The Hidden Death Toll of Higher CAFE Standards
With all that the Obama administration has been hitting us with of late, the news about CAFE and how it will affect us has been given far less coverage than it deserves. I wonder if Obama’s motive is to flood the field so as to slip stuff like this by us. It is certainly the effect.
What is CAFE? We’ve been hearing about CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards for years, and the usual hype is that they’re a good thing.
What we’re being sold on is lower fuel consumption for our cars which will lead to less “global warming.” The science surrounding the global warming scare is questionable at best, as has been covered in many venues. So CAFE has a questionable goal from the start.
We’re also told that lower fuel consumption means lower cost, which would be a boon to consumers. But does it?
Those in favor of raising CAFE standards never tell us about the increased technology costs involved with squeezing ever more energy out of increasingly small amounts of fuel, amounting to several thousand dollars per car — to say nothing of the cost of maintaining such beasts.
They never mention the increases in taxes to make up for the shortfall of revenue from the gas tax, or the increased tag fees from states who have traditionally used weight as a measurement for registration fees.
The cost of CAFE will far outweigh the costs of buying more fuel, even at today’s inflated prices.
Also, let’s remember that those inflated prices are brought on by oil starvation, which is brought on by the misguided policy of this administration. In the months since President Obama took the oath of office, oil prices have more than doubled. Could it be that Obama’s policy of “no domestic drilling” has anything to do with this?
What would you say, though, if I told you that this “good thing” that the government is forcing on us in the name of “saving the environment” is responsible for no less than 2,000 deaths per year?
Thank you for this.I have been warning my kids about this very thing.
Give me my FULL SIZED 1979 CHEV BLAZER over any thing built today. I miss my track.
Semper Fi.
I would probably be dead if I had not been driving a very large car some fifteen years ago. The rear of my four-door vehicle was literally pushed up fairly close to my front seat. I thankfully only suffered minor back pain for about a year. Small cars are indeed death traps. You are in danger when hit at a relatively low speed. There are small cars that I don’t think can handle being hit even at twenty miles per hour!
The policies and regulations promoted by the Kevorkian/obama administration seem to result in lowered life expectation and accelerated death rates for all ages.
Another case of unintended consequences, I suppose, like:
CAFE standards
health care “for all”:no surgery/just injections for pain
look-the-other-way policy for Iran’s citizens
look-the-other-way policy for Nork’s citizens
let-the-baby-born-alive-die abortion policy
The enviros will retort that “if everyone drives good ‘little’ cars, instead of half you obese jerks being in ‘evil’ SUVs, nobody will die when there’s a collision.”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
This is best illustrated by a crash on the Colombus, OH, I-270 outerbelt about a decade ago. A Honda Civic trying to merge from the onramp got rear-ended by a Toyota Corolla that didn’t move left quite fast enough. Impact was a classic left rear-corner ram, combined impact velocity (due to vectors, etc.) was under 30 MPH (area is 55 zone, minimum speed on ramp is 35).
Both vehicles disintegrated. Of the four people in the Corolla and three in the Civic, four total died, the other three were badly injured. The Corolla driver and a front-right passenger in the Civic (both of whom survived) swore both cars were doing the speed limit, and OSHP investigation confirmed this.
In short, both vehicles (two of the safest compacts on the road, then and now, according to both J.D. Power and Consumer Reports) suffered massive structural failure in what should have been a “highly survivable” collision. The Corolla lost its front end back to the B-pillar on the right side, the Civic was spun sideways, rolled, and its roof collapsed.
The fact is, small cars do not survive impacts much above 25MPH, no matter what they hit, or what hits them. This includes them hitting each other. This is basic physics in action.
It is not physically possible to make a small car “crashworthy”. There simply is not sufficient internal volume for proper crush zones, and there is insufficient available mass for the other method of crash-survivability engineering, increased stiffening and thickening of major structural members.
Small, “ecologically responsible” vehicles kill people. And as they get smaller and “more responsible”, the death toll will increase.
I’m sure the “ecos’” solution will be to demand that we all ride the bus. Which is the next-least-safest form of road transport. They have a nasty tendency to roll in a crash, and their upperworks tend to collapse when they do. (Remember, they’ve all been “lightened” to improve their CAFE, too.)
Not that the “ecos” will care; they’ll still be riding in their chauffeured, alcohol-or-propane-fueled limousines, probably Maybachs. (Beemers and main-production Mercedes-Benz’ are so five minutes ago, you know.)
clear ether
eon
Any death toll wil not be large enough to affect the radical red greenies. Look at DDT and the malaria death toll,in the tens of millions.
Isn’t it just common sense ? No little put put for me.
#4. Eon, you make good points. Just to add a little physics to the discussion, Kinetic Energy = 1/2 Mass*Velocity-squared. Speed, not mass [that's "weight" for you 'progressives'] is the larger factor. I’ll keep my SUV, thank you.
True. It is misleading to rate car safety by class – only showing the results of the same size cars crashing with each other. As long as there are big commerical vehicles on the road it is best to drive a car that can survive some impact.
