Re: freedom of choice: I don't want to ban SUVs, thereby taking away freedom of choice. I just wish that people would choose more wisely and based on long-term outcomes instead of immediate personal desires. We all agree to certain limitations on our freedoms for the greater good - speed limits, no-smoking laws in public places, etc.
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So what you're saying is, if a 60 mph head-on collision between an Expedition and a Civic were imminent, you'd rather be in the Civic. Because emitting marginally less emissions, using less gas, and caring about the guy in the other vehicle is more important than your life. Interesting. I guess some of us value our lives a little differently than others...
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Irseg, we all make decisions based on certain probabilities. I'm betting the the probability that I get into a head-on collision at 60 mph with an Expedition is low enough that my driving a smaller car is less risky than you would suggest. If I get into a 60-mph head-on crash in ANY vehicle, I'm likely to come out mangled. Not to mention that head-on crashes at that speed are much less likely than offset crashes and side-impact crashes, at which SUVs fare rather badly. It hardly seems worth it to me to hasten a high-probability event with negative impact on millions or billions of people - global warming and air pollution - by supposedly protecting against a relatively unlikely event that will affect only a few people: me personally getting into a head-on collision in a small car at 60 mph with an SUV.
Large trends are an aggregate of millions of individual decisions. I'd rather protect the group than my own ass in this case when the data show that my own ass is actually relatively safe.