The “big car safe, small car unsafe” debate took another interesting turn this week, as researchers from UC Berkeley have released a report arguing that large cars significantly increase the risk of death on American roads. Recent data on the most and least died-in vehicles seemed to show that larger vehicles do indeed keep drivers safer, but this new report seems to roll back the impact of that finding. Slate reports that researchers
studied accident data from eight states, identifying the type and weight of vehicles involved in collisions by their VIN numbers. The researchers confirm that the heavy cars kill. Indeed, controlling “for own-vehicle weight, being hit by a vehicle that is 1,000 pounds heavier results in a 47 percent increase” in the probability of a fatal accident. The chance is even higher if the heavy car is an SUV, pickup truck, or minivan. (Taller vehicles tend to do outsize damage, too.)
The researchers then set out to calculate the value of the “external risk” caused by our heftier vehicles. First, they considered a scenario in which a driver chose between a car with the 1989 model-year average weight of 3,000 pounds or the 2005 weight of 3,600 pounds. The heavier car increased the expectation of fatalities by 0.00027 per car—27 deaths per 100,000 such vehicles. “Summing across all drivers,” they write, “this translates into a total external cost of $35 billion per year,” using the Department of Transportation’s value of a statistical life of $5.8 million. Judging against a baseline in which a driver chose the smallest available car, such as a Smart Cars, the cost is $93 billion per year. The price tag climbs beyond $150 billion per year if you include the cost of pedestrian and motorcyclist deaths and figure in multi-car collisions.
But this latest study hardly means an end to the debate. After all, vehicles have been getting larger and larger for decades but the overall number of deaths per vehicle mile traveled has been declining for at least as long. So how do the Berkley authors explain these contradicting trends?
The problem is that American roads consist of a mix of heavier and lighter cars, and the biggest danger is when they encounter each other. The authors write that relative weight is what is most dangerous in crashes. The recent vogue for lighter vehicles, driven in part by high gas prices and changing fuel-economy standards, has raised worries about the chance of more collision deaths. One study found that higher fuel-economy standards imposed in the 1980s led to 2,000 additional deaths per year. If Americans suddenly start buying many more ultra-light cars, it is not hard to imagine more deadly accidents as a result.
That’s a pleasant thought, isn’t it? The eternal bugbear of US automotive regulation, the tradeoff between safety and fuel economy, just won’t go away. So what’s the solution?
Given the relationship between big cars and bad accidents, it might make sense to make such cars more expensive to buy or drive. You could do this with insurance premiums, or lawsuits. But the economists suggest a gas tax, “because it is simple and because gasoline usage is positively related to both miles driven and vehicle weight.” They say it would take a 27-cent-per-gallon gas tax to account for the $35 billion per year in extra costs from heavier cars. (To account for the $150 billion in extra costs would require a tax of more than $1 per gallon.)
Notch up another, if somewhat more debatable, reason to increase the gas tax (as if we needed another).
I do have to say that a gas tax makes so much more sense than those silly CAFE regulations.
One of the few times I will say “+1” to you, Sir.
Lets make it so that only the wealthy can buy safe vehicles. Any time you see the world externalities, you know that some totalitarian is in the process of justiifying stealing property rights and freedom. The result of any increased energy tax is a lower standard of living for all, with people of lower incomes effected the most. The result of raising CAFE is more expensive cars, with safe ones costing the most. Meanwhile, the NHTSA raising barrier crash standards constantly further adds cost and mass to cars, pricing more people out of the new cars market, hurting total employment, and reducing the percentage of Americans who are new car customers. Left wing politics are morally repugnant. They’ve been around long enough that nobody with an IQ over 85 still thinks there are real benefits. The goal is to return the hated masses to serfdom, and articles like this are propaganda towards that goal.
Funny, because I can make just about the same argument and declarative statements about right wing politics these days and have as much evidence to back up my assertion as you do yours. How is the right wing’s recent economic results any different than the left wing’s in terms of returning the hates masses to, as you say, serfdom?
The only difference I see is that it is as much the law of unintended consequences on the Left (i.e. trying to raise the standard of living through union representation, safety standards and the like have priced the U.S. out of the labor market in most industries) whereas this seems to be The Plan by The Right (lowering taxes without any reasonable expectation that it will lead to more jobs, removing any and all regulation, no matter how reasonable some may be, so that unbridled Holy Capitalism may rule, no matter what the consequences to the rest of the world.)
So tell me, apart from you lovin’ the Right and hating the Left, what is the real difference to the serfs?
Lets make it so that only the wealthy can buy safe vehicles
Why not? I mean, it’s already set up such that only the wealthy can get decent education or health care, so why not formalize the policy?
