To the Editor:
Why are "robust" sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles "heartening" (editorial, May 7)?
Exulting over stricter Federal pollution standards for giant passenger vehicles, as if they somehow offset the enormous harm that the growing numbers of the giant vehicles inflict, is myopic.
Sport utility vehicles and their ilk do much more than pollute the air. They endanger and bully bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists in smaller cars and degrade the urban quality of life.
No matter how strict the Federal air regulations or effective the S.U.V.'s emission-control devices, the laws of physics dictate that when a vehicle's engine burns more gasoline, then more greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are pumped into the atmosphere.
JOHN KAEHNY
New York, May 7, 1999The writer is executive director, Transportation Alternatives, a pedestrian and bicyclist advocacy group.
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