High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the Suv

Keith Bradsher has been at the forefront of critical SUV coverage since his posting as Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times from January 1996, through August 2001. While in Detroit, Bradsher won the George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for being the first reporter to cover the many problems created by SUVs.
Winner of the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

Winner of The Washington Monthly's 2002 Annual Political Book Award

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

A BookSense 76 Pick

Since High and Mighty was published in the Fall of 2002, regulators and consumers have become increasingly suspicious of sport utility vehicles and their poor safety records, heavy air pollution, and misleading marketing. Yet SUV sales continue to rise, leading average fuel consumption of new vehicles to a twenty- two year low and pushing traffic deaths to the highest level since 1990. As aging SUVs enter the used market, the problem is likely to grow much worse.

Bradsher makes a powerful case that these vehicles are much worse than cars-for their occupants, for other motorists, for pedestrians, and for the planet itself. In so doing, he pulls off a work of investigative journalism that shows how a flawed regulatory system, a desperate Detroit, and our national love for "bigger and better" have combined to create this highway arms race.

The paperback includes an epilogue covering new developments and an appendix explaining how to drive an SUV more safely.

Keith Bradsher has been a staff writer for The New York Times since 1989, and was one of its Washington correspondents from 1991 to 1995 before becoming the newspaper's Detroit bureau chief. He is now the Hong Kong bureau chief for the Times.