Comparing Number of S.U.V.s On Campus and Off Campus

This topic submitted by Lia Silver, Brad Kaiser, Amanda Swisher, Katie Gibson and Abby King (kingag@muohio.edu) at 10:42 pm on 10/3/01. Additions were last made on Friday, April 19, 2002. Section: Dorsey

Lab Proposal

Introduction
Sport utility vehicles have a notorious reputation as being terrible for the environment. They "guzzle gas", heightening the amount of resources Americans use from this planet. According to the Kelley Blue Book Online, a Ford Explorer, a mid-size S.U.V., gets seventeen miles to each gallon in the city and twenty-one miles to the gallon on the highway. An average car, the Toyota Camry, gets twenty-four miles to the gallon in the city and thirty-three miles to the gallon on the highway. We plan to find out if our new community, Miami University, drives a higher percentage of S.U.V.s than the "normal" world, the off-campus communities in Southern Ohio, Hamilton and Cincinnati. Our hypothesis is that Miami students do drive more S.U.V.s than the normal populations, given the cost of S.U.V.s and their popularity among the college student demographic. We plan to sample vehicles in the appropriate environment to represent the greater population. We will then analyze our data to see which population is more environmentally sound in the vehicles that they drive and calculate the saved money on gas, resources, and emissions, if one group improved their percentage to match the other groupÕs percentage. This research is of interest to us as environmentally-interested members of the Miami community who have noticed a trend in the vehicles students drive.

Relevance of Our Research

We have not found any studies that directing compare populations and their vehicles as we plan on doing, but we have found articles documenting the rise in sale of S.U.V.s in recent years, and how environmentally conscious the American public is when it comes to cars. According to an October 1999 article at www.cnn.com, registrations for S.U.V.s jumped 93% from 1992 to 1997. In 1997, there were almost fourteen million sport utility vehicles in the United States accounting for almost one fifth of truck registrations. There is one S.U.V. for every thirteen licensed drivers in this country. On the same site there is found an article from June of the same year describing a survey conducted by the American Lung Association. Sport Utility vehicles are allowed to pollute who two to five times as much as cars, and ninety percent of the Americans surveyed thought that they should be held to the same standards as cars.

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors vehicles and publishes information online at www.epa.gov. This site provided us with gas mileage, emissions ratings, and a rank of how environmentally friendly the vehicle is in context with other S.U.V.s for every 2001 S.U.V. Here is a sample of the statistics for three sizes of Ford S.U.V.s.:
(type,Engine, City gas mileage, Hwy gas mileage, Emission rating -one to ten (best) scale, How green is this SUV? Out of five stars)
Escape 2L, 4cyl 22 mpg 26 mpg 6 3 stars
Explorer 4L, 6 cyl 15 mpg 19 mpg 4 2 stars
Expedition 4.6L, 8 cyl 14 mpg 18 mpg 1 3 stars

The natural world is currently being changed by emissions from cars and the burning of other fossil fuels as the gases build up in the atmosphere. Americans have a reputation for massive resource use with little attention to the environment, shown in its abstention from international global warning treaties. To provide ourselves with more fuel to burn, we have started to look toward previously protected places such as the Alaskan reserve or resources. If Americans cut down even small amounts on resource use across the board, it would impact how soon we must resort to violating our nature preserves. By comparing Miami UniversityÕs resource use through sport utility vehicles to the rest of the American population, we may be able to highlight one way in which our immediate community could change their habits to help the environment.

Materials and Methods

To come up with a representative sample that can be turned into a percentage, we are going to count vehicles by category in Miami parking lots and off campus lots. We will count the Miami lots once a week for four weeks. Ditmer will be counted on Wednesday afternoons starting the week of Oct. 15. It will be counted at the same time every week to come up with a consistent average. The Cook field lot will be counted for the same four weeks during weekdays, but at different times so that the same cars are not always counted. We will be able to statistically compare the two methods to be able to see which is more sound. The Western lots by Mary Lyon and the tennis courts will be counted for the same four weeks as the other two, but will be counted on weekends. To sample the outside world, we will get a ride to Hamilton to count lots at family shopping centers. We will count four times, or four different lots, depending on the availability of our driver. We will also count business lots in Cincinnati while we are at home for the weekend in this period of time. This should give us two different demographics that should represent a basic portion of Southern Ohio.

Materials do not go farther than a tally sheet (see attached page) and people to count. We will tally five to a box so that totaling is easier. When any S.U.V. is counted, it will also be noted what maker it is and what size category it falls into. This will allow us to determine, according to the standards of the E.P.A., how environmentally friendly the S.U.V.s that Miami students drive are. We will use research to calculate the figures we want and will analyze our data using StatView. The class will help us count cars at Cook Field if the timing is correct or will help us sort and analyze data if that is the part of the process we are in when we have class time. Our timetable is also attached in the form of a calendar. We will start counting soon enough that if we find faulty data, we can sample again.

**In our hard copy to the professor we included tally sheets and a calendar, but they wouldn't paste onto this form.

Works Cited
www.epa.gov/autoemissions/allsuv-01.htm
www.kbb.com
"Americans favor clean SUVs, survey shows". June 8, 1999.
www.cnn.com/NATURE/9906/08/suv.enn/
"SUVs double in number in Five Years". October 19, 1999.
www.cnn.com/US/9910/19/suv.survey/index.html

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