This has always been the case. Expensive cars have always been safer, and the industry has been screaming for fifty years about how regulations will make cars too costly, too small, to unsafe, and so forth. And every single time, one or more manufacturers have just sucked it up and got the job done.
And today, thanks to regulation and consumer-rights groups busting the collective nuts of industry, we have cleaner, safer, faster, more reliable cars than ever.
The result of any increased energy tax is a lower standard of living for all, with people of lower incomes effected the most
This is true. It’s also probably necessary, unless you’re proposing rolling back to Eisenhower-era taxation.** Personally, I’d be all for that, and I wouldn’t be surprised that erstwhile-conservatives would want that, too***, since it would mean “going back to when we did things right”.
** Somehow, though, I don’t think you mean that. You’d probably prefer, on ideological grounds, to go back to the turn of the 19th or 20th centuries, instead of the middle of the 20th.
*** Not.
Well put. When Obama gets out of his limo and 747 and uses a Hyundai Elantra and a Lear jet then I will believe the left and their calls for “sacrifice”. And Al Gore can get rid of his house too. “researchers from UC Berkley” LOL
“So tell me, apart from you lovin’ the Right and hating the Left, what is the real difference to the serfs?”
Social mobility. It happens when you can earn and own property. It doesn’t if you can’t. Your chances are also reduced when you’re not raised in a functioning nuclear family, which became unlikely for the poor thanks to LBJ’s Great Society. This also removed the inter-generational safety net for the poor.
Elevated costs for all basic necessities continue to reduce jobs and put more of the poor on public assistance. Reliance on public assistance is practically unbreakable, leading to more members of LBJ’s trapped members of LBJ’s Great Society.
‘Green’ barriers to production. Still fewer jobs, still lower standards of living. Greater reliance on imports that are causing us to export our wealth, which is all gone and is now replaced by debt.
Picking winners and losers. Resources go to less efficient means of energy production and less useful products, leading to lower standards of living for all.
‘Education’ being replaced by leftist indocrination, leading to a mentality of blaming external forces while personal responsibility has been replaced by entitlement mentality. The poor can’t improve their situations while expecting someone else to do it for them.
Providing or promising benefits exceeding what might be achievable based on personal productivity. This takes away the incentive to work, and working leads to gaining job skills, increasing the total supply of goods and services available to all, and dignity. Living standards aren’t helped by being surrounded by people who’ve been stripped of their humanity and think that anything they can get their hands on is as much theirs as anything they have earned.
The public sector is grossly inefficient. LA has spent $5.3 billion on community college projects recently that are mostly about funnelling money to friendly construction companies, are often torn down for new projects almost immediately, and that house students which earn associate degrees or transfer to 4 year schools less than 28% of the time.
I could go on, but there are limits on post size.
If I may sum up CJinSD’s post, he saying instead of dividing up the pie in different ways, let freedom (and the free (or freer) enterprise that goes with it) grow the pie so that there is plenty for all. Because of capitalism we don’t live like serfs in the middle ages. As a matter of fact the poor today live better than the nobility of that time.
Psar, did you just admit that the Canadian health care system has failed? That public education is not education? I think you did. Welcome to our side.
In a free world, the wealthy could travel in Sherman tanks. With reactive armor. Fine by me, but very, very far from where we’re at today.
Including the risk imposed on others in the price of a vehicle, if done correctly, will take the revenue earned and spend it on risk mitigation for all. So the rich can drive safer cars, provided they, by doing so, increase others’ safety as well. Which sounds like pretty good policy to me, should I ever devolve to becoming a believer in any kind of policy at all.
>>>The result of any increased energy tax is a lower standard of living for all, with people of lower incomes effected the most.
In the long run, this is not true. First, a gas tax would encourage people to drive less, but also to buy more fuel efficient cars, and so less money would flow out of the United States, much of it to countries with nasty dictatorships. Money staying in the US could result in reducing income taxes, and less money to nasty dictatorships could reduce the amount we need to spend on defense.
@MikeAR: I don’t think they’re perfect, no, but both are better than yours. :P
“If I may sum up CJinSD’s post, he saying instead of dividing up the pie in different ways, let freedom (and the free (or freer) enterprise that goes with it) grow the pie so that there is plenty for all. Because of capitalism we don’t live like serfs in the middle ages. As a matter of fact the poor today live better than the nobility of that time.”
All well and good, but…
1. Another name for “letting freedom grow the pie so that there is plenty for all” is “trickle down economics”, which is a failed economic policy, just ask David Stockman. The pie has definitely grown, but the number of people partaking of that pie is smaller than ever. Blame whatever government program or liberal policy you want for trickle down not working, but I would propose that trickle down was never meant to work; it was merely a means to lessen the burden of those who can afford to lobby for such things.