@4. eon:
“The fact is, small cars do not survive impacts much above 25MPH, no matter what they hit, or what hits them. This includes them hitting each other. This is basic physics in action.”
Small cars can survive impacts at 200mph on the race track, no matter what they hit, or what hits them. This includes them hitting each other. This is basic physics in action.
Even Honda Civics are pretty sturdy at speed. In all the accidents I’ve been in, mine have kept me from suffering so much as a scratch.
“It is not physically possible to make a small car “crashworthy”. There simply is not sufficient internal volume for proper crush zones, and there is insufficient available mass for the other method of crash-survivability engineering, increased stiffening and thickening of major structural members.”
Take a break from the blogging and watch a NASCAR race. Then come back and tell me how “it is not physically possible to make a small car ‘crashworthy’”. These tired talking points are laughable. This is an engineering issue, not a limitation of physics. There is a lot of room for improvement in current designs, but ignorant screeds against small cars don’t add to the discussion.
I am not in any way concerned about the miniscule impact of CAFE on crashworthiness. The overall benefit of improvements in fuel economy is likely to be a net gain in life expectancy, and an improvement in our national energy security. Personally, I feel much safer in my Civic than I would in the top-heavy SUV’s that I see rolled over in the ditch on the way to snowboarding.
Have fun pretending that small cars are death traps – just remember that it’s not true in the real world.
Peace.
DS
In a collusion between an egg and a bowling ball, bet on the bowling ball every time!!!
Yours is a false comparison.
Race cars are designed and built for power speed and strength, not MPG, nor do they have any relationship to cars built for the street. They also have the advantage in that setting of having all the other vehicles going in the same direction, all of which are pretty much the same size and the environments are devoid of hazards such as trees, for example.
Not.
Real.
World.
The death toll as I mention was prior to Obama’s demand for higher cafe standards. That death toll is going to go up exponentially with this new demand. Hardly inconsequential… as I hope you never have to find out first hand. All for the myth of man made global warming.
How has author Eric Florack managed to spend “25 years discussing politics in online forums”? Online where? How long have “online forums” existed?
Regardless, it still looks to me like SUVs are the real killers in this story. But you can turn it around if you like, it’s a free country. The real problem is more likely drunks driving SUVs on highways. Whatever is the real reason for these fatalities, I’m sure not going to rely on Obama statistical analysis and Obama solutions to solve the “problem”.
Now if I trade in my Suburban for a golf cart, I can free up enough space in my garage to park my Harley AND my mother-in-law. And I still save money. I don’t want phony statistics and mindless reactionaries to take away that option.
Political Correctness kills. This is a case where politicians have absolutely no business in business; the Cafe Standards is purely a political construct beholden to Unions & the politicians sick goal of looking of doing something useful. They could not be further from the truth.
David S -
I rarely agree with anything you write, but I feel you serve an important function of challenging groupthink and orthodoxy, and I work very hard to consider your points, in order to make sure my opinions consider all objections and perspectives. And I will admit, you are very good at reminding me not to group think or react on emotion.
But in this case, your comment is beyond “wishful thinking” and naivete about how the world works. You’ve gone into sheer idiocy and complete lack of common sense. A NASCAR vehicle is a handcrafted vehicle, designed to be safe, piloted by a driver who is a physical athlete who has dedicated his life to split second reaction times and withstanding accidents, on a track where everyone is going the same way and all hazards are removed from the track before the race, and who is connected to a pit crew who helps him identify hazards in the blind spot.
In the real world, we do not have handcrafted vehicles because no one could afford a car, we have individuals who are distracted behind the wheels and do not have split second reflexes, who are driving with passengers, and there are real world weather and road hazards, and vehicles that are not the same size, not going the same way, and driven by people who could be considered impaired! The two scenarios are so far apart that no person who is at all in touch with reality could seriously say that one has any breaing on the other.
So I ask – are you that out of touch with reality that you believe that, or do you have some reason for posting idiocy on the web? You could be from anywhere on the ideological spectrum and playing a bizarre practical joke – see people take me seriously!HAHAHA – or you could be paid to disrupt debate for some reason. Either way, please stop.
@11. Eric Florack:
“Race cars are designed and built for power speed and strength, not MPG, nor do they have any relationship to cars built for the street. They also have the advantage in that setting of having all the other vehicles going in the same direction, all of which are pretty much the same size and the environments are devoid of hazards such as trees, for example.”
Passenger cars may also be designed to maximize particular attributes – in this case MPG and safety. Remember, you are the one who asserted that:
I would assert that applying engineering to accomplish this task is not beyond the possible. It has mostly been done already.
“The death toll as I mention was prior to Obama’s demand for higher cafe standards. That death toll is going to go up exponentially with this new demand. Hardly inconsequential… as I hope you never have to find out first hand. All for the myth of man made global warming.”
There is no evidence to suggest that the death toll will go up, much less exponentially. Certainly the evidence for AGW is much more compelling than the evidence that lighter cars are necessarily more dangerous on the whole. This issue is not new, and the claim that heavier cars are the solution is pretty well debunked.
