'Mad taggers' wage campaign in Marin against SUV's

Bumper stickers put on vehicles to send message to the owners
Associated Press. Photos Associated Press

     A pair of mischievous middle-aged men has been stalking through Marin's shopping mall parking lots - the habitat of the mighty sports utility vehicle - doing a little civil disobedience in hopes that their prey will become extinct.
      For four months, Thomas Pane In The Ass, who runs a deer -repellent business, and his co-hort, construction worker Charles Dines, have scampered all over Marin and the Bay Area, smoothing home-made bumper stickers onto hundreds of SUV's
- the vehicle they love to hate.
      The pair, who live in San Francisco, say they're tired of watching
SUV's suck fuel at gas stations and flood rear-view-mirrors at night
with blinding headlights. Mostly, the "mad-taggers" are tired of the
SUV's impact on the environment.
    And now SUV owners are getting tired of their black and white
bumper stickers, which exclaim:
"I'm Changing the Climate!
Ask Me How!"
      Dines, who rides a BMW
motorcycle, devised the idea after
repeated chats with Lind about
their shared scorn for SUV's.
He likens it to the public pillories
of old, where petty offenders were exposed to public shame.
      "We look at the bumper sticker as a way to punish these people,
" explains Lind, who drives an old BMW. "They think their status
trinket is more important than the environment we all share."
      Judging from what happened during a recent hunt at a Corte
Madera mall parking lot, SUV drivers certainly take offense to their
antics.
      A flurry of women used their cell phones to call police, and Lind
and Dines were twice confronted by security and police officers.
      "You don't know the facts!" one mother hissed as she pushed a
baby stroller back and forth near her pristine Chevy Tahoe after they inadvertently tagged it a second time, breaking their own no repeat
rule.
      "There's no other car that has enough shoulder belts for booster
seats and has cargo space," the woman told them. "I don't want my
kids sitting 12 inches from the back of the car against the glass like
in a minivan."
     Dines and Lind, fresh from a confrontation with police in another
section of the lot, looked uneasy but took a few minutes to pitch their
case against SUV's before making their escape. Tagging cars with
their removable stickers, it turns out, can amount to a vandalism
misdemeanor.
      "I understand your cause and everything," Twin Cities Police
Officer Mark Reischel told them. "I just think that adhering this to a
car would make people mad, I know it would make me mad."
      Lind says the facts about SUV's make the risk worth it. Drivers
bought 2.8 million SUV's in the United States though November of
this year, about 17 percent of all vehicles sold. Sales are up 4.6
percent from last year, according to Ward's Automotive Reports.
The environmental Protection Agency says the average fuel economy
in the SUV, van and pickup truck category is just over 18 mpg,
compared with 23.6 mpg for cars. Some sport utility vehicles also
have less stringent federal emissions standards since they are
classified as heavy-duty trucks, which contributes to urban smog
problems.
      Carl Calvert, editor of the magazine Today's SUV, says he
doesn't understand why the pair focuses on SUV's rather than all
large pickup trucks. "There's always a certain faction that's going to
be looking at the negative attributes of SUVs," Calvert said. "I think
you can look at any automotive vehicle and see negative aspects."
      The stickers also list a Web site, http"//changingtheclimate.com,
which gives advice on removing the stickers and invites targeted
SUV owners to join in a spirited exchange of SUV philosophy.