2. Adding to #1, unbridled Capitalism in and of itself did not create widespread prosperity or the middle class. The sole purpose of Capitalism is to maximize income and minimize expense, thereby maximizing profit. Most people are worker bees. The only way that I know of for the worker bees to partake in that larger Capitalist pie is to train them, hire them and pay them a living wage. That conflicts with the fundamental Capitalist model. As much as I dislike unions, and in particular municipal unions, I do recognize that there was a point in our history when they served the purposes of securing safer working conditions and a living wage.
3. Every discussion that touches on these politically charged topics invariable gets to the wedge issue of the entitlement class, the welfare state and the lack of motivation to work. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the unemployment rolls are filled with people will to and begging for work. Find jobs for those who want to work first, then come back to me about those on the public dole. If the Right really had an answer for this, unemployment would be low and they would assure themselves of a generation or more of majorities in Congress and the White House for whomever they wanted.
4. I love freedom. I love liberty. The way those words get tossed around like religious dogma these days is a little creepy.
Trickle down economics being pronounced a failure proves that economic growth, innovation, and private property rights are all lies shackling the public? The social welfare state is failing every day. Move to Greece and lay in your bed. Nobody took to the streets in violent protests of supply side economics, because they only failed in the eyes of people with centralized power objectives. It is hard to generate an angry mob of people who are employed and hopeful about the future. Sadly for the left, that’s what we had when Reagan left office. Spending was obscene, but that was because congress was in the control of Tip O’Neill and the Fatboy, and they demanded pork payoffs in exchange for deregulation. Still, we were much worse off when Jimmeh Carduh slithered out of the picture, and Reagan set the progressives’ efforts to destroy freedom and individual rights back by almost three decades.
All you’ve proven is that you were wrong when you said, “Funny, because I can make just about the same argument and declarative statements about right wing politics these days and have as much evidence to back up my assertion as you do yours.” Obviously not.
All you’ve proven is that you were wrong when you said, “Funny, because I can make just about the same argument and declarative statements about right wing politics these days and have as much evidence to back up my assertion as you do yours.” Obviously not.
Obviously… except for the fact that wealth is concentrated in the smallest number of hands since the Great Depression. Money is out there, but it is in the hands of fewer and fewer people. That has been going on since “trickle down” economics was adopted as Republican economic policy. Lower the tax burden on the “producers” of the country and they in turn will hire more people and otherwise put more money into the economy in other ways. The only problem is they haven’t and they don’t. Sure, it worked at first, up until the point where technology began to make human workers unnecessary.
I don’t blame the Right exclusively for this. The biggest mistake in the modern history of our country was and continues to be NAFTA. Everyone though Perot was a nut (and in many ways he was) but he was 100% when he said there “…would be a giant sucking sound going South…”
@Jimal: I’d like to correct two points:
Lower the tax burden on the “producers” of the country and they in turn will hire more people and otherwise put more money into the economy in other ways. The only problem is they haven’t and they don’t. Sure, it worked at first, up until the point where technology began to make human workers unnecessary.
I agree with this, except that it’s not into technology that said money has gone. It’s just…sitting there, or moving from fund to fund. It’s growing of it’s own accord, but not being invested, or at least not in any way that would help the economy grow.
Technology (and credit) have, if anything, allowed the lower classes to cope better the the trickle-up of wealth, but there’s only so far you can stretch it. Yes, luxury is cheaper, but basics (housing as a percent of income, food as a percent of income, etc) has become more of an issue, and we’ll hit the limit eventually.
I don’t blame the Right exclusively for this. The biggest mistake in the modern history of our country was and continues to be NAFTA.
As a Canadian I have an interesting take on this because we got the drain as well, only from two partners instead of one. I wouldn’t blame NAFTA per se, but globalism in general. The less wealthy you are, the less you can leverage the ability of globalism to enrich yourself, and the more you’re likely to suffer for it.
One of the more depressing aspects of the Tea Party movement in the US is that it’s base probably has more in common with Ralph Nader than the ideologues who presume to speak for it. The discussion shouldn’t be “left versus right” as much as it’s “rentiers versus workers”. The very wealthy on both sides are very good at not framing it that way, or at least ensuring that they don’t come off as rentiers.
Everyone though Perot was a nut (and in many ways he was) but he was 100% when he said there “…would be a giant sucking sound going South…”
No, Perot wasn’t right. The suck was mostly eastwards, and even then it wasn’t significant. The real problem is median wage erosion across the board. Unemployment is really only a symptom of this as the ability for consumers to drive the economy evaporates as along with their wealth.
