Is a Small Ecomony Car a Good Idea?

With gasoline prices rising over the nation, the smaller economy cars are all the rage. Local car dealers scream their wares over the television and radio stations and national sales are shown on the cable and satellite television almost back to back. Of course higher gas mileage is the objective, but at what price?

The accident:

I work in the City one day a week and while working I listen to a local radio station. At 2:30 in the afternoon, the station reported an accident on Interstate 44 and the 244 interchange. It was a fatality accident. I left the office at 4 p.m. and traffic was still creeping past the accident site. By that time the report was saying the wreck was between a car and a semi-truck.

Taking an alternate route, I could see the site from a distance and the car was loaded on the wrecker, about to be taken away. What ever it had been, it was a small car and used to be white. I continued on my journey of 35 miles to arrive home. I said a prayer for the family and friends of the car driver and for the driver of the truck. Although the radio report said the truck driver was not physically hurt, surely they must be emotionally shaken. As I continued home on the Interstate and then the 13 miles of Turnpike before me, I reflected on a decision I had made several years ago.

The trade:

At that time I was driving a medium size sedan 75 miles a day to work and back over these same roads. It was a good car and got good gas mileage, but it had almost 300,000 miles on it so I traded that car in for a new 4 wheel drive SUV. I could use the 4 wheel drive several times a year in the snow we have but the major reason was the size. My sedan was getting smaller and smaller as the service vans and pick-up trucks were getting bigger and bigger. The semi-trucks even seemed to be getting larger.

The SUV gave me a comfort zone in feeling I was as "big as most of them". I just tried to stay away from the semi-trucks. The SUV's have had "bad press" from the start. There was even a point in time when I would jokingly tell some people that I caused the tsunami because I drove a gas guzzling SUV. It got that bad at one point. My SUV is now 8 years old and still gets 19 to 22 miles per gallon. Today it is rated as a "medium" size and I am still very comfortable in it, knowing it has a one ton steel frame with steel side bracing.

In that compact car the other day, someone's son/daughter died or maybe someone's mother/father, or husband/wife. Would they have had a chance in a bigger, safer vehicle? I wonder. I have lived through this phase of smaller vehicles before. It makes me sad.