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Saving Gas Via Underpowered Death Traps
Harperdog writes with this excerpt from a story at Miller-McCune:
"Yes, it's true that the fuel-economy standards the U.S. has been using cost lives. Economist Mark Jacobson has estimated that for every mile-per-gallon we raise the standards, 149 traffic fatalities occur per year. That would mean 1,490 deaths if the standards were raised from, say, 30 miles-per-gallon to 40. But this doesn't have to be the case. It's possible, Jacobson has concluded, to increase fuel efficiency without also decreasing safety. And if government officials are smart, they'll tailor the regulations behind the new standards to do this."
"And if government officials are smart, "
That is the biggest if in the world!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
As TFA states, the "deathtrap" is due to the smaller cars being smashed to a pulp when they run into a gas-guzzling behemoth. People are buying big cars not because they need them or that they like guzzling fuel. And maybe not even necessarily because the bigger cars have more "oomph". But also because "driving a tank = I'm safer, especially from other tanks on the road".
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
The eternal problem of correlation and causation. Where is the research that supports the hypothesis? Is it possible that the population growth is the one that is causing more cars to be sold (and economy pushes for better efficiency standards) and therefore more accidents?
Is it also that more kids start driving at younger ages? I don't see the clear causation of fuel efficiency vs. death toll, but certainly I see a correlation.
Is this a trick to make insurance companies charge me more for fuel efficient vehicles?
There are a lot of smart people in government and usually the fewer people involved in a decision the better the decision will be. None of us is as dumb as all of us and Congress is a committee of 528 people. I have a hard enough time getting five people to decide on anything at work much less a Byzantine committee of 538 preening attention whores who are legally allowed to take bribes to stay in power.
Tanks kill people. Fact.
You could just as easy turn the whole thing around and argue that the Overweight Gas Guzzlers are doing the damage therefore they are causing the problem.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Yes, the summary is biased. As the article points out, it is in fact the large cars that are dangerous-- they are, however, dangerous to the smaller cars.
Making cars smaller doesn't result in more deaths-- unless you have large cars on the road as well. It is the larger cars that are killing people. (and the bogus statistic comes from the "National Center for Policy Analysis"-- read: political action group paid to shill for oil companies.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
In at least 12 states, it's because of "no-fault" auto insurance laws, which limit recovery against the accident causer.
What's with the 'This.' meme on Slashdot recently? It's totally pointless filler and a redundant word, sentence and paragraph all in one. Well done there.
Wrong. Higher fuel taxes result directly in higher fuel prices. We've seen over and over again that every time fuel prices peak, people start selling their jacked-up pickup trucks and SUVs and buying smaller cars. And when fuel prices are dirt-cheap, everyone buys the biggest SUV they can find.
Oil company profits are only one part of fuel prices; a very large chunk of the price you pay per gallon at the pump is federal and state fuel taxes. The government basically has the ability to set fuel prices, within certain margins, simply by changing the taxes.
I was just going to post this video as well.
I show this to people who cling to the "old cars are safer" bit. Believe me, I love, LOVE classic cars, but the plain truth is that newer cars are safer. My fave things to point out in that crash are 1) the A Pillar collapsing, 2) The dummy doesn't hit the dashboard, the dashboard and steering column fly up to hit the dummy and 3) if this car were a few years older, there wouldn't be any safety glass in it. Yes that '59 has a fully boxed frame in it, but the level of intrusion is grotesque compared to the opposing car.
Something to note is that small cars colliding with small cars is still safer than small cars colliding with SUVs. SUVs which (interestingly) aren't always safer either. There will always be other things for small cars to crash into, such as tractor trailers, trains, buildings and bridge posts, but the more properly engineered small cars there are on the road, the general safety will increase, IMUAEO*
*In My Unscientific Armchair Engineer Opinion
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