They're unwieldy, costly, and L.A. loves 'em.

By all rights, Los Angeles should be the single worst place for sport-utility vehicles.

They guzzle gas, they pollute the air, they're hard to park, they block other drivers from seeing the road ahead, and they're dangerous - both for their own drivers and for other motorists.

Plus, there's not a lot of call for offroad, four-wheel-drive motoring in a county with more than 527 miles of freeway and seldom a flurry of snow.

Yet in L.A., the SUV reigns supreme. Even as gas prices have soared to well over $1.60 a gallon across much of the region, and a backlash against SUVs continues to grow (spurred in part by Ford Motor Co.'s massive new Excursion), Angelenos are buying SUVs - and singing their praises - in greater numbers than ever.

In 1998, 92,869 SUVs were either bought or leased in L.A. County, according to Polk Co., which tracks auto purchases. That's more than double the number purchased or leased just four years earlier.

Car sales, by comparison, increased only 8.3 percent during the like period.

"We expect SUVs to continue to grow in the L.A. market, and the Los Angeles market is a leading market," said Eric Noble, director of marketing at AutoPacific Inc., a Santa Ana-based automotive consulting firm. "When SUVs as a product segment finally mature, the L.A. market will be the first to exhibit that. Absent a severe shock to the petroleum market, we don't see that happening any time soon."

It's a craze that often defies common sense. Take the matter of parking.

Many L.A. shopping centers were designed in the '80s, when small cars were still the norm - and parking lots typically had 20 percent to 30 percent of their spaces intended for compacts.

That obviously hasn't slowed SUV owners.

Chris Rausch, a video-game designer for Neversoft Entertainment who drives a 1994 Ford Explorer, doesn't think twice about parking his SUV in a space designated "compact."

"It fits, but if it's not a straight shot, or any cars around are parking just slightly on an edge, it's just kind of a challenge," said the 24-year-old Rausch. "It's definitely not as easy as a small car."

Even standard-sized spaces are becoming too small for some of the larger SUVs, such as the Chevrolet Suburban or the Ford Excursion, according to Gary Hamrick, principal at consulting firm Meyer Mohaddes Associates Inc.

"A typical parking space is 8 1/2 feet by 18 feet. I've heard some of these vehicles exceed 18 feet, so they literally exceed standard parking spaces," Hamrick said. "While everyone's designed their parking spaces for the cars of the '80s - smaller cars - everyone's gone back to bigger cars. And no one's redesigning parking lots."

Even the latest spike in gas prices, caused by accidents at several Northern California oil refineries and an OPEC agreement to limit oil production, hasn't caused much of a stir.

Josh Gertler, a public relations executive at the L.A. office of Fleishman-Hillard Inc. who recently bought a 1999 Ford Explorer, says he spent about $26 to fill up his tank last week up from $19 or so just a couple of weeks ago. Given the low miles-per-gallon performance of the Explorer - about 15 - the gas-price increase is especially noticeable.

"It's higher than I had hoped," he said. "But it's not impacting the other expenditures in my life."

L.A.'s SUV Love Affair

The number of new sports utility vehicles being registered in Los
Angeles County is soaring.

                    Units sold      Units sold      Percent
Make                  in 1994         in 1998       change

Acura                      0              94            NA
Cadillac                   0              61            NA
Chevrolet              4,566          10,313       +125.9%
Dodge                      2           3,075      +1,536.5
Ford                  11,089          27,262        +145.8
GMC                    1,781           3,656        +105.3
Honda                    931           5,542        +495.3
Hummer                    17              32         +88.3
Infiniti                   0           1,456            NA
Isuzu                  2,783           2,152         -22.7
Jeep                   9,820           9,142          -6.9
Kia                        0             364            NA
Land Rover               841           1,610         +91.4
Lexus                      0           2,936            NA
Lincoln                    0           1,794            NA
Mazda                    121               0            NA
Mercedes Benz              0           2,646            NA
Mercury                    0           1,007            NA
Mitsubishi               834           2,182        +161.6
Nissan                 2,560           2,820         +10.2
Oldsmobile               124             222         +79.0
Subaru                     0             381            NA
Suzuki                   419             287         -31.5
Toyota                 6,585          13,835        +110.1
L.A. County
Total                 42,473          92,869       +118.7%

Source: The Polk Co.

Indeed, a survey done by AutoPacific last year showed that the average SUV owner would not trade in the SUV for a more fuel-efficient car until gasoline reached $2.11 a gallon.

Perhaps the biggest curiosity about the SUV is the people who drive them. They were originally intended for adventurers taking their vehicles off road, and then for families looking for a sexier alternative to the station wagon or minivan. But SUVs are increasingly the domain of singles looking for the latest, hippest set of wheels - no matter how much more gasoline they require.

"It's like something in society that everybody agrees isn't good, but everybody privately uses anyway," said Noble.

Demographics are not available for Los Angeles, but nationwide, 23.4 percent of SUV drivers are single, divorced, separated or widowed, according to J.D. Power and Associates. And 52 percent of SUV drivers nationwide, whether married or not, have no children.

Tawny Amaud, vice president of sales for Galpin Motors Inc., the largest SUV dealer in California, said he sees an increasing number of young, single drivers - particularly teen-agers who just got their licenses - looking at SUVs.

"They love them, especially the two-doors," he said. "I think they like the feel of the car, they feel safer in the car, they sit a little higher and it's got a look that people want - kind of a ragged look."

SUV drivers say they don't like the idea of other vehicles towering over them on the road something experienced more by drivers of small cars. This provides a perception of safety.

Gertler bought an Explorer after his Acura Integra was totaled by a car that ran a red light. The same car also hit an SUV - a Ford Explorer, in fact - and it suffered only minimal damage. "I had to purchase a new car, and I wanted to buy something that would provide me with a greater feeling of safety and security on these perilous roads," he said.

But are SUVs really safer? Yes and no.

SUV drivers are less likely to be killed than car or pickup drivers when involved in an accident with another vehicle, according to the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. But while single-vehicle crashes account for 41 percent of all deaths in passenger cars, they account for 65 percent of deaths in SUVs, according to the institute. And nearly 80 percent of occupant deaths in single-vehicle crashes of SUVs involve rollovers, as compared to only 48 percent for cars.

"The same height that makes (SUV drivers) feel like they have command of the road means that they have to be careful of how they drive," said Julie Rochman, spokeswoman for the institute. "The higher center of gravity is going to make them more prone to tipping over as well as rolling over."

Given the safety, parking and gas-consumption problems, can the SUV craze continue?

Noble says yes, though he expects the vehicles themselves to evolve. Already, one of the more popular SUVs is the Lexus RX300, which is built on a car frame rather than a truck frame like the typical sport-utility vehicle.

SUVs, in other words, are likely to become more car-like - smaller, less polluting and easier to drive, Noble said. "We should see the fuel efficiency of these vehicles improving slightly as well," he said.

Meanwhile, there are a few SUV drivers who are starting to reconsider their vehicle choices.

Rausch, the video-game designer, said his daily commute from Irvine to Woodland Hills and back is becoming too expensive. He plans to get a smaller car for himself and give the SUV to his wife, who drives shorter distances.

"For short drives, this is not too bad," he said of his SUV, which gets 17 to 20 miles per gallon. "It's definitely not a car you want to make a long commute in."