"The Truth about Light Trucks" by Douglas Coate and James VanderHoff, in Regulation (Spring 2001), Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001.

Critics say that thousands of lives could be saved every year if sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and other light trucks that crowd the nation’s  roads were replaced by cars. Various studies seem to bear the critics out, note Rutgers University economists Coate and VanderHoff. 

But there’s something that such studies ignore: the difference between rural and urban driving conditions. When this is taken into account, the reviled SUV appears in a far better light.

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