“I agree with this, except that it’s not into technology that said money has gone. It’s just…sitting there, or moving from fund to fund. It’s growing of it’s own accord, but not being invested, or at least not in any way that would help the economy grow.”
psarhjinian, let me clarify my statement. I didn’t mean to imply that the money went into technology. What I was trying to say is that the “producers” hired people only until technology was such that it was more cost effective (cheaper) to have a robot do what a person was doing. The “producer” brought in the robot or moved production to where labor was the cheapest and pocketed the difference. I have no problem with minimizing costs, but money doesn’t do much good if it isn’t in the economy in one way or the other.
I completely agree that the wealth isn’t gone; it is just concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of people than ever.
As long as I am able to afford it I choose to drive a large, heavy vehicle no matter what the cost of gas, gas tax, vehicle sales tax, luxury tax or road tax on it.
I never was one to jump on the minimalist bandwagon having owned vehicles with such exotic engines as the 454, Olds 455, Caddy 500 cubic inchers, and the associated bloated weight that came along with them. Let me say it more succinctly, “There is no replacement for displacement!”
I prefer that my wife and I travel in a vehicle, the larger the better, that affords us peace of mind. I hope never to have to test the crash-worthiness of them but if I do I’d rather be in the biggest thing I can afford.
The law of physics illustrates to us that if my Tundra were to meet a Smart For2 in a collision chances are pretty good that I will survive. I like those odds.
As I said long ago, this is just another variation on the tragedy of the commons. Everyone wants to feel safe while driving (and for good reasons), so they buy larger vehicles, and so on, and so on until the roads are filled with heavy, bloated, very large vehicles (which is exactly what you see in most of North America).
Actually it’s called choice. Choice is good, at least to some of us.
The notion that choice is always good for us is crap. When it comes to health insurance for example, you get to choose between a bunch of different plans that each try to get the most money from you in premiums while giving you the least possible coverage. Furthermore, it is incredibly hard to evaluate which will give you the least bad deal. I would much rather have a single (government) payer where I don’t have to spend a day puzzling over insurance plans, ending up unsatisfied no matter which I choose. One of the few good things about aging is that within less than a decade I will be covered by Medicare.
When there’s an arms race, as there has been with respect to the weight of personal vehicles, it’s also the sort of choice where none of the options are good (safety vs. having something that’s economical and fun to drive).
David, you don’t want choice, that’s ok. But I like having choices so you have no right to take away mine. I am not like you, thankfully, and I won’t tell you how to live your life and you should respect my choices.
@MikeAR,
I appreciate you valuing choices, and it sounds like in this case you choose you and yours above all others.
What kind of incentives would get you to add a little more weight in your decisions to the safety of others, the longer-term considerations of US energy demands, cleaner air than China’s cities, fuzzy kittens and colorful rainbows?
This is the nature of the issue. Individual versus and within society. The vehicle I choose has consequences to more than just my gasoline and insurance bills. Many of them are longer-term before one sees the outcome, and many of them will have a very, very small direct impact on me, so I would tend to significantly lower their priority in my decision-making.
If “society” has some goals, like moving away from such heavy reliance on gasoline, reducing injuries and deaths, lining the pockets of whoever is making and installing those electric charging kits for the Volt and the Leaf, etc., what are the minimal incentives necessary to get enough people to think about these issues in the desired way?
Is that necessarily brainwashing and conspiracies?
Odds are you will die in the resulting rollover
I’m cool with choice. What kind of country would this be if we didn’t have choice? Choice is good, unless you are against choice.
You work hard for your money and you should be able to spend your money on whatever you desire, not what some other person wants you to have.
If we went the route of the environmentalists and green-weenies, we wouldn’t have choice. It would all be dictated by government, what we could drive, what we could eat, etc etc etc.
When it comes to cars and trucks, I like choice and I dare say, most Americans do too. Until choice is taken away from me I’ll buy whatever I can afford and like best.
Another way might be to consider vehicle weight as a factor in deciding whether to bring vehicular manslaughter charges following fatal accidents. If you can’t drive responsibly/safely, but you buy a 6,000 pound car and smash it into someone who’s minding their own business in a Honda Fit, killing them but only injuring yourself, then your choice to drive that behemoth contributed directly to an innocent person’s death.
Of course, if they happen to plow into you through no fault of your own, well, they should’ve made better use of the superb dynamics of such a small car.
Wouldn’t work in the real world, because any study such as this that supposedly “proves” larger vehicles are more dangerous than lighter ones usually are driven by the author’s agenda to achieve a certain result, and thus can be easily picked apart by a competent third-year law student.
The giveaway is the attempt to hold larger vehicles responsible for motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities…which is spurious, given that a collision between a Honda Fit or Ford Fiesta and a motorcycle or pedestrian is going to end badly for the latter two, as well.
