With all the histrionics about rising gas prices coming out of Washington these days, SUVs must be an endangered species in our nation's capital, right? Well, not exactly. At Capitol Cadillac, just inside the Beltway, SUVs are flying off the lot. Last week, former White House chief of staff Andy Card dropped by to pick up a new SRX, Caddy's midsize SUV, says dealer Daniel Jobe. But Jobe's hottest seller, by far, is the newly redesigned chrome-encrusted Cadillac Escalade, an incredible hulk that gets 13mpg in the city. "My biggest problem is not gas prices," says Jobe, "it's getting enough of these trucks."

One in four new models today comes equipped with a gas-thirsty V-8 engine—which is unchanged from last summer, before gas prices spiked, according to new data from J.D. Power. And some of the best-selling rides on the road today are GM's trio of beefy new SUVs—the Chevy Tahoe, the GMC Yukon and that blingy 'Slade, which saw its sales surge 127 percent last month. Meanwhile, last year's "it" car, the hybrid, is becoming a harder sell. Sure, dealers are still selling out of the Prius, but sales of the Honda Accord hybrid plunged 69 percent last month and Ford had to resort to a zero percent financing deal to jump-start its Escape hybrid. For all their megawatt buzz, hybrids still account for just 1 percent of U.S. auto sales and are outsold by SUVs 23-1. "Not a lot of people are jumping up to pay $3,000 extra for a hybrid," says Memphis Toyota dealer Kent Ritchey. "For $3,000, you can buy a lot of gas."

The Associated Press has photographed Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) ditching his brightly colored hydrogen automobile in favor of a gas-guzzling black SUV after exiting a news conference and photo opportunity at a Washington, DC gas station.

After the conference, which addressed high gas prices, Hastert and other Congressmen had been carted away in fuel saving and alternatively powered automobiles. Just blocks away from the scene, Hastert was photographed ditching his in favor of his usual official car.

For security purposes, congressional leaders' official cars are required to be armored, limiting their choices in those respects mostly to vans or SUVs. Time magazine reported in December that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has searched unsuccessfully for a suitably armored hybrid.

The researchers looked at accidents involving nearly 4,000 children under age 16 between 2000 and 2003, and found child injury rates of about 1.7 percent in both cars and SUVs. The study examined only 1998 or newer cars and SUVs with second-generation air bags.

On average, the SUVs weighed 1,300 pounds more than the cars studied. The study found that the extra weight of SUVs enhanced safety, reducing the risk of injury by more than a third.

But that was offset by findings that SUVs were more than twice as likely as cars to roll over in crashes.

Children in rollovers were three times more likely to be seriously injured than those in non-rollover accidents, according to the study.

GM: -11.3 percent
Ford: -18 percent
DaimlerChrysler: -6.6 percent
Toyota: +5.5 percent
Honda: +6.4 percent
Nissan: -7.7 percent
Subaru: +.5 percent
Suzuki: +13.5 percent
BMW: +7 percent
Isuzu: -53.2 percent (Ouch!)

An August survey by AutoExtra.com found that three out of four driving-age students own cars, half of which were purchased by parents. Of the 500 parents polled in the survey, 82 percent said they bought used cars and most of them cost under $10,000.

Fall is a prime time for teens' first car purchases, especially this year, as July's record high auto sales led to a surplus of cars from trade-ins, which means there's more selection and lower prices on used car lots. But while they were looking for less expensive cars for their children, 90 percent of parents polled in AutoExtra.com's survey cited safety and reliability as their biggest concerns.

As a general rule, safety-conscious parents tend to focus on car size, said Jonathan Adkins, communications director for the Governors Highway Safety Association. Adkins said parents often buy SUVs because they think bigger is better. But only the newest models of SUVs have electronic stability control to prevent rollovers and many parents can only afford the used models.

"It's kind of hard to be arguing to conserve gasoline when you're driving around in a Ford Expedition that guzzles it down at a 6- to 8-mile per gallon clip," Bush said last month.

"You need to practice what you preach," Richardson said.