By Theodore Opara

NIGERIANS craze for Sport Utility vehicles, SUVs, has no comparison. There is hardly any auto brand of Sports Utility Vehicle that you can’t find in the country. Some of these SUVs come into the country as brand new vehicles or used ones. But no matter how they come, there is always a huge demand for Sport Utility Vehicles for some reasons.

These include poor state of our roads which makes it almost impossible for most Sedan to navigate through. The other reason for high demand for SUV is our people’s way of life as most people would like to show off with large SUVs and oppress users of smaller cars on the road.

However, some people would also tell you that they prefer. SUV because of the raised platform and spacious interior. They would even claim that it is cheaper to maintain SUVs.

Admirer of the model

Their reason being that the higher road clearance of SUVs give them an edge as the underneath hardly touches the road in rough terrain. In as much as these reasons could be said to be genuine, there are other side of Sport Utility Vehicles that most admirer of the model have not considered.

Apart from the fact the most Sports Utility Vehicles consume more fuel than the ordinary Sedan, it has been argued that SUVs do not have as much balance as the saloon cars and more caution must be applied when driving the them.

The invention of SUV dates back to over 70 year ago by Jeep. Then the SUVs were created for rough terrains where Sedans dare not tread.

The military found it handy for their tough tasks in unpaved terrains, and later SUVs were considered as passenger vehicle and luxury features were introduced into it.

In Europe and most developed parts of the world, the SUV were then, usually used in the farm and they were not as fast as Sedans but today, SUVs compete favourably with ordinary Sedans in terms of speed, luxury and safety to some extent.

But it has been found that most people usually abuse the use of SUVs by over speeding and manuevering with the car, not minding that no matter how good an SUV could be, it can never have the same centre of gravity and stability like sport cars and saloon Knowing that the SUVs do not share the same level of handling with the ordinary saloon cars and sport cars, most manufacturers have introduced so many features to it, to raise their performance and safety standard.

Ocholi’s car after the auto-crash

For instance, electronically controlled Kinetic Dynamic suspension system for outstanding drivability off-road and comfortable ride on-road like in the Toyota Land Cruiser, keeps all the tyres firmly in contact with the ground even when travelling over rocks and other demanding surfaces so as to deliver a safe, stable ride with excellent traction for superior rough terrain drivability and control.

Also vehicle stability control VSC is one vital feature that keeps the SUV stable in slippery road surfaces. VSC enhances vehicle stability by controlling engine output and braking at each wheel if sensors detect an abrupt steering operation or lateral slipping of the vehicle.

There are other features like variable flow control power steering which responds to vehicle speed. So steering is light and nimble at low speed for easy manueverability and packing and firm and responsive at high speed for enhanced control and stability.

Without going into details, features like Hill Descent Control, Electronic modulated air suspension plus adaptive variable suspension system, full-time four wheel drive with torsen limited slip differential etc have been built into modern SUV to raise the safety standard.

In some advance SUVs, the suspensions can adjust lower or higher depending on the speed of the car for safety reasons.

But the fact remains that the few drawbacks of SUV have been observed by the auto makers and they have warned against over-speeding and manoeuvring with SUV. Apart from the lower speedometers, this warning by the manufacturers should have restrain SUV drivers from abusing the speed limit of this cars especially in convoys but the reverse is the case in Nigeria.
It is a known fact that there is no car that cannot get involved in accident.

Even Princess Diana was killed in one of world safest cars but the fact remain that some car are more balanced than the others when it comes to speeding and caution must be applied when driving an SUV given the fact that the turning radius, centre of gravity and balance cannot be compared to Sedans.

One cannot say that a particular SUV brand has been more involved in accidents than the other but one should also consider the number of such brands and models on the road with other brands.