Legislators and regulators need to observe a fundamental Golden Rule: Do not implement new laws if you have not considered or cannot control important unintended consequences. Posted on 08/08/2012 5:37:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
Legislators and regulators need to observe a fundamental Golden Rule: Do not implement new laws if you have not considered or cannot control important unintended consequences.
A perfect example is the Obama Administration’s plan to increase new car mileage standards, from the currently legislated requirement of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 to 54.5 mpg by 2025, as an average across each automaker’s complete line of cars and light trucks.
Carmakers reluctantly agreed to the new requirements, to avoid even more onerous standards, or different standards in different states. But the deal does nothing to alter the harsh realities of such a requirement.
First, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) analyses indicate that the mileage standards will add $3,000 to $4,800 to the average price of new vehicles for models from now until 2025. Moreover, this price increase does not include the $2,000 to $6,000 in total interest charges that many borrowers would have to pay over the life of a 36-60 month loan.
The consequence: 6 million to 11 million low-income drivers will be unable to afford new vehicles during this 13-year period, according to the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA). These drivers will essentially be eliminated from the new vehicle market, because they cannot afford even the least expensive new cars without a loan – and many cannot meet minimal lending standards to get that loan.
These drivers will be forced into the used car market. However, far fewer used cars are available today, because the $3-billion “cash for clunkers” program destroyed 690,000 perfectly drivable cars and trucks that otherwise would have ended up in used car lots. In addition, the poor economy is causing many families to hold onto their older cars longer than ever before.
Exacerbating the situation, the average price of used cars and trucks shot from $8,150 in December 2008 to $11,850 three years later, say the NADA and Wall Street Journal. With interest rates of 5-10% (depending on the bank, its lending standards and a borrower’s financial profile), even used cars are unaffordable for many poor families, if they can find one.
All this forces many poor families to buy “hoopties,” pieces of junk that cost much more to operate than a decent low-mileage used car. These higher operating costs can cripple families in borderline poverty situations.
The compounded financial impact is a “regressive” tax and a war on the poor.
Another, far worse consequence of the skyrocketing mileage requirements is that many cars will need to be made smaller, lighter, and with thinner metal and more plastic, to achieve the new “corporate average fleet economy” (CAFÉ) standards.
These vehicles – even with seatbelts, air bags and expensive vehicle modifications – will not be as safe as they would be if mileage weren’t a major consideration. They will have less “armor” to protect drivers and passengers, and less space between vehicle occupants and whatever car, truck, bus, wall, tree or embankment their car might hit.
The NHTSA, Brookings Institution, Harvard School of Public Health, National Academy of Sciences and USA Today discovered a shocking reality. Even past and current mileage standards have resulted in thousands of additional fatalities, and tens of thousands of serious injuries, every year – above what would have happened if the government had not imposed those standards.
They also learned that drivers in lightweight cars were up to twelve times more likely to die in a crash – and far more likely to suffer serious injury and permanent disabilities.
Increasing mileage requirements by a whopping 19 mpg above current rules will make nearly all cars even less safe than they are today.
For obvious reasons, most legislators, regulators and environmental activists have not wanted to discuss these issues. But they need to do so, before existing mileage requirements are made even more stringent.
These affordability and safety problems may be unintended. However, no government officials – elected or unelected – can claim they are unaware of them.
Finally, the asserted goals of CAFÉ standards may once have been somewhat persuasive. The standards were necessary, it was argued, to preserve US oil reserves that were rapidly being depleted, reduce oil imports from unstable parts of the world, and prevent dangerous global warming. However, the rationales used to justify these onerous, unfair, injurious and lethal mileage standards are no longer persuasive.
New seismic, drilling and production technologies have dramatically increased our nation’s oil and natural gas reserves. Opening some of the publicly owned lands that are currently off limits would increase reserves even more. Using government and industry data, the Institute for Energy Research has calculated that the USA, Canada and Mexico alone have 1.7 trillion barrels of recoverable oil reserves – enough to meet current US needs for another 250 years – and another 175 years of natural gas.
As to global warming, even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is now backing away from previous claims about alarming changes in global temperatures, sea levels, polar ice caps and major storms, due to greenhouse gas emissions.
All of us should conserve energy and be responsible stewards of the Earth and its bounties, which God has given us. However, to ignore the unpleasant realities of existing and proposed mileage mandates is unethical, immoral and unjust.
We must not emphasize fuel savings at the cost of excluding poor families from the automobile market – and putting people at greater risk of serious injury or death.
It's on the interstate, doing 70+. When there is any traffic, especially big rigs, the car literally spends more time blowing around on the road than touching it.
I've come to grips with the fact that I'm going to see it one morning, crumpled like a beer can.
A smart car is an excellent idea for a retirement community. Or, for someone like my Mom, who drives 2 miles to church a couple of times a week, and maybe occasionally to the grocery store (6-7 miles). Other use, especially on the interstate, is taking your life into your own hands.
Things that make you go “hmmm.” The guy who calls himself “FLAMING DEATH” writes about “fiery crashes.”