Peace.
DS
PS – RE: laws of physics
Larsen;
Oh, since 1978 or so. Maybe 77.
See, most people don’t remember this stuff, but back in the day before the internet, was what is now a little known world of the networked BBS. At the time I started, 110baud and was normal and 300 baud was a fast modem. This was the time when most people didn’t have computers and those who did didn’t have what was called at IBM compatible. It was the day of the Apple 2 and the Commodore 64, etc.
Actually, when I started there, most BBS’s were not even networked. Fido and GT and a few other nets came along and changed that. Essentially one user at a time, and store and forward systems, they were. I ran one of the larger ones in NY state… a three-phone-line affair which cleared the at-the-time huge number of 45 calls per day. And of course, there’s usenet… which I started using heavily in ’88 or ’89. A suprising amount of my stuff from those days is still online to this day, mostly in Google Archives of Usenet. Last I checked, there was still stuff from the middle 80′s there, though I haven’t looked in a while. I gather they’ve been weeding there since so many systems like Time Warner have been dropping usenet servers. So as you see, saying 25 years undershoots the reality a bit, but it’s close enough.
While I’m sure the current government would like you to think so, don’t. It’s not true.
#9. David, if you think a race vehicle is constructed like those econoboxes would be I have a bridge for you in Brooklyn. Cash only, please.
Driving a twat-mobile is not going to save the universe. Sorry, Suckers.
-And, China, our ‘money holder’ ain’t buyin’ that load of crap either.
Welcome to the USSA.
Dumb muth Fu&*^%*(*$*&%^*+
Hey, lefties. You want to save the earth? Buy a gun and shoot yourselves. ALL OF YOU.
DO IT. It would be awesome! You can even wear the same dumbass ‘hale-bop’ ‘outfits’, black clothes, tennies and all.
JUST DO IT.
Nike.
@14. Nora:
“I rarely agree with anything you write, but I feel you serve an important function of challenging groupthink and orthodoxy, and I work very hard to consider your points, in order to make sure my opinions consider all objections and perspectives. And I will admit, you are very good at reminding me not to group think or react on emotion.”
Thanks.
As far as my comment on NASCAR vehicles, I was merely demonstrating that there is plenty of existing technology that makes relatively light cars quite safe. Crumple zones, air bags, stability control, ABS, etc – all of these are safety features that do more to save lives than adding weight. The argument against CAFE based on safety is hollow.
“So I ask – are you that out of touch with reality that you believe that, or do you have some reason for posting idiocy on the web? You could be from anywhere on the ideological spectrum and playing a bizarre practical joke – see people take me seriously!HAHAHA – or you could be paid to disrupt debate for some reason. Either way, please stop.”
Actually, my contact with reality is pretty firm. I’m not sure if you agree with Eric, or are just blind to the idiocy he posted above. I assure you that I’m not here as a practical joker, nor am I being paid. Believe it or not, I do this for the love.
I just can’t stand to see people so earnestly consumed by the echo chamber – gotta do my part to bring reality into the discussion.
Peace.
DS
I might add to Mr. Florack and Nora’s rebuttal of David S. on my behalf (thank you), the following data points;
1. As they both note, a NASCAR “stock car” is nothing like a street-legal car. It has a solid-steel platform frame (of the type virtually abandoned by car manufacturers in the 1970s with the advent of the “unibody” system of construction), and that frame supports a tubular-steel impact protection structure (commonly though inaccurately known as a “roll cage”) that is composed of heavy-gauge 2″ diameter steel tubing, with all joints welded and reinforced with at least 1/4″ thick steel gussets. The structure is much like that used in World War Two to protect anti-aircraft gun mounts on PT boats, except it’s a full coverage “box”, including overhead protection plus massive sidewall bars. This is why the driver enters and exits a “stock car” by sliding through the left-side window; there are no doors. The “body” on such a car is in fact a lightweight fiberglass/composite “shell” with only two purposes; streamlining, and providing a billboard for the racing team’s ID, car’s number, and advertising from the team’s corporate sponsors. The “body” adds nothing to the structural integrity of the vehicle; in fact, the car would run perfectly well without that “shell”, if not quite as fast due to aerodynamic drag. (Dirt-track racers do it all the time with very similar structures.)
A NASCAR “stocker” has better crash protection for its driver than most combat aircraft of today do for the pilot. By using a system totally inapplicable to a vehicle intended for everyday use.
2. I haven’t spent “25 years” online, nor do I spend all my time “blogging”. In fact, I’m a relative latecomer to the Internet. By training and profession, before medical retirement I was what is now called a “CSI”- a lab technician and in-the-field investigator for a Federally-certified laboratory that served quite a bit of my home state. (Believe me, the reality isn’t nearly as exciting as the TV version.) And part of what I did was what used to be called “accident investigation”, often on the interstate.
I’ve seen more than my share of the results of automobile impacts on other autos, utility poles, guardrail ends, bridge abutments, trees, etc. And helped deal with the aftermath, more times than I care to remember.
