Malcolm Gladwell: Big and Bad. Gladwell’s article talks about the difference between feeling safe and being safe, and how that has led Americans to swarm to large SUVs. Full disclosure: I drive a Jeep Cherokee (not Grand). On the other hand, that’s an improvement — all of my previous vehicles were Ford F-series pickup trucks. I have also learned the valuable lesson (mentioned in the article) that four wheel drive doesn’t do anything at all to help you stop on icy roads the hard way, but at least no one was injured in the process. I’ll also say that in many ways the Jeep Cherokee is not like the modern SUV of today. It comes in at a svelte 3100 pounds, and is actually a couple of inches shorter bumper to bumper than a Toyota Corolla. It’s still not the ideal vehicle for many reasons (it’s a 1999 model with mid-eighties technology and gets crappy gas mileage), but it is paid off.