I remember the wailing about the dangers of SUVs in the early 2000s. Never mind that, from roughly 1978 to the early 2000s, the percentage of the vehicle fleet made up of light trucks doubled, while the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled fell by one half.
Wouldn’t work in the real world, because any study such as this that supposedly “proves” larger vehicles are more dangerous than lighter ones usually are driven by the author’s agenda to achieve a certain result, and thus can be easily picked apart by a competent third-year law student.
That is incorrect. If you look at NHTSA’s FARS database, it’s hard to dispute that in a crash involving a SUV and a passenger car, the passenger car will, on the whole, fare worse than the SUV. Of course, this is what one would expect, given the laws of physics, so it isn’t a surprise.
There is also the issue of bumper heights. A truck or SUV bumper is invariably above the bumper of a passenger car. So if the SUV hits the car, the initial impact from the SUV is going directly into the body of the car, not into its bumper.
The offset to that is that SUV drivers were more likely to have single rollover fatalities due to the higher center of gravity. But stability control is changing that.
Only problem is that, in the real world, as the number of SUVs has increased dramatically, the fatality rate has fallen dramatically as well. The roads are safer than ever before. So this study is a solution in search of a problem. Focusing on vehicle size is a waste of time…much like attempting to slow people down from 75 mph to 65 in the name of “safety.” And, for the record, I’m skeptical of claims that lighter cars were killing us in the 1980s, too. It cuts both ways.
You’re right and you’re wrong. You’re exactly right that a pedestrian or motorcycle has as much to fear from a Honda Fit as it does from a Tahoe: 150 pounds will get smushed by a 250 pound projectile easily enough, the extra 3000 pounds are just gravy.
But the “fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled” statistic is just as spurious an indicator. During that time we added three-point belts, airbags, crumple zones, traction control and ABS, so there should be fewer accidents total, and definitely fewer fatalities overall. That doesn’t show you what the fatality rates are once you’re in an accident, as measured for different types of vehicles in different types of collisions; and it doesn’t change P=MV, the simple physics of a small car getting crushed by a much larger one.
The facts about SUV vs. car crashes are what they are. The fatality data can’t be disputed.
The question you raise is whether the issue is significant enough that it merits being addressed with some sort of policy change. That’s a different issue.
If these vehicles were as much of a danger to others as the study claims, they would be overwhelming all of the added safety equipment in new vehicles (given their greatly increased numbers over the last 30+ years), and the results would show up in the fatality rate per 100 million miles driven. Which, as we know, is at a record low figure. It is definitely a valid measurement. The problem is that it doesn’t show the results desired by proponents of this study.
But the “fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled” statistic is just as spurious an indicator.
Fatalities calculated per VMT (vehicle miles traveled) is the standard statistical safety measure. (Some also use fatalities as a percentage of the population or vehicle ownership, but those aren’t as useful.) VMT is the best comparison that there is, so it should not be dismissed entirely.
However, you are right that the use of VMT does not preclude us from breaking down the data and examining subgroups of it in order to determine whether additional changes can be made. If people are being saved by airbags but killed by truck bumpers overshooting the trunk and penetrating the passenger area, then that may warrant some discussion.
Pch101: The question you raise is whether the issue is significant enough that it merits being addressed with some sort of policy change. That’s a different issue.
Studies such as this are usually performed to effectuate some sort of regulatory or policy change, so I believe that this is central to the entire discussion.
Focusing on weight is a waste of time, especially given that small cars are getting heavier as they adopt more safety and luxury features. (Which, ironically enough, is making them more popular with buyers, so perhaps we don’t want to be too critical of weight gains among vehicles. If a more luxurious, feature-packed Focus or Civic encourages people to buy another one instead of moving up the size scale, I’m not so sure that we want to discourage that trend.) Meanwhile, the large and mid-size SUVs are in a long-trend decline in sales, much like full-size cars after about 1965.
Studies such as this are usually performed to effectuate some sort of regulatory or policy change, so I believe that this is central to the entire discussion.
Again, let’s separate the data from the conclusions that one wishes to draw from the data.
In car vs. SUV crashes, the car passengers are more likely to lose. That is an absolute fact. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise (and I know that you aren’t) is a buffoon who needs to think before he speaks.
However, it does not necessarily follow that reducing the number of SUVs or converting the SUV drivers into passenger car drivers will lower the overall fatality rate. The study may or may not be correct (I suspect that it is, but I haven’t read it), but the argument is hypothetical and the point is debatable.
About a decade ago, a series of studies showed pretty unequivocally that the increased presence of SUVs on US roads had led to worse outcomes for motorcyclists.
