Just a few days ago, I told you………. [1]
The lighter the vehicle is, the more miles per gallon it will get, but it’s also far more dangerous to those inside said tin can when they have a wreck, air bags and seatbelts not withstanding.
Sorry; I chose LIFE.
… and now others are saying the same thing. Steven Milloy [2], as an example.
This week President Bush announced his plan to reduce U.S. gasoline [3] consumption by 20 percent over the next 10 years. Five percent of this reduction — 8.5 billion gallons per year — is to come from increased gas mileage requirements for new cars and light trucks, known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.
Increasing CAFE standards sounds like a no-brainer. Just mandate new standards and, somehow, auto company wizards will find a way to meet them with new technology, right?
The unfortunate reality, however, is that the only practical way automakers can meet higher CAFE standards at present is by the rather low-tech method of reducing the weight of automobiles.
And lighter cars are deadlier cars.
The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2001 that existing CAFE standards increased traffic deaths by 1,300 to 2,600 per year. A Harvard University/Brookings Institution study put the figure at between 2,200 and 3,900 deaths per year.
And that situation can do nothing but get worse.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated that since CAFE was implemented, more than 46,000 traffic deaths would have been avoided if people had been driving heavier cars. Many tens of thousands more, of course, have been needlessly injured.
The NHTSA concluded in an October 2003 report that CAFE standards are even deadlier than the agency previously thought.
Every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars (those weighing 2,950 pounds or less), for example, increased annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715, according to NHTSA. For larger cars and light trucks, the agency estimated that each 100-pound reduction in weight would increase annual traffic fatalities by as much as 303 and 296, respectively.
At some point, the reality of the situation is going to settle in… people are literally killing themselevs over a few gallons of fuel. About that time, the population is going to figure out the reason we have a fuel problem [4] just now, which will cause a full blown rebellion.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to drive a body- on -ladder-frame vehicle, and to hell with the MPG not meeting some government hack’s arbitrary standards. They don’t have to drive what the death traps they want us driving.
?