Have you?
clear ether
eon
I was in a head-on in a small car and have lived to tell the tale. I was commuting 100 miles a day and picked fuel efficiency over safety. My choice. One drunk driver later and here I am. I drive a truck now.
Here’s one that get’s almost triple the CAFE standards but also one that is certain to cause death even if involved in a minor accident with a larger vehicle or an immovable object.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJfSS0ZXYdo
It is the world’s smallest car.
David S. – I am all for safety features, don’t get me wrong. And those safety features do make small cars safer, but not as safe as larger cars with the same features. People choose to buy cars that specifically have those features – I know, I’ve done it – but again those have nothing to do with CAFE, which mandates weight. Indeed, many of those features increase the weight of the car, which has to be accounted for.
You’re right, it’s not just an engineering issue – small cars can be made very safe – they just have to be made like NASCAR vehicles – handmade, one at a time, and with a dedicated pit crew to go over the vehicle constantly to see what stresses have done to the vehicle. This is a reality – I admit – it’s just not a reality that has anything to do with life off the race track. People could have those cars – they just couldn’t have healthcare, or own a home, or consume much leisure, etc. The American vehicle fleet isn’t going to look like that. You know it’s not.
Most goods have to be shipped nationally, because not everything can be made regionally, at a price most can afford. We could all regionally grow food, but it would limit our diet, and drive the price of food up, disporportionately affecting the poor. Even with a white collar economy, there are still tons of materials that have to be shipped, such as fiber optic, metal cable, paper, conduit, food, etc. So there has to be a transportation infrastructure. The economy would ground to a screeching halt if it didn’t – there isn’t enough rail capacity anymore, and what there is has infrastructure issues.
So you would still have large trucks on the road, and rail trains. Leaving aside canal shipping etc, and by the way, all of these things consume massive amounts of fossil fuels.
Using the NASCAR example, we’d have very few drivers of cars, but a s—load of large trucks. You think that those small cars are going to win against tractor trailers?
Even if we all had small cars that were mass production, most vehicle collisions would be between similar sized vehicles, which may or may not be that bad, but again, those vehicles will not be as safe as NASCAR, and safety features weigh something. We are working on strong, lightweight nano-materials that could be used ot make cars, but they are not mass production yet, and mandating CAFE standards on the grounds that “the technology will be there, even though it’s not proven yet, and we don’t have a timeline” is not a good idea.
Further David, as for your Civic/SUV comparison – you do realize the reason SUVs became popular was because of CAFE? Station wagons, which are lower and have less of a rollover factor, became a loser for manufacturers becuase they were engineered on a car platform, and therefore count against CAFE. Light trucks meet a different standard, therefore, for anyone who has a life that doesn’t work in a small car, guess what they chose.
The bottom line is this. If we are to wean ourselves off of dependancy on foreign oil, improved CAFE standards are one way to do this. Better gas mileage means less oil, less pollution and less death from diseases caused by pollution.
Another way to do this would be for Ford, GM and Chrysler to take the lead in creating more fuel and energy efficient vehicles without sacrificing the many perks today’s driver is looking for. Of course if they had started doing this 30 years ago, this conversation would be moot and the car companies would be in much better shape than they are today.
But you didn’t do that. What you offered was an apples and organges Race cars are generally speaking stronger than they are light, and are only as light as they are because of removal of anything that makes an everyday use car what it is. Ponder they idea that race cars are not street legal, for reasons that very seldom involve the speeds they can run.Add the reqirements of a street vehicle, and that ability you tout disappears. If you’re going to call me an idiot, may I respectfully suggest you be standing on firmer ground, first?
If what I’m reading from you now can be considered a sample, seems to me you’d be pretty good at it.
Pat J:(25) I note you neglect increasing domestic crude production. Why?
But thats another 2000 folks that will no longer be a drain on the healthcare system…we’ll just kill them outright and won’t have to worry about fixing them up…
So David S you’re you’d be willing to drive a Smart Car everyday around a busy beltway or on a heavily traveled interstate? If you’re not then you need to just stop, if you are I hope for your sake you’ve got good health insurance (your screwed if ObamaCare gets passed) or if you’ve got a family that you’ve got sufficient life insurance to cover expenses and your lost income for several years.
To acquire the “safety” that racing vehicles (NASCAR are based upon “full sized” vehicles BTW) have it costs around $200,000. Not exactly in the budget of the average American, even though Obama keeps redefining “rich” on a regular basis.
About 20 years ago in a 2DR ’79 Cutlass, I lost traction on a patch of ice while doing about 20 mph and hit a tree about 8 inches in diameter. The tree and car met right behind the drivers door and he tree was about 18 inches into the car. Had I been driving a smaller car I’d have needed a good bit more than 7 stitches.
I caved in and bought a Hyundai Elantra two years ago, and even though its loaded with safety features such as ABS and drivers, passenger, & side curtain airbags I doubt that I’m safer in that car than my old J body cars that I loved in my teens and early 20s.
