We're using way too much gas and oil these days and we need to conserve for a variety of reasons, not the least of them what we are doing to the atmosphere.

My other objection to SUVs is that they're not what they purport to be. They're not, for the most part, sporty, and most drivers use them as passenger cars, not utility vehicles. What most of them are, in fact, are trucks with passenger bodies. They were a dodge on the part of automakers to get around pollution controls--a very successful one as it has turned out. Because they're trucks, they have a low gas mileage rating.

However, I'm uncertain as to whether using fewer of them will save the nation much fuel. We seem to increase the amount of gasoline we consume no matter what our maximum refining capacity is. It's a sort of iron law of petroleum that you can never have too much oil. As fast as we find new supplies, we gobble them up. It's like parking and freeways. There's never enough parking and freeways are never wide enough.

But, on the whole, having fewer SUVs around, burning large amounts of gasoline, is probably a good thing. But there's also another reason why I'm hopeful the sun has set on SUVs.

They scare me to death.

Let me explain.

I drive a Saturn SC2, a very small coupe. Saturns have an uneven history. General Motors introduced them when Americans experienced one of their occasional flirtations with really small cars. In an attempt to emulate the Honda Civic and Japanese cars of similar design, GM set up Saturn as a separate company somewhere in the wilds of Tennessee, sold them at fixed prices (no haggling with salesmen), had dealer team meetings a la the Japanese and, in general, killed the owner with kindness.

The bloom, alas, has long since passed from the Saturn. It is no longer independent of GM, markets a mid-sized and priced car and, of course, its own SUV, but dealers still have free coffee and doughnuts if you stop by in the morning.

But Saturn SC2s are small. There's no doubt about that. There's hardly room in the backseat to sit. I know--I've tried it. The SC2 hugs the ground as if it were afraid it's going to meet something larger. Sometimes I have the feeling I'm riding a skateboard.

I even have to crawl to get in the front seat. But once I'm there, I get the feeling that the Saturn and I are one. We have merged into a kind of bionic union or, if you want to look at it another way, as if the Saturn has ingested me, a little like Jonah and the whale.

That's cool. Or at least it is until you look in your rear view mirror and see a Ford Mountaineer or Lincoln Navigator towering over you. Like most SUVs these vehicles have grill bars that look like a row of shark's teeth.

When I see one of these hugging my bumper, apparently ready to open wide and swallow me, the Saturn and any passenger I may have with me, I tend to get uneasy. It's like a minnow being chased by a grouper.

I know the driver of the SUV may be as benign as a new pussy cat. It's the car that scares me.

And I think that's probably what a lot of SUV drivers want. They buy big cars because they want them to intimidate small car drivers like me. Call it paranoia, but it seems to me SUVs weren't built for sissies. They're built to sell to all those Lone Rangers riding the freeways who don't want anyone messing with their passage through rush hour traffic.

I have no idea why Americans love ugly cars, but they seem to. As I heard one designer say on television a while ago, Americans like their cars to look luxurious on the inside and ferocious on the out. And judging by the big chrome bars in their grills, their high rear ends and huge tail lights and their acres of glass in windshields and windows that's the case. I never met an SUV I didn't dislike.

I know that puts my little Saturn somewhere this side of Detroit, but somehow it seems a kinder, gentler kind of car. And that, my fellow drivers, is what this country needs.