Anyway, I suspect the upcoming fiery crashes are a secret Obama plan to thin the herd so the nation can cut back on health care spending.
I agree with this article completely. I would add, however, that a larger portion of the problem is higher up the food chain at regulation of energy and association with environmental protection. It inhibits free market choice of fuel options for transportation, locking us into government’s choice of fuel, leading to politically motivated and incoherent regulatory actions such as these in addition to economic issues rising from neglect of serious supply issues regarding the choice fuel. It’s a central planning nightmare that puts us all in the poorhouse, if we survive long enough to get there.
Never mind that aluminum overall soars, the price to fix autos containing the aluminum will jump. Whole parts, especially engines, will need to be replaced and cannot be simply pounded out with a hammer. Previous repairs costing $700 will be $3700. After driving it a few years, folks will simply walk away as they do with houses and the landfills grow and grow.
Precisely right. Autobody shops will decline. Wholesale replacement of entire body panels will greatly increase. It is very difficult to form and mold alumninum. Cars will become disposable. The poor, when they can afford to buy a car, will get a used car full of crumpled body panels. The overall appearance of the nation will become like that of a third-world country.
It doesn’t take a very deep crystal ball to see all this coming, does it?
No, they don't. Their brains are wired differently. I remember from one of Glenn Beck's terrific lectures that the leftist's pecking order of life is upside down compared to normal people. Man is at the bottom of their pyramid, and the planet is at the top. To them, even plants and animals are more important than man. Man is at the very bottom and 100% despised. Great explanation. I wonder if that particular Beck lecture is still available, I'd love to see it again.
I'd guess that full-sized pickups have the best shot at serious longevity, mostly the 3/4 ton and other heavy-duty models. Cars of the '50s were built with a minimum of plastic and with an eye towards ease of maintenance. In many of today's vehicles, you can't even change the damned suspension ball joints - gotta replace the entire control arm assembly... and the included ball joint will be "sealed" with no grease fitting.
There's something to be said for the simplicity of a carburetor, too. Oh, EFI is superior in most ways, but it's dependeant upon a computer which was built with crappy lead-free solder.
I suspect that my '65 Mustang will be running long after most of today's new cars have rolled their last mile.
It may have been God at the very bottom, I sort of forget. As I said, I would love to see Beck’s lecture again.
Aluminum cracks. Not good for a cheap unibody car bumping down a pot-holed Pennsylvania highway. Plus, as you note, aluminum work-hardens — IOW’s you can’t pull-out dents. The auto industry had a heck of a time learning how to deal with the deliterious effects to their tooling when they shifted to galvanized steel. My father had nightmares about that. (Tool & Die-maker at an automotive body stamper)
The regulatory 'fix' for that eventuality is already a part of the firearms business. The governmnent simply treats key parts like upper receivers & bolts as if they were complete firearms. I know. I've represented a company that makes parts for Remmington and H&K. They have to jump through all the hoops that their customers do.
once the Docs and hospitals become goobermint union workers, theyll mandate that corn derivatives must cure cancer...problem *solved*...
Which will cost more, the medical care and funerals plus the increased price of vehicles or lower miles per gallon.
I had a Fiat 600 while stationed in Italy. It was the next size up from the 500. It was also a beater-car with suicide doors and unknown mileage. It was great for shuttling back and forth from base or thru the narrow Italian streets but it was not a highway car...although many used them as such.
Envy comes from vanity/pride. If leftists were honest about what they were really up to, they would be laughed at, which to the vain is a sentence worse than death. Laugh at leftists at every opportunity because it's like a nuclear blast to them.
yep, recently brought an old 4 banger out of the backyard, where it sat for a few yrs [too small for multiple car seats] and magically, the mileage is down 10% [at least] over what it was...
Im starting to believe that the percentage of ethanol vs the reduction in power/MPG is more like a 1:2 trade...
No! No problem! Progressives merely have to want a solution and it will magically turn out perfectly.
Not only is the cost of new vehicles going to have these anticipated increases, but the family budget will take hits related to the costs of Obamacare and the “necessarily skyrocketing” cost of electricity. When you add all of the costs of Obama’s utopian government, then the normal family will be under water....
...hmmm, might be why we have a democrap push for rail....Plus we need to force everyone to move back to the wonderful urban societies created by libtards.
Punish the people with high costs and then they may all herd together like cows. At that point, they aren’t to difficult to lead to slaughter.
Oh well, people call me a right wing kook and go back to their discussions about American Idol.
Watch out for those baby ducks.
Sounds like the way Superformance (of South Africa, IIRC) does business. They ship incomplete cars which lack only engines, transmissions and radiators. You roll it out of the crate and into your garage and drop in the powertrain of your choice. The cars are otherwise finished - the paint is done, the brakes are bled, the upholstery and carpet are in. Currently, their products are of a certain type:
However, I could see a more utilitarian vehicle offered in the same way.
Of course, if the kit-car trend ever made a significant dent in the U.S. vehicle market, there would be a barrage of legislation aimed at killing it. You know... airbags, door crash beams, that sort of stuff. Just one or two items off of the long list of federally-required new-car safety features would be all it would take.
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