A race car is totally unlike the everyday vehicle. The driver is strapped in with barely the ability to move their body a couple of inches! They are, for the most part, shoehorned into the car. This would be unrealistic in the regular world. Once again, I survive an accident that would have most likely killed me if I had been in a small car. I know what I’m talking about! One’s jaw would have dropped had they seen my vehicle immediately after it was hit.
Note the wiggleword “survive”. Anything short of a mushroom cloud will be put in the “survive” column.
Less lives, less carbon footprints, no?
CAFE saves the planet on two fronts: less carbon emissions from cars driven by live beings, less carbon emissions from pre-alive beings.
and of those that do survive, the injuries will be more catastrophic and will be treated by obamacare – where you don’t get treated.
12. Larsen E. Whipsnade:
How has author Eric Florack managed to spend “25 years discussing politics in online forums”? Online where? How long have “online forums” existed?
~~~
Your youth is showing. Yes, online forum’s have been around a long time – just not as common as now. I know a “regular” jane who was online discussing mideast happenings 25 YEARS ago prior to her moving to Saudi Arabia for a year.
25. Pat J:
If we are to wean ourselves off of dependancy on foreign oil, improved CAFE standards are one way to do this. Better gas mileage means less oil, less pollution and less death from diseases caused by pollution.
~~~`
A better and SAFER way to do that is DRILL HERE!
29. Scott:
So David S you’re you’d be willing to drive a Smart Car everyday around a busy beltway or on a heavily traveled interstate?
~~~~
oooh, do we have our own future Darwin Award winner????
#36 ked5
So David S you’re you’d be willing to drive a Smart Car everyday around a busy beltway or on a heavily traveled interstate?
~~~~
oooh, do we have our own future Darwin Award winner????
=============
Ack! I suck at proofing my own stuff…I reworded that sentence and missed deleting the “you’re”.
Anyway, every time I see a Smart Car I think about George Carlin’s line “the kid that eats too many marbles doesn’t grow up to have kids of their own…”
We get to see numerous different cars from Mercedes to Fords bite the dust in crash tests, where are the crash tests for Smart Cars and ones like it?
Light formula race cars are built of exotic
materials and cost 100s of thousands or millions
of dollars. The drivers also wear or use
protective equipment and are trained-no
comparison to street cars even if they look
like one.
Secondly if you put 4 or 5 average Americans
in a tin can you can drastically up the
vehicle weight into a territory that spells
disaster for the tin can and its occupants.
Thirdly the Demos pushing tin cans won’t
be driving them only the suckers who voted
for them. And David S. Peace when you cite
all the accidents you have been in you
sound like you need some driver training.
Larger cars are insurance policies you hope
you don’t use. My brother-in-law saved
some bucks in gas with his new Civic and
then was severely injured in a minor accident
-minor that is if you were driving a car and
not a tin can.
IC,
How does the Socialists protect the planet from volcanic eruptions? They produce far more pollution into the atmosphere than the total population on the Earth as a whole.
Furthermore, carbon is not a pollutant. Why? The Earth biomass (lifeforms) uses carbon as a base. You are made of carbon & almost every living thing is made of carbon. Plants also need carbon to survive; without carbon, plants would die. Without plants, we would die. As a result, the Earth’s entire carbon based life-forms would all die based on the Left’s distorted political message of “Global Warming.” The cultists of the Global Warming church has embraced nihilism for their answer. Why? Why do you want to destroy mankind? This is what you’re doing. Just think a little before speak.
37. Scott:
Anyway, every time I see a Smart Car I think about George Carlin’s line “the kid that eats too many marbles doesn’t grow up to have kids of their own…”
~~~~
I think about how it wouldn’t take much to put the trunk in the engine compartment.
My nephew is a fireman/paramedic – he was a teen when he started, and it’s REALLY changed his attitudes towards cars and driving. (how many teenage boys lecture their younger sisters to be *careful* driving. amazing what a few up-close and personals pulling dead bodies from wrecked cars will do for one’s outlook.)
The trolls are right. Small is beautiful. And for $5000, you can get a pair of Tatas. Tatas are beautiful. Especially in matched pairs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano
Another small car that has a certain attraction is this one:
http://www.youvert.com/.a/6a00d8341c678153ef01156ff05f36970c-800wi
39. Sebastian Shaw,
“sarcasm: A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.”
Guess I wasn’t that witty afterall. The butt of my contempt was the global warm-mongers, the eco-misanthropists who proclaimed mankind was the enemy of planet Earth. Their goal was to lower carbon footprints, it followed that the best way to do that was to kill all humans. CAFE would be a start. “Just think a little before speak.”
27. Eric Florack:
Pat J:(25) I note you neglect increasing domestic crude production. Why?
——————-
While it is irrelevant to this discussion I am in favor of drilling except in protected areas like ANWR.
IC, unless you say sarcasm on the internet, it is very hard to read without the voice inflection. You need to have “/sarcasm” posted when you say something sarcastic.
The way the current administration’s line goes, if we all got rid of our SUVs, then there would be no Suburbans to crash into the cute little Priuses (Prii? whatever), as if that was the only cause of death while driving a small car.
