The mortality rate for SUV drivers is 48 per million. The mortality rate for drivers of small cars is 85 per million. Obama and the Democrats who support this will be responsible for killing far more Americans during his administration than George Bush did fighting two wars.
Also, the nanny state wants all children to be in booster seats until they are 8 years old. How are you going to fit three child seats in these sardine-can-sized Obamobiles? I suppose families will have to travel in two cars, if they can afford two over-priced hybrids, or stay home.
Weight does not necessarily equate to strength. Titanium is lighter and stronger than steel — it is also more expensive. Carbon fiber is lighter and stronger than aluminium — it is also more difficult to work. The current internal combustion petrol engines are not the most efficient way to convert fuel into motion — they are heavy and wasteful.
A better, lighter, stronger, safer, faster car is out there somewhere, and it will be cheap enough to render our existing automobile stock obsolete in a matter of a couple years after it is introduced.
But it isn’t going to be invented by Gummint fiat: just because Obama stamps his foot. And it isn’t going to happen from a Gummint-run GM or Chrysler who remain captives of the auto trade unions.
It will happen as a result of innovation. That happens best in the Free Market: something Obama wouldn’t understand if it jumped up and bit him on his arse.
This should do wonders for the used car business.
According to a guy on the Sean Hannity show yesterday (I don't recall his name) who is supposed to be an expert on this stuff, the figures listed in the article for the National Academy of Sciences and the NHTSA are low-balled. He stated that the benchmark death rate due to CAFE standards established by the National Academy of Science is 2800/year and that the new standard announced by Zero yesterday will increase that number by at least 800 to 3600 CAFE-related deaths/year and could be as high as 4300 deaths/year.
...35 miles-per-gallon standard by 2016, four years earlier than the same standard imposed by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007. The only way for carmakers to meet these standard is to make smaller, lighter -- and deadlier cars. The National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards with about 2,000 deaths per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars increases annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715.This is partly BS, but there are at least four problems with this fuel economy approach.