Suv: Acronym For Shut Out Your View Drivers Of Smaller Vehicles Get Claustrophobic Feeling

That king-of-the-road feeling that appeals to drivers of sport utility vehicles feels more like a pain in the neck to some folks stuck behind them in traffic.

Janell Zech hates following them when she’s tooling around town in her blue Toyota compact. No matter how she cranes her neck, she can’t see around them. Ditto for pickups and minivans.

Brake lights flash in front of her. But with no view of the road ahead, “You can’t really see what they’re stopping for,” said Zech, a paralegal from Herndon, Va., near Washington.

“I’m learning to live with it,” she said. “I’m keeping my distance so I can see.”

Large trucks and vans have always obstructed vision for drivers of traditional-sized passenger vehicles; a simple lane change took care of it. Now, with an increasing number of taller, wider vehicles on the road, it’s become a more frequent inconvenience.

Sales of sports utility vehicles jumped 76 percent during the past five years to 2.44 million in 1997, according to Ward’s, which tracks automotive statistics.

That means drivers of smaller cars who pass to get around a minivan now may find themselves behind an Explorer or a Land Rover.

“I hate being behind an SUV. I feel like I’m closed in. You want to see why you’re stopped or what’s in front,” said Chris Cedergren, who works for a California auto consulting firm called Nextrend. “To me, it’s mostly claustrophobic.”

The Washington-based Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit group, said its gets a couple of calls or letters weekly from drivers complaining they can’t see around larger vehicles.

“Any time someone’s field of view is obstructed, it’s a safety issue,” said Clarence Ditlow, the center’s executive director. “Whether it’s a significant safety issue - that’s the next question.”

Tim Hurd, a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokesman, said he’s only heard anecdotal reports that car owners are grousing about large vehicles blocking their vision.

“You don’t want to be getting too close to the car or truck in front of you anyway,” Hurd says.

That’s precisely the problem, said George Peterson, a regular driver of Los Angeles freeways.

“Nobody is following at a safe distance,” said Peterson, president of AutoPacific Inc., an automotive marketing and product consulting company in Santa Ana, Calif.

Sitting up high is one of the main attractions for drivers of sport utility vehicles, according to a 1997 marketing survey by AutoPacific. The survey found that among more than 2,600 purchasers of the vehicles, 83 percent had no intention of using them off the road or to go hunting, camping or fishing.

Among the top reasons for buying them was “driver seat visibility,” Peterson said.

“The higher position is really a hot commodity,” said Michele Tinson, a Chrysler spokeswoman.

That riding-up-high feeling amounts to 10 to 20 inches.

Chrysler’s Sebring, a two-door convertible, measures 54.8 inches from pavement to roof, Tinson said. In comparison, the Jeep Cherokee stands nearly 65 inches and the Dodge Durango measures nearly 73 inches.

Carl Calvert, editor of “Today’s Sport Utility Vehicle,” a magazine based in Huntington Beach, Calif., said large trucks block the vision of passenger-car drivers more than sport utility vehicles, minivans or small pickups. He added that the soaring popularity of these vehicles likely will drown out complaints from drivers of other cars.