Ever seen one hammered by a rig? Drunks drive small cars too, they tend to smack trees and utility poles as well…. But, we can’t just leave the choice of what to drive to the individual, now, can we? That would just be MADNESS.
@29. Scott:
“So David S you’re you’d be willing to drive a Smart Car everyday around a busy beltway or on a heavily traveled interstate?”
Sure I would. I drive a Honda Civic regularly in heavy freeway traffic. I have a buddy with a Smart Car who loves it – but I’ll keep my Civic because I need room to haul my music gear.
About ten years ago in an Acura Integra, I lost traction on a patch of gravel while doing about 55 mph and hit a tree about 16 inches in diameter. I impacted the tree going backwards, and shattered the back windshield, but the tree intruded less than 4 inches into the passenger compartment. Had I been driving a larger car, the tree might have intruded much further, due to the greater momentum a larger vehicle would have.
“I caved in and bought a Hyundai Elantra two years ago, and even though its loaded with safety features such as ABS and drivers, passenger, & side curtain airbags I doubt that I’m safer in that car than my old J body cars that I loved in my teens and early 20s.”
You may or may not be safer, but I would assert that the most important element in this equation is not the vehicle – it’s the driver.
Peace.
DS
Splat. D’oh!
Look at me in my Smart car:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPYAsbOpTtQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2Fvideosearch%3Fq%3Dwyle%2520e%2520coyote%26oe%3Dutf-8%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8%26s&feature=player_embedded
War,
WEC -er- DS
A smart car isn’t all that light, and is actually put together quite well. you can see video on youtube of one ramming a 20ton concrete abuttment at 70mph. filmed for “top gear”. it held up far better than anyone could’ve guessed… the entire passenger compartment was intact. I’ve also been in a civic that hit a deer at above-highway-speeds. guessed it was around 200lbs. It wiped out the entire left side of the car, and half the front, but the car drove home, and had no major structural damage. Quite a few small cars are put together well, but there’s even more sub-compacts I’d never get in. It all depends on the design.
Are we going to let the government dictate to us what we drive ?
David S –
“There is no evidence to suggest that the death toll will go up, much less exponentially. Certainly the evidence for AGW is much more compelling than the evidence that lighter cars are necessarily more dangerous on the whole. This issue is not new, and the claim that heavier cars are the solution is pretty well debunked.”
http://www.nationalcenter.org/TSR061907.html
http://www.autosafety.org/cas-1995-house-testimony-cafe
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2002/03/51077
http://www.piercelaw.edu/risk/vol3/spring/graham.htm
There is a great deal of information based on hard data that contradicts you. That information is, as is the norm these days, more difficult to find than the information interest groups who benefit from CAFE standards spread widely, cross referencing one another frequently via web link in order to register more hits for one another, and then further pushed to the top of search pages various Google bias techniques. If you don’t stop at the first page or three of links you can even get to things like university research showing there will be more death and injury, government studies that prove there will be increased fatalities and serious injury, foreign auto maker studies that agree that fatalities and serious injury will increase, auto makers requesting waivers from some safety tests in order to attain the required CAFE number, etc., etc.
Now that GM is a federal agency in all but name, I’m sure their studies will be totally in line with whatever the powers that be in Washington want them to be. And in complete contradiction to their earlier studies. There are far more rich companies with a bias to up the CAFE standards in order to make a quick buck than there are to resist it. The public, naturally, be damned. You and others who insist the two goals are not in conflict are either lying to yourselves or have accepted lies so long that you haven’t looked into the matter yourself.
You cannot decree that the laws of physics change to suit your fantasy of the day no matter what your mommy may have told you about positive visualization.
Have a nice day
The big car eats the little car, every time.
End of story.
All you have to do is take a trip down memory lane and watch a video of a full size station wagon t-boning a Pinto. Ouch.
As for me, I’ll ride my 50 MPG motorcycle and continue to dodge all you enviro types in your hybrids.
Hey earth worshipers, what are you going to do with all those battery packs your hybrids run on when it’s time to get rid of them? Can’t do the “Off to the land fill” anymore, those things are as toxic as spent nuclear fuel.
Oh my, got you there, didn’t I?
No, it’s not or I’d not have mentioned it in the article. I think it very much on topic…. absent the misguided ‘no drill’ policy, we’d not be having this little chat right now. And I have no problem drilling where the oil is… including ANWR.
Delia:
The other night I picked up on something that concerned me with you on the story about MJ dead at 50. It may be that I am reading too much into it, I just wanted to make sure that you are O.K.
If you would like to talk or message more privately please visit my blog at http://torquedmarine.blogspot.com/ I have the comments set up so I have to look at them 1St. before posting so your privacy will be secure. Even if you are not interested in this course I think you mite be interested in the blog. Don’t forget if you want your comments to be made private just let me know.
You sound like a good Mommy.
Semper Fi.
P.S. If this makes you uncomfortable please let me know here.
I am not really all that knowledgeable about emissions, but it seems to me that a lot of the Hot Rods of the 60′s and 70′s ran cleaner and had no lost of power in the process.
All this is, is a way to continue to control the masses though fear of global warming. Just more lie by the lefties.
