(MONEY Magazine) – It seems like only yesterday that my 1995 Ford Explorer was brand new and the envy of friends and colleagues. But lately, when it comes to my sport utility, I find myself under attack. "Why do you really need an SUV in New York City?" ask neighbors and co-workers. They appear to think it's because I want to crush small cars, tower over taxis and reignite a gas crisis. Even the ethics columnist in the New York Times Sunday magazine has pronounced owning a sport utility in Manhattan immoral. When I field questions online from readers around the country, I hear the same gripes: SUVs are big, dangerous, obnoxious indulgences.

The Oct. 1 rollout of Ford's new super-size Excursion sport utility is sure to inflame these attacks. The $34,000-and-up Excursion (pictured on the previous page) exemplifies everything so many car owners love to hate about SUVs. It's the longest (nearly 19 feet), widest (six feet, eight inches) and tallest (six feet, four inches) ute on the road; it averages a mere 12 miles a gallon; and, because it weighs more than 8,500 pounds when fully loaded, the Excursion isn't subject to the "light truck" pollution emission standards that cover most SUVs, pickups and minivans. Environmentalists have taken notice; the Sierra Club has dubbed it "the Ford Valdez."

I recently test-drove an Excursion and found it too big for my liking. The length and bulk make it maneuver like a recreational vehicle, especially on narrow roads. But Ford will likely find ready buyers among utility owners who tow trailers or haul a whole soccer team, many of whom now drive the next largest SUV, the Chevrolet Suburban.

Even if the Excursion isn't for me, I still love SUVs. So do plenty of other drivers. The sport utility share of the new-car market has nearly doubled in the past five years to 18% of all vehicle sales. (The light-truck category--SUVs plus minivans and pickups--accounts for just under 50%.) That popularity may be driving the backlash. With more SUVs on the road, more car owners get angry when they can't see around an SUV or they find the headlights of a high-riding ute shining in their eyes.

But booming sales alone don't explain the wrath. I don't hear SUV-like anger about pickups, which account for even more new-vehicle sales--20%--and pose similar problems. My theory is that SUVs have taken their place alongside big houses as hated symbols of conspicuous consumption.

Here are my answers to the most common arguments I hear from SUV critics, a group that Auto Week magazine has called "the anti-SUV jihad." If you agree with me, check out my five SUV picks on page 144. And if you want to add your voice to the debate, join me online on Oct. 6 at 5 p.m. ET at the MoneyLive Chat Center (chat.yahoo.com). Or post your thoughts at www.money.com/contents.

SUVs are just too big. I wish SUV critics would stop talking as if all utilities were Excursions, Suburbans or other hulking brutes. Of the 2.8 million SUVs sold last year, 64% were midsize utes such as the Ford Explorer, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Chevrolet Blazer--all of which are nearly three feet shorter than the Excursion and about the same length as a small minivan like the Dodge Caravan.

The fastest-growing segment of the SUV market--up 29% in sales so far this year--are mini-utilities such as the Subaru Forester pictured below. At 3,100 pounds and five feet, two inches high, the Forester doesn't tower over sedans as much as its bigger cousins do. The Excursion seems to have ended the race for the biggest ute. General Motors will keep its Chevrolet and GMC Suburbans the same size for 2000.

You don't drive off-road. We're all familiar with SUV ads: rugged wilderness scenes featuring rocks and water. And, yes, most SUV owners never drive in such places. What a shock. People buy vehicles because they like the image. Sports-car ads evoke race cars, but nobody carps at BMW Z3 owners who don't enter auto races on the weekend. Even dedicated off-roaders seem to feel I don't deserve to own a four-wheel-drive vehicle unless I drive through creeks or boulder-strewn landscapes. A website called The Ultimate Poseur's SUV Page (I've found at least four anti-SUV sites) lists the top sign of an SUV poseur as: "Thinks off-roading is going up his driveway."

I bought my Explorer because I leave the city on weekends and load my SUV with everything from antiques to camping gear. I chose four-wheel drive so that I could better handle the road in ice, snow and heavy rain. Other SUV owners--40% of whom are women--agree. In a survey by the Dohring Co., the top reasons owners gave for buying an SUV were the safety of four-wheel drive, the commanding view of the road from the high driver's seat and the chances that the heavier vehicle will fare well in a collision. Why can't we drive what we like?

Safety? SUVs flip over. Yes, SUVs pose an above-average risk of rolling over, especially if you swerve suddenly or take a corner too fast. But you're still safer inside a sport utility than in most other vehicles, according to death-rate statistics compiled by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an insurance industry research group. In an accident, you're 18% less likely to die in a typical midsize utility than in the average car, truck or van. In the two top-selling utilities, Explorer and Jeep Grand Cherokee, your risk is cut in half.

SUVs are a menace to me. Much of the anti-SUV sentiment revolves around the dangers sport utilities pose to people in cars. This danger is no myth. The problem is what auto safety experts call "compatibility." Because utilities are built on pickup frames, they can ride up over a car in an accident. A 1998 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance industry research group, found that when a car collides with an SUV or pickup, the car's occupants are about four times more likely to die than the people in the bigger, heavier vehicle.

Not surprisingly, such findings get plenty of press attention. For instance, the New York Times coverage of the Insurance Institute study was headlined "Insurers Saying Utility Vehicles Need Redesign." What's missing from many stories is your overall risk of being killed by an SUV, which is smaller than you might think. The same study found that only 4% of passenger-car fatalities were the result of crashes with SUVs, even though SUVs make up 10% to 15% of the vehicles on the road. A full 41% of deaths were due to single-car crashes.

Some car makers are addressing safety. Ford has installed a "blocker beam" behind the Excursion's front bumper to help protect car occupants in a collision. Mercedes' M-class utilities have lower front ends that more closely match those in cars. These changes are encouraging, says Insurance Institute president Brian O'Neill, "but we'll have to wait for experience on the highways to see if they represent an improvement." Plus, a few cars, including the New Beetle, now come with strengthened side beams--a change advocated by the Insurance Institute to make crashes with SUVs less dangerous for people in passenger cars.

SUVs are killing the planet. The Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund, among others, are lobbying Congress to let the Department of Transportation raise average minivan, pickup and sport utility fuel-economy standards to 26 mpg or 28 mpg from the current 20.7 mpg on the grounds that such a change would help cut the amount of globe-warming carbon dioxide.

Again, I think SUVs are being made the scapegoat. Consider this: According to Robert Crandall, a regulatory specialist at the Brookings Institution--a group not known for anti-environmental views--emissions from all new vehicles account for only about 2% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. More than 50% comes from factories and electric power plants. "Changing truck fuel standards is a very inefficient way to address global warming," says Crandall.

To head off harsher government regulation--and appeal to buyers--car makers may start boosting mileage voluntarily. Ford's sport utilities (aside from the Excursion) already meet the stricter pollution emission standards used for cars. Those kinds of changes, which I think we'll see more of, should make SUV drivers and critics happy. In the meantime, can you chill out and let me enjoy my ute?