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."
Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
That's some of the worst crap I've ever read about saving fuel. Small diesel engines (ala VW) have the ability to get 50+mpg and still have neck-snapping torque. Underpower death-traps my hiney.
How come this (Score:5, Interesting)
1490 is low (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to be brutal, but that number's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of all of this. It's a tiny fraction of total traffic fatalities, which means we can more than make up the difference looking for other forms of safety improvement.
Or... (Score:5, Interesting)
Economist Mark Jacobson has estimated that for every mile-per-gallon we raise the standards, 149 traffic fatalities occur per year.
OR
Everyone with a brain has estimated that massive, unnecessarily heavy and powerful gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs driven by distracted buffoons kill people on the road.
Also, the report and the curiously straight-line graph comes from:
The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983. Our goal is to develop and promote private, free-market alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial
private sector.
not quite the whole story (Score:2, Interesting)
The key bit from the linked story:
“Having separate fuel economy standards for cars and trucks encourages people to continue to use trucks as if they were cars,” he said. “They buy a truck, but they drive it as if it were a car. They don’t necessarily need the bed or the four-wheel drive.”
It seems that the problem is not fuel efficiency standards leading to under-powered death traps. Rather, the problem is size disparity driven by misuse of large vehicles. To me, that's a different story.
Bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtxd27jlZ_g&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com]
Newer cars are safer, and aren't 'death traps'.
While disparity of weight has an impact, the the energy is diverted is inportant as well.
And remember, if two car travelling at 50 MPH have a head on collision, the force on each driver is 50MPH then adjusted fro mass differences.
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really.
Here is a Bel Air - also know for being a 'boat'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtxd27jlZ_g&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com]
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:4, Interesting)
A while back (15 years? 25 years?) when the Pinto was still a car, Ford or somebody did an experiment (IIRC it was in Popular Mechanics or some such). First they took a new Pinto and a new Fairlane and crashed them together. The Pinto was, of course, a pancake along with anyone who would have been in it. Then they took two more but filled various body cavities in the Pinto with rigid urethane foam. This time, the Pinto broke even with the Fairlane - nobody in either car would have died.
So just basic methods _can_ have a very good effect.
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
a:) In the UK it's perfectly normal to drive long distances between major cities for things like business trips or weekends visiting relatives, e.g. London to Glasgow, a good 7-8 hours with a couple of short breaks, where as in the US it seems it would be more common to fly in similar situations.
b:) In Continental Europe, train services and public transport are far superior in just about every respect and have been the envy of the British for the last thirty years or so. In recent times things have got worse, with prices for longer train journeys reaching almost ridiculous levels if bought on the day of travel. Though in the cities buses can be pretty good, in rural areas they are awful, unless you like 1 hr journeys on bumpy roads that cost the same as the equivalent direct 20 min drive in your car.
c:) North American towns and smaller cities are far better equipped with local shops and services than their equivalents in the UK, particularly in more rural and "satellite town" areas. In the US and Canada I'd constantly be amazed by what was on offer in small towns that would in the UK just be villages with a single newsagent/minimarket, maybe a post office and a few pubs. People in the UK in places like this are used to driving 20 mins+ to a town/city in the area that's larger to get more than the most basic services or go to the supermarket. Both supermarkets and larger shopping malls in the UK are, on average, quite a lot more crowded than their equivalents in the US and Canada. My theory is that this is due to the higher costs of land, rent, and running a business on average here to due to our great population density, minimum wage laws and many restrictions on new development, leading to a consolidation of businesses into fewer, more concentrated areas - but it results in more 20-40 min drives for the significant semi-rural population.
d:) One reason why there are less cars per person in the UK, it's really expensive in the UK to keep a car road legal compared to other countries. Insurance and road tax add up to £600-£1500 per year for most drivers, for a fairly modest type of car. Insurance varies hugely depending on how sporty/big engined the car is and how young you are. You don't see 17-20 year olds driving SUVs / Jap sports coupes/ sports cars nearly as commonly as in the US or other countries because the insurance would be so expensive (it might not even be possible to buy insurance for some car/driver combinations). I think that's one reason why fatal accidents are lower here.
Re:Your kidding, right? (Score:4, Interesting)
A past acquaintance from school posted pictures of this horrible wreck they were in. The car was fucking annihilated from the side. It looked like a jacked up fork lift monster truck had rolled over them. I was worried about them so I texted them to see if they were alright.
Yep, their truck wasn't damaged much. The truck was a huge jacked up Ford. The bumper hit at about head level. The only reason BOTH people in the car they broadsided weren't decapitated was because they saw it coming and got under the car. Firefighters had to cut them out. The speed was 30mph and their side impact airbags went off.
Then they complained about all the undercarriage damage their truck had received and the fact that their suspension was now fucked up. While they all walked away with no injuries, and the people in the car had lengthy hospital stays.
I hope the people that got hit sued the ever-loving shit out of them for driving an unsafe vehicle.