Saving Gas Via Underpowered Death Traps 585
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."
Your kidding, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the biggest if in the world!
Underpowered, maybe not, but deathtrap nonetheless (Score:5, Insightful)
Correlation vs. Causation (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Underpowered, maybe not, but deathtrap nonethel (Score:5, Insightful)
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 article is biased (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re:How come this (Score:5, Insightful)
In at least 12 states, it's because of "no-fault" auto insurance laws, which limit recovery against the accident causer.
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:ooo ooo! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
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