There are a number of efforts to encourage Americans to make the links between our automobile usage and the impact on safety and on imported oil. To connect the dots, as Newspaper Columnist Arianna Huffintgton puts it. She's active with The Detroit Project which has promoted a commercial satirizing the ads that are currently being run to connect seemingly "benign" marijuana usage with the predations of mobsters and terrorists abroad. The Detroit Project asks SUV buyers to consider the effect that their gas-guzzling SUVs are having not just on the environment, but on our foreign policy.

You can find the ad here: http://www.detroitproject.com

Meanwhile, another journalist is helping spearhead another anti-SUV effort:

“Given what our country has faced since September 11th, the marketing and driving of big gas guzzlers is not in our best interest as parents and as patriotic Americans,” said Betsy Rosenberg, co-founder of Mothers for Clean and Safe Vehicles. Rosenberg is a Bay Area radio host who covers environmental issues on her daily feature. “I am a self-admitted recovering SUV driver who now proudly drives a 45 mpg Toyota Prius hybrid car,”she said.

During last year’s heated Senate debate on an amendment to the energy bill, SUV-loving soccer moms were singled-out as an “example” by the auto industry - strengthening their argument against making significant changes that would provide Americans with more fuel efficient and safer choices. Senators from car-producing states claimed that the technology was neither available nor affordable to improve SUVs and other family vehicles without significantly compromising comfort, size and safety.

The fact that this modest, bi-partisan attempt by Senators John Kerry and John McCain went down to defeat amidst calls to reduce our reliance on oil - outraged many Americans prepared to do their part.

Mothers for Clean and Safe Vehicles are encouraging drivers to sign the “Don’t Be Fueled” petitions, that are available online at their new website, www.DontBeFueled.org
Organizing mothers will collect these signatures across the country and send them to major automakers and lawmakers.

“When automakers lobbyists swarmed the halls of the U.S. Capitol, the Senate’s urgent call for energy security seems to have lost out to their more pressing need for campaign contributions” said Lynn Fuller, another founding Mom. “History proves making our cars run on less gas has been the single most effective tool in reducing our national oil consumption.”

“They didn’t ask us,” said Lauren Klein Hayes, campaign co-director. “As mothers, we would do anything to protect our kids, and yet we were portrayed as wanting to own ever larger vehicles in order to feel safe. Better-designed family vehicles that do not waste oil, and are not as prone to rollovers, would help guard our children against serious crashes, pollution, global warming, and the risks of war and terrorism now facing our country,” she said. “The vote against design improvements was a vote for the ‘special interests’ that profit from the status quo - the car and oil industries. It was against the ‘public interest’ of safe vehicles, clean air and national security.”

“The technology is there, and we demand it be used,” said Arlene Stark, the campaign’s co-founder. Stark, does not consider herself an activist, but was angered by the US Senate’s action last March. “Despite the obvious connection between terrorism and our dependency on foreign oil, our leadership would have us believe that women care more about the cars they drive, than the security of their country,” Stark pointed out. “They are wrong!,” she said. “American automobile manufacturers need to understand - that mothers have come together to send them a loud and clear message - Don’t Be Fueled.”