Intuitively, for anyone who have done some riding (and crashing) on MCs; while toppling over the hood of a sedan sucks, it is much less likely to be fatal than having a brush bar hit you right in the chest area.
And seriously, imagine scenario 1, where you ride a while everyone else drive an 18 wheeler. Compared to 2, where everyone else travel around in matchbox cars. Is there any doubt in anyone’s head that the prevalence of larger cars increases MCs’ danger? Now, these are corner cases, but is there any plausible reason to believe that the size-of-other-vehicles vs. risk curve should at any point move the other way? Have people really gotten so thoroughly indoctrinated in progressive credential worship that they need some expert or scientist to convince them of this?
the results would show up in the fatality rate per 100 million miles driven.
They do. The FARS database has calculated them. You can easily look at the data on the NHTSA website.
The questions to ask would be hypothetical ones, such as what would have happened if these SUV drivers had not had access to SUVs. Perhaps that would have changed the results, perhaps not.
If they had crashed at the same rates but had been in passenger cars, then perhaps there would have been fewer fatalities. Or it’s possible that more of those who would have otherwise been SUV drivers would have also died or died instead of those in the other vehicle, so there could have been even more fatalities, as they succeeded in killing themselves, in addition to others. Or perhaps they would have driven even more miles, increasing the likelihood of crashing, etc., etc., etc.
Let’s separate the factual data from the hypothetical. The facts are clear — in SUV vs. car accidents, the cars do worse. Where the statistical models come into play is in trying to project what might have happened if the SUV number was reduced. The models are debatable, unlike the data.
Perhaps it would also be wise to assume that anyone choosing to drive a small car, knowing that large cars exist, had an obvious disregard for his or her personal safety. Perhaps he or she was even in a suicidal frame of mind.
The upshot, of course, is that any life insurance policy on the small car’s driver would be null and void. Since, after all, you can’t commit suicide for the insurance money.
Astig, are you saying that there should be manslaughter charges against drivers of large vehicle if there is an accident even if it isn’t their fault. It sure sounds like it. If a guy in a Smart hits a Suburban would you automatically charge the Suburban driver with manslaughter if the SMart driver was killed?
If you had bothered to read his post, you would know the answer to this question.
“The price tag climbs beyond $150 billion per year if you include the cost of pedestrian and motorcyclist deaths and figure in multi-car collisions.”
That was the only part of this that made me raise an eyebrow. As someone who possesses a motorcycle licence and has put 1000 miles every year for the past three years on a scooter, I’d be afraid of dying in a colision with a Smart car just as much as a Suburban. (Yes I do wear a helmet and appropriate clothing at all times, I just know that crashing on a two wheeler is really effin’ dangerous and four wheeled drivers can be pretty effin’ stupid no matter the size of the vehicle.)
If disparities in weight are causing safety concerns, I’d say that’s being made up for. A lot of “small” vehicles are now tipping the scales at 4000 lbs.
This report sounds like it can’t make a clear distinction between “large” and “heavy”.
Then there’s the fact that any road is a mix of newer and older vehicles, where there are larger vehicles but may weigh the same as a new model 7/8 the size or smaller.
case in point of size vs weight. My traditionally mid-sized (now gargantuan) ’77 Chevelle has a curb weight of 3900 pounds, and is 209″ long, and seats six. A comparable six passenger vehicle now is an SUV of some sort, and to get the same usability of that sedan and the same passenger room, requires a Tahoe or something of that nature. Just for grins a 2010 Tahoe has a curb weight of 5600 pounds, is 202″ long, and seats 8 (all according to Chevrolet) both have nearly the same width.
Which would survive better in a collision? The one with the 6 foot hood and real 5mph impact bumpers, or the one loaded with all the technowizardy? I’d say the more-dense object has more mass to damage with.
heck an Accord is getting to be almost as heavy as that Chevelle, and nearly as big.
Then there’s the fact that any road is a mix of newer and older vehicles, where there are larger vehicles but may weigh the same as a new model 7/8 the size or smaller.
I’m not sure this is so much the case. Cars are getting heavier, true, but they’re also getting physically larger. Rare is the car that’s not gotten wider, taller or otherwise more physically imposing and those that did hold the line on exterior dimensions (the Altima, for example) don’t see much weight gain at all.
What there are, though, are more larger cars. This is simply because we can build a big car that doesn’t suck (insert obligatory Panther dig here) and require compromises of cost or efficiency. And thusly people are coming back to buying the kinds of cars that they bought before the late-70s/early-80s price shocks because they can.
Mind you, given how things are going, it might not be unreasonable to expect The Son Of The Revent Of Return of the Eighties Sh_tbox.
I’m not sure this is so much the case. Cars are getting heavier, true, but they’re also getting physically larger.
