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For entirely too many politicians, the answer is the former. And their response to traffic problems is to do anything and everything but make it easier to drive as is. From light-rail to toll roads to HOV lanes, they will stop at nothing to incentivize alternatives, no matter how ineffective they may be or how unwanted by the citizenry. Meanwhile, we sit in near motionless cars, wasting time, and cursing those who've trapped us there.

Why should transportation policy get held hostage by the environmental extremists who view cars the way the rest of us view cockroaches--as a dangerous pest to be exterminated? As much as they may not like it, cars and trucks and SUVs are here – for good and sensible reasons – and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Therefore, they must be accommodated, at least in the short term, if total gridlock is to be prevented.

While they may not be given credit for it, most average folks have a very common-sense set of criteria for choosing a mode of transportation: Does it have space to carry all I need it to? Is it as safe as possible? Is it economical? Is it convenient? By these standards, it shouldn't surprise anyone that SUVs are so commonly chosen. They are roomy (the better to carry kids and stuff), are sturdily built (so they won't crush like a soda can when hit and injure the passengers), and obviously can go wherever there is a road (unlike a train, which can only go where the tracks run). The only sore point is economics, and if fuel efficiency could be improved without impairing the first three criteria, the consumer would take it in a heartbeat. But if the trade-off is a tiny vehicle that crumples on impact, it's just not going to sell.

Another mistaken belief is that accommodating vehicles means covering everything in asphalt and concrete. In fact, it would take far less to ease congestion and, at minimum, buy time for a more permanent solution to be found. But the only way to get lanes added these days is to make them HOV lanes (which have never made people carpool) or toll roads (which is just a fancy way of saying “extorting more taxes from people,” not to mention that they don't reduce traffic either. The last thing that any elected body seems to want to do is the simplest of all – expand capacity. Most highways could easily be widened without taking more than a very small strip of land on either side. Are the anti-SUV folks really that in love with weeds and litter? (Which, the last time I looked, was the only thing filling freeway medians and ditches.)

The next usual canard is that of diminishing oil supplies. The only reason oil is scarce is that environmentalists won't let anyone go get more. From ANWR to the continental shelf to refinery capacity, anything that might expand oil use in even the tiniest amount is militantly opposed by the environmentalist types. With the technology available these days, there is no reason oil cannot be obtained from most any location with minimal ecological risk. Given that most members of OPEC are hostile to America, this is also a national security issue. And in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it is mind-boggling that the U.S. has not added refinery capacity to withstand the next big storm, which is inevitably coming. It's only a matter of time. (And this doesn't even begin to touch on oil shale, tar sands, and other energy sources that are available if only the environmentalists would understand that a natural resource isn't a resource if you don't actually use it.)

While all of the above can be reasoned on pragmatic grounds (i.e. vehicles here, not going away, must be accommodated until other modes can take some of the burden, etc.), there are two points that are really driving things here (if you'll pardon the pun):

• Whether vehicles are a wise choice in the long-term or not, it is the people's right to choose them. It is not the place of politicians or environmental groups or anyone else to prevent the building of roads or force trains and other mass transit upon the citizenry simply because they believe it to be a better option. This is tyranny in its most obvious and blatant form. We are supposed to have representative government, and if the people want roads, then roads they shall have.

• The true agenda of the environmentalist types is as anti-freedom and anti-liberty as it gets. And while SUVs may be their highest-profile target, they are by no means their only target. From "smart growth" to global warming, the goal of these groups is nothing short of total control of your life. (Where you live, how you commute, what you choose to drive, and on and on from there.) As the SUV debate indicates, they're not about to let anyone make a decision they believe is the improper one. Furthermore, the hysterical fear mongering they often employ (baseless though it is) only shows how incapable of being reasoned with they are.

So the real issue here isn't trucks versus trains, but liberty versus tyranny. Do you want to decide for yourself what you shall drive (if anything at all), or will someone else decide for you? I can summarize my position with a twist on a favorite liberal slogan:

My Garage, My Choice: Keep Your Laws Off My SUV!

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