Driving a fuel efficient car is important to our family, but safety tops being green even if it costs more.  Gas alone is a large chunk of our budget because of long commutes.  Even with the money on my mind, I still think that a nice, LARGE, SUV is a better choice for highway travel.  I couldn’t even begin to comprehend traveling on roads with tractor trailers in some of the hybrid cars that look more like fancy dune buggies than actually vehicles.

Just last week, I had to take a trip in the Chevy Metro.  It’s large enough that it will seat four people, but it doesn’t feel very large when you are face to face with the rim of a truck tire going 75 mph.  It feels very small.  Suddenly, gas mileage doesn’t seem all that important. 

I read recently that the automotive industry is working hard to make the energy efficient choices crash test worthy.  The guy that I saw being interviewed made this statement:  “When a little car collides with a big truck then the odds are the truck will win.”  His basic point is that no matter how safe the smaller, more fuel efficient cars might become, they will probably never be as safe as the larger, fuel gobblers.

The automotive industry needs to find a way to combine the safety of the SUV with the fuel efficiency of the hybrids.  The outcome may not be 200 mpg, but if you aren’t around to drive the car does it really matter how far it can go on a gallon of gas?