Death by CAFE Standards

American Thinker ^ | J.R. Dunn

[raptor22]

Media discussions of the administration's new mileage rules have covered about everything except how many people they will kill.

Manipulating fuel efficiency standards has been a favored method of fulfilling environmental prerogatives for thirty years and more. Like most Green initiatives, it is essentially ritualistic. Rather than actually confront the problem at issue, it is instead intended to instill a sense of virtue (what economist Robert J. Samuelson calls "psychic benefits"), while at the same time acting as a punitive measure against those opposed to Green ideology. As is true of many environmentalist programs, it has the unintended side-effect of killing large numbers of unknowing individuals.

Like much else in the way of nonsense, mileage regulation was a product of the 1970s. The decade was marked by several "oil shortages," which media, government, and Green activists all attributed to resource depletion. In truth, they were triggered by Arab manipulation of oil prices in an attempt to undercut support for Israel, then amplified by U.S. government incompetence and public hysteria generated by the Greens.

[Tarpon]

Look at it this way, suicide clown cars decrease health care costs, but increase the need for death panels.

[HiTech RedNeck]

One of the tricks used to bring up the CAFE of an automaker’s fleet of trucks is to sell just-barely-truck cars. That is how the world got the Chevy HHR and the Chrysler PT Cruiser. Both are technically trucks, and being popular they bring up the CAFE of a fleet that includes large pickup trucks.

[Tarpon]

Yep, since everybody is converting to uni-body small trucks, it's becoming easier than ever to do this.

But what you don't want to do is do this, where a big dog may tip you over.

Unless you enjoy being squashed, don't buy cars of much less than 3500 pounds, IMHO. And the IIHS makes a similar statement. The CEO of IIHS says something like this -- to lower auto injury buy bigger cars.

Don't fall for the five star stuff, it's against like cars colliding, typical government gobbley-gook, car against car, not crashing with that ten ton truck driven by the illegal speeding down the road on your side.

[kosciusko51]

Don't get me wrong, I like big vehicles, but you should try something that weights 1250 lbs.

[andy58-in-nh]

Try to imagine what cars would look like today if automakers were actually permitted to design what their customers wanted as opposed to what government bureaucrats mandated. On the whole, there would be far more model variety, features and competitive pricing. Cars would be both larger and smaller, and safer (yes, safer, as the Voice of the Customer demands).

Government interference in the automobile market, as with ever other marketplace, leads to a disconnect between buyer and seller, the continuity of which is crucial to maintaining a healthy industry. Washington doesn't give a shit because Washington does not understand business, but means to run it all the same way it runs the Post Office and Social Security. Which is to say: badly and into the ground, until the next taxpayer bailout is approved by the thieves in suits.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

CAFE is a joke. The free market will always right itself with regard to energy costs. If people waste a lot of cheap gas, price will rise until people use it spariingly then price will fall until people use it moderately and stabilizse there.

Yes, there will always be temporary market flucuations, but the FACT is, that without any government required fuel economy restrictions, there will always be people who want to minimze the money they burn in their gas tank.

Andno matter how high gas gets, there will always be car nuts like me who are willing to pay more than the median driver so as to be able to enjoy a performance car.

The free market is self-righting. The supporters of Socialists are not willing to accept this fact.

[Nuc1]

Screw CAFE.

[Nuc1]

Very nice. Whatcha powering that up with?

[Tarpon]

That ride looks really cool — Been there done that, for fun and when you know what you are in for, why not. But I am afraid I am getting too old to do that tango anymore. Had to sell the ‘vet cause the wifey said it had to go.

But for cruising to the mall, when you don’t know who is going to go across the lane and head-ons you, I want bigger and heavier. The IIHS is your friend to survive the daily grind.

[norton]

"gas mileage can be increased by utilizing a number of technical advances including computerization, fuel injection, stop-start engines, and hybrid vehicles. But the Obama standards demand more. As in the original CAFE legislation, they demand cars that are chopped down, lightened, and diminished."

The first set of 'advances' leave you with a computer that doubles as a car, which are likely at the root of Toyota's problems and those that have not yet been publicized in order to pressure other manufacturers.

The second, newly applied 'demands' put you in a cracker box that requires even more technology in an effort to avoid the highly publicized '70s threat of another Pinto, Corvair, Mustang 2, or the later Yugo.

Of course, when your brand new Toyota crushes in the manner it was designed to do, or if the air bags simply deploy before there are sufficient junkers available for gray market replacements, you and Geico will have to replace the whole automobile:
Quite a boon to the industry.

[OldPossum]

This news only reinforces my determination to keep my full-size pick-up and full-size station wagon. I really don’t care how much gas costs as long as I can avoid ending up in a wheelchair.

[kosciusko51]

2.0 L Ford 4-Cylinder, ~165 HP w/ upgrades. 0-60 mph in under 5, corners like it is on rails.

No so powerful that I wrap myself around a tree, but fast enough to have some fun.