Idea of the Day: Car Sharing

Good News if You're Driving an Old Station Wagon

If your neighbor only stops washing his SUV long enough to chortle at your beat up station wagon, you can retort, "at least I'm safe from bears!"

Black bears at Yosemite National Park break into minivans and SUVs more than any other types of vehicles to find food, according to a new study published in the October 2009 Journal of Mammalogy. (I first read about it in the Utne Reader). The humble station wagon was the least attractive to bears.

Between 2001 and 2007, bears broke into vehicles at the following rates: minivans, 26 percent; sport–utility vehicles, 22.5 percent; small cars, 17.1 percent; sedans, 13.7 percent; trucks, 11.9 percent; vans, 4.2 percent; sports cars, 1.7 percent; coupes, 1.7 percent; and station wagons, 1.4 percent.