. We as consumers made SUVs trendy, and we have the power to turn things around. Own a local store? Put up a "No SUV" sign for a few days. Got a nice list of email addresses? Shoot out some SPAM like "Hey folks, if you haven’t noticed, Our Roads Are Paved." Got a small car? Grab a few of those small sticky letters and spell out "gaspig" or something. There are a lot of clever ways to tell people in your community "Hey, lose the big ride!" Just think, you, one person, could do great things for the planet just by making people in your town think twice at the dealership!

Joe Jennings
redondo beach, ca

A show called FRONTLINE on PBS aired a brilliant program called "Rollover". On their website at PBS.org, they posted extensive and valuable information about the safety record of SUVs. Go there and be enlightened.