All this is going to do, is drive us deeper into debt with the chi-coms.
Semper Fi.
what would the life expectancy be for a driver if the racecars were all stock Prius’s? Nuff said.
David S.:
Seriously? “Had I been driving a larger car, the tree might have intruded much further, due to the greater momentum a larger vehicle would have.” You have got to be joking.
Conservatives are not responsible for the fact that bigger heavier cars are safer than smaller lighter cars. Drivers kill people, but so do engineers. Consult the internet if you disagree about any of these things, I’m sure you have the time.
Don’t worry, the internet will confirm that people die in bigger cars all the time, so feel free to ignore anything else that might be relevant to this thread.
But you should do a ride-along or something. Or alternatively, walk out of your place sometime tomorrow (mid-morning, after Starbucks but pre-jam-session), find a police officer, and ask them what kind of personal car they drive and what they may have witnessed in the line of duty that informed their decision.
I think you guys are just afraid to have fun with little cars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9jpDQns1M&NR=1
I have way more fun driving this than driving my Suburban. Can’t wait for my global warming tax breaks.
There is that, Lenny. To that point, I happened to be at the local police station about a week ago. As I recall, in the parking lot last week was a higher than average number of 10 and 20 series pickups, (Ford Chevy and a Dodge Diesel) GMT360′s (mostly Chevy Trailblazers) and a few Astro vans, and a Caddy or two, and one mid-fifties vintage Dodge M47 Military vehicle, set up with a 440 interceptor engine, and heavier running gear to match the power of that 440. (I know the rig well, having worked on it myself) Such a collection doesn’t speak well of thimbles on wheels.
# 58 Larsen E.
“I think you guys are just afraid to have fun with little cars”
But you still own a Suburban, I notice.
Actually, I don’t drive “for fun”, as I’ve never been a particularly big fan of same. When I get behind the wheel, it’s with a definite purpose in mind, especially these days with fuel costing about twice as much per gallon as it did when I was in high school.
If your primary objective in being on the road is “fun”, try bicycling.
#59 Eric Florack;
I’ve noticed the same thing over the years, going back to my college days as a criminology student. Most of my classmates in the late ’70s showed up with new, ecologically-conscious, tiny imports, ranging from Toyotas to Hondas to the (in)famous Datsun B-210.
After working part time as auxiliary deputies, full time as crime scene techs, and pretty much 24/7 as sworn officers, especially handling auto accidents involving fatalities, by graduation they were all driving at least mid-sized sedans, if not full-sized sedans or light trucks. The most telling experience for most of them was taking a Dodge Coronet 440 Pursuit through the skid pad, and noticing that even with an experienced instructor driver behind the wheel, that 4300 pound, wide-stanced vehicle would roll violently in a sideways skid. Then, they’d see the results of such skids for real, on ice, wet pavement, etc., with the “compacts”. Rollovers, guaranteed, every time. (And no, ABS, which was in its infancy then, was no help; when the vehicle turns broadside-on to its line of travel, the tuck-and-roll is pretty much inevitable- physics again.)
As for me, at graduation, I was still driving the same full-sized Ford I’d bought to commute to school with to begin with. It served me well for an entire decade.
clear ether
eon
54. Torqued Marine (USMC),
Thank you, hon. I never mean to ‘worry’ anyone. Sometimes my rants go off the rails.
I’ll check out your link.
@60. eon:
“Then, they’d see the results of such skids for real, on ice, wet pavement, etc., with the “compacts”. Rollovers, guaranteed, every time. (And no, ABS, which was in its infancy then, was no help; when the vehicle turns broadside-on to its line of travel, the tuck-and-roll is pretty much inevitable- physics again.)”
Now you’re just blowing smoke out your tailpipe. I’ve never seen a compact car flipped on the roof on my way to the mountain, but I have most certainly seen plenty of 4 runners, Suburbans, Tahoes and Subarus, with their higher centers of gravity, rolled onto their roofs. Rollover propensity is directly related to the center of gravity – which is almost always lower in compact cars.
A low center of gravity and a relatively wide track are attributes of small cars. I’ve had the pleasure of spinning 360º or more on ice, wet pavement and gravel with compact cars, and never came close to a roll over – not even up on two wheels. Your comprehension of physics is lacking. But I don’t expect evidence to weigh more in your mind than the anecdotal evidence of parking lot surveys. That would be asking too much.
Peace.
DS
Link correction
If you want to compare safety ratings, here is the direct link to safercar.gov
I just took a quick look and saw that the 1994 model year Honda Civic I own has a better safety rating than a 1994 Chevy Caprice. Tell me again how the police know so much about safety?
Just because your trusted sources say it, doesn’t mean it’s true. Check the numbers.
Peace.
