To get an estimate, you'd need to combine data from multiple sources, likely including:
* Registration data: State-level Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) data might contain registration counts for vehicles categorized as SUVs. However, aggregating this across all states would be a substantial undertaking.
* Sales data: New vehicle sales data from organizations like the Automotive News Data Center or Ward's Automotive Reports shows how many SUVs were *sold*, but this doesn't account for used SUV ownership or vehicles that are no longer registered.
* Household surveys: Surveys like the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey might offer insights into vehicle ownership, but the classification of vehicles as SUVs might not be perfectly consistent.
Therefore, while it's impossible to give a precise figure, a reasonable guess would be that a very significant portion of US drivers operate SUVs, likely in the tens of millions. To get a more precise number would require extensive data analysis and aggregation from multiple sources.