Vroom Doom: The Dark Causes and Consequences of America's SUV Mania
Channel: Eco Gecko
Date: 2020-04-15

Sports utility vehicles, once a specialized product for niche markets, have exploded into the most popular type of car in America, with General Motors estimating that over 80% of its sales will be trucks or SUVs by 2022. But this isn't an innocent consumer trend--rather, the SUV is the face of several worrying social and economic trends in contemporary America. 

In this video, we explore and elaborate upon the arguments Dr. Josh Lauer of the University of New Hampshire made in a prescient 2005 paper connecting the dots between booming SUV sales, violent crime, exploding economic inequality, and a widespread belief in a coming apocalypse. 

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The full paper is available at the following link:

https://mypages.unh.edu/sites/default/files/jlauer/files/lauer_2005_driven_to_extremes.pdf

The full music list can be found at the end of the video. Much of the music used was composed by Kai Engel and made available via Creative Commons licensing. More of their work, as well as license information, can be found at the following link:

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel

This video is licensed under Creative Commons--you are free to share, reproduce, and modify it as long as you attribute the original work and do not use the product for commercial gain.