DS
DS, of course cars with a higher center of gravity are increasingly likely to roll over, depending on their wheel base. Not only does this do nothing to prove your point (it is common knowledge that big cars are also dangerous machines), but it reveals something more subtle at work in your arguments: driver error is a mighty big contributor to such accidents. Predictably, you chose to ignore driver error and seek to attribute the safety to engineering when it can be made to suggest big cars are unsafe relative to small cars; yet, you do the exact opposite by calling attention to driver error when it is necessary to your argument to suggest that safety is not dependent on weight. It’s simple physics. But don’t take it from me, take it from the link you supplied, which says:
“NHTSA categorizes vehicles by vehicle class and “curb” weight. “… “Side crash rating results can be compared across all classes because all vehicles are hit with the same force by the same moving barrier.
Rollover ratings can also be compared across all classes.
Frontal crash rating results can only be compared to other vehicles in the same class and whose weight is plus or minus 250 lbs of the vehicle being rated. This is so because a frontal crash rating into a fixed barrier represents a crash between two vehicles of the same weight. Examples:
* It would not be permissible to compare the frontal crash results of a 4,500 lb SUV with those of a 3,000 sedan (different classes and exceeds the weight requirement).
* It would not be permissible to compare the frontal crash results of a 3,600 lb pickup with those of a 3,400 lb van (meets the weight requirement, but different classes).
* It would be correct to compare the frontal crash results of a 3,400 lb passenger car with a 3650 lb passenger car (same class and meets the weight requirement).”
Here, the NHTSA is acknowledging a basic fact of physics which you seem perfectly willing to ignore: force is the issue. Meaning that relative mass is important with regard to relative safety. And if you’ll forgive me the pun, I believe the entire point of this thread is that mass is indeed a driving force behind auto safety.
Now, just because rollover risk is presented by NHTSA as one of three ratings does not confer it equal standing in terms of risk. It is simply one of the very bad things that can happen in a vehicle that they can precisely measure. In fact, I submit that is the only one of the three that driver error is the dominant factor, meaning that if you drive an SUV safely, you can virtually eliminate this risk. Other drivers cannot force you to roll-over if you are cognizant of this risk. Meanwhile, not so for the frontal and side crash ratings, which depend equally on one’s own actions behind the wheel as on a) those of others, and b) those of other animate and inanimate objects. Even though those ratings don’t help your arguments, I think they are the ones that are of primary importance and of primary relevance with regard to CAFE.
In a frontal or side crash between a Honda Civic and a Chevy Caprice, 1994 or today, the Honda Civic loses every time. And my point is that police officers have seen this sad reality up front. And you can bet that if the Civic held up in such a crash, they would be talking that up and putting their wives in them, which they don’t do. They are after all cheaper, and officers don’t make that much money.
Nobody should have to volunteer to die, or sacrifice their own family, in the name of misguided policies the ends of which are chiefly social. What’s more, it’s not even about conservation, which I find completely galling as conservation appeals to everyone and especially me.
Seriously DS. Read Eric’s post #59. It is worth something to at least acknowledge what those are in a position to know about safety do in practice.
I have. It was one of the thimble-on-wheels fatalities I mentioned in the article.
61. Delia:
No problem, I posted your comment. I hope you like the blog. I mainly started it to vent. I realized that this would be a good way to get out the simple truths of things related to the Constitution. Which of course is the way the Constitution was meant to be (simple).
I am glad to hear that i was just reading to much into your comments, and you are fine. My mother has spoken very highly of you on Pajamas.
Semper Fi.
When I was stationed in 29 Palms Ca. I would go to my home some 90 miles away in Palmdale. I drove a 1976 Ford Granada 4 door. One weekend on my way back to base, I was run off the road by a drunk driver. I was doing about 60 miles an hour when I hit the cliff side. My neck was sore and the only damage to my car was a flat tire, broken head lite, and fender was bent.
Had that been one of those little pieces of plastic, the least would have been a totaled car, the worst of course, death.
Give me steel over plastic any day.
Semper Fi.
67. Torqued Marine (USMC):
“I am glad to hear that i was just reading to much into your comments, and you are fine. My mother has spoken very highly of you on Pajamas.”
Awwwwww. Send her a hug for me.
Maybe one day I’ll brave starting my own blog too. Right now I’m scattered in too many directions though.
You’re a sweetheart and I thank you for the kind words.
Oops. -And, as to topic:
“The cost of CAFE will far outweigh the costs of buying more fuel, even at today’s inflated prices.”
Agreed. Which will make EVERYTHING cost more that has to be ‘trucked’ in. Food prices will sky-rocket and not only because of ‘trucking’ fuels but also farm equipment that relies on fuel.
NOT PRETTY.
60. eon: “If your primary objective in being on the road is “fun”, try bicycling”
You’re kidding! Have you ever tried to get a bl*wj*b on a bicycle?
70. Delia: “Which will make EVERYTHING cost more that has to be ‘trucked’ in . . .”
Not just fuel will cost more. Has everyone forgotten already that PLASTIC comes from petroleum. The cost of plastic will go through the roof. Maybe America under the Dems can make do with hemp instead of plastic, but it won’t be pretty.
Is DS really Exhorting us to take the word of yet another government agency? With the abysmal record that such agencies have, particularity and the differences between their test applications, there are estimates, and what ends up happening out here and the real world, does not believe us to take such government agency reports with a grain of salt ?