An SUV is classified as a light truck and isn't subject to CAFE fuel mileage standards like regular cars are. A station wagon was classified as a car, and the auto manufacturers found it pretty hard to squeeze them into the standards. When the family of five went to buy transport, rather than buying the trusty 'ole station wagon they either had to squeeze into some other car (all of which were getting smaller and smaller - no more "built like a tank" roomy 1971 Buicks) or ... hmmmm, what's this thing over here?

Boxy vans were "in" for a while, but geez those things looked (and look) ugly. They tried to sleek them up and make them sexier, which worked somewhat, but whoever it was that came up with the SUV somehow had the right combination of looks and room and people started getting the damn things even when they didn't need them.

I'm trying hard to both try to reason out the "why" of SUV's and rationalize how it is that they became so big, so prevalent.

I *hate* it, going into a grocery store parking lot, parking, coming back, and finding I'm surrounded by SUV's that limit my visibility to zero when I'm trying to back out of my parking space. (Introduce some regulation requiring mirrors on SUV's? Har har.)

CAFE is a failure anyway; we use more oil than ever before. Apply some mileage standards to SUV's, and the auto companies would find some way around it anyway. With the exception of pollution control devices like the catalytic converter, we'd be better off (IMO) without CAFE entirely. (And I'm sure you can make arguments that those converters are more expensive in disposal than a non-equipped car.)

The law of Unintended Consequences: Gubmint makes laws, people follow them to the letter. The letter never being what was intended. ("Homeland security department"? Oh god.)