I was just pointing out that many “small” (notice I had put that word in quotes) vehicles made today are easily as heavy (and more dense) than a larger vehicle built 20, or even 10, years ago.
And thusly people are coming back to buying the kinds of cars that they bought before the late-70s/early-80s price shocks because they can.
You mean they’re buying lots of station wagons dressed up as crossovers due to cognitive dissonance* ?
*Psycho-babble term of the day.
I was just pointing out that many “small” (notice I had put that word in quotes) vehicles made today are easily as heavy (and more dense) than a larger vehicle built 20, or even 10, years ago.
10 or 20 years ago, perhaps. 30 years ago, maybe (it pains me that 1980 is more than 30 years ago). Older than that, probably not.
Consider the Chevy Caprice wagon, which weighed as much as, had about the same space as, was about as fast as and much less safe than, the current Chevy Traverse. Or the current Civic, which really isn’t much larger or heavier than the older Accords of the same size.
You mean they’re buying lots of station wagons dressed up as crossovers due to cognitive dissonance* ?
I love that phrase and am probably guilty of overusing it.
But anyway, no, not because of the dissonance, but because the cars that most people like to buy (big, roomy-ish, heavy of feel, with a commanding view) are more available. Prior to the advent of crossovers and tall sedans like the Taurus or 300, trucks were about the only way to achieve this.
People like what they like, and for a very long time that kind of car wasn’t available (but that kind of *truck* was). Marketers have had to play some tricks with perception and product mix to make trucks, and now cars with a lift kit and big wheels, appealing, but there’s not a lot of difference in the actual product, other than that we’ve refined it with the progression of time.
Maybe I’m just a little slow on the uptake after lunch, but I have no idea if we’re still in disagreement.
On the plus side, you’ve compelled me to while away the afternoon hours thinking about the Caprice Estate.
I don’t think we’re in disagreement other than that, well, I still think the Panthers suck.
Oh, and so does the Caprice Estate. And the Roadmaster. And especially the Aspen and Diplomat.
And most especially the Fit.
But hey, what do we know? I’m a talking truck and you’re a lithograph.
+1.
I would like to see these studies make some distinction among “old”, “large”, and “heavy”.
Best. Post. ever :)
Well, the one above the one above this :P
Another bogus study. If larger vehicles were inflicting death on the roads you would expect insurance rates to reflect this. Yet it is just the opposite.
A bogus study with data massaged to make a tax increase the solution to the problem. It’s truly amazing how often a tax increase according to studies will solve every problem.
Besides, if they really were interested in safety, they would recommend that everyone drive as big a vehicle as possible. Suburbans for everyone shoudl be the new safety slogan.
And Dan, motorcyclists are their own worst enemies a lot of the time. Just last week a moron on a bike wasn’t paying attention and did his best to hit me. I was paying attention so he didn’t though.
Suburbans for everyone shoudl be the new safety slogan.
“Managed driving experience” would probably be better.
I took an Volvo S60 out a week back.** Marvellous machine, and I can really appreciate what the proactive safety technologies it’s equipped with can offer.
It’s really the next logical step from ESC: first pre-safe/laser cruise/lane departure, and next car-to-car peer networks. The best accident is one you don’t have, and a car that helps bad drivers not get into accidents is far more likely than all the distracted driving legislation put together.
** Didn’t have the guts to try out the City Safety package.
The issue is further complicated by the possibility that the safer a person feels in a vehicle (rightly or wrongly), the more likely they may be to be a little less careful while driving (because they may feel as if they are unlikely to get hurt).
I mentioned this before, but I remember a guy on the radio one time saying that the way to make people more conscious and careful while driving would be to put a huge spike in the middle of the steering wheel (a bit extreme, I know, but at least you get the point–metaphorically that is).
One problem with the gas tax, of course, is that it allows those who can afford it to drive around in these larger, more dangerous vehicles (at least to others, while feeling immensely safe driving said vehicle at the same time–see point above about feeling safe), while those of lesser means are forced to drive around in the smaller vehicles that are at most risk against these behemoths. This would promote yet another class division amongst automobile owners: those who can afford to feel safe and those who can’t. Not good!
Phil, that’s silly saying that someone might not be as careful because they feel like they won’t be hurt. Honestly how many people go driving thinking that a wreck would be fine as long as I don’t get hurt. Ridiculous. no one wants any chance of an accident. Damage to the vehicle and if someone else was hurt, the possible feeling of responsibility for that.
-1 for, basically, asserting that every economist ever is wrong.
