Sign Up For Our Mailing Lists


Blogroll

InsiderOnline Blog: June 2009


Killing Motorists

If the past is any guide, the higher fuel-efficiency standards that President Obama has proposed run the risk of inducing car makers to make lighter cars than they otherwise would—and therefore to reduce the crashworthiness of their fleets. The National Research Council concluded as much in a 2002 report:

Past improvements in the overall fuel economy of the nation’s light-duty vehicle fleet have entailed very real, albeit indirect, costs. In particular, all but two members of the committee concluded that the downweighting and downsizing that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of which was due to CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards], probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993. [Source: Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, © 2002 by the National Academy of Sciences, p. 3.]

If CAFE were a chemical that caused 1,300 deaths per year, it would surely be illegal. Reason.tv finds a darkly comic way to make the point:

Posted on 06/02/09 03:12 PM by Alex Adrianson | Blog Archive

Heritage FoundationInsiderOnline is a product of The Heritage Foundation.
214 Massachusetts Avenue NE | Washington DC 20002-4999
ph 202.546.4400 | fax 202.546.8328
© 1995 - 2010 The Heritage Foundation