Of course no one wants to have a wreck or endanger lives. But everyone pays attention and is more careful when lives are at risk. Frequently, though, drivers aren’t paying enough attention to know when they’re placing other’s lives at risk, thus they don’t even know that they should be behaving more carefully. If you think other drivers are paying enough attention to save your life, I think it’s because you’re not paying enough attention.
I recently taught someone to drive. The first thing I told him was that every time he puts the car in gear, he takes into his hands the lives of every single person he can see as well as the lives of many he cannot see. Look at other drivers on the road and ask yourself if they seem to be properly dealing with that moral responsibility. Ultimately, you and I are marginal to their existences.
Apollo, the cause of the accident doesn’t have to be your pupil. The cause of the accident could very well be someone other than your pupil who may be collaterally drawn into the accident. A person can be the safest driver in the world and still not escape becoming a victim of an accident not his fault.
Case in point, fatal accident where someone drove the wrong way on an Interstate in a pickup truck and collided head-on with a sedan killing all aboard the sedan. The person who caused the accident was too drunk to get hurt and walked away from the accident. The people in the sedan probably didn’t even have the time to realize what had happened.
Yeah, while it’s certainly true that some drivers are quite conscious and responsible on the road, many people who I see driving are in their own little worlds and have little or no sense of the responsibilities they bear in driving a vehicle. I’m simply pointing out that driving a larger vehicle might make such people feel even more out of touch with the road and their surroundings than they already are.
I see people commenting on small cars like the Fiat 500 and others and one of the more common complaints you hear is that they don’t think they would feel safe in a vehicle like that.
My experience has been that people tend to be more attentive behind the wheel either when they feel a sense of responsibility, or when they feel a sense of danger (or both). Not everyone has the former, and larger vehicles can sometimes insulate us from the latter.
One of the few times I’d agree with MikeAR. I just bought a large-ish SUV (Pathfinder). I don’t text, yap on my phone, or daydream about unicorns while I drive. I’m attentive, I use my directionals, I follow all traffic laws, and I’m never traveling faster than the flow of traffic. Driving the Pathfinder does not imbue me with some false sense of infallibility. I want no part of an accident if I can help it, whether it’s with a Datsun B-210 or an Excursion.
I’ll also add that the other car in our family is a much smaller Accord. There is no appreciable difference in the way I drive either car.
@ PartsUnknown
Then you’re one of the class of ‘responsible’ drivers I referred to in my previous post.
I wasn’t claiming that driving an SUV is going to compel people to become lazy, inattentive drives in a strict, mechanistic, coercive sense of the term. I was simply suggesting that it would have a tendency (let me repeat, tendency–as in a statistical sense) to further insulate some drivers from the dangers and responsibilities associated with driving in general. If you’re not in that group, then good for you (and good for the rest of us as well).
The issue is further complicated by the possibility that the safer a person feels in a vehicle (rightly or wrongly), the more likely they may be to be a little less careful while driving (because they may feel as if they are unlikely to get hurt).
Mike can delude himself all day long into believing that this is some sort of commie-pinko leftist argument.
But traffic studies support this basic position. We saw this with the increase in speed limits — fatality rates continued to fall, despite the higher limits. There are many explanations for this, but one of them is that drivers replace one risk (the higher speed) with a reduction in another in order to offset the risk. Net-net, the total risk may end up being about the same, it just comes from different sources.
We also see this with mobile phones. Drivers gabbing on the phone end up offsetting the distraction risk with lower speeds, larger gaps and fewer passing maneuvers. So oddly enough, their fatality rates are actually below those of drivers who aren’t using their phones.
Drivers accept a certain amount of perceived risk for themselves. They may sometimes perceive the risk wrongly, they may not care much about the risk that they pose to other people, and some of them may be highly risk tolerant, but drivers do perceive risks and drive within their windows of tolerance for it. If SUV drivers feel safer being in SUVs(and there is research that indicates that they do) and they allow that to increase their risk taking, then yes, that would be a good argument against SUVs.
Unlike you, I don’t look at everything through the lens of ideology. Unfortunately ideology pops up a lot because of one sides grasping for ever more power and control. You can dress it up anyway you want but your way means less freedom, fewer choices and a lower standard of living for everyone. I do include you too, you would be a serf like me, you aren’t anyone special no matter how much you think you are.
Unlike you, I don’t look at everything through the lens of ideology.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. From the poster who has made ideology into his own personal disorder, that’s just beautiful.
I actually read safety studies, and I make a point of understanding them. Those are two things that I’m sure that you’ll never, ever do.
Oh yeah? You know somehow I really don’t believe that. Unless you work in the industry and it is part of your job, in that case yes. But if you do read a lot of them then you need to get out more and see how the rest of the world lives.
And as far as this particular study goes, it’s a waste of time going any further into it because of the origin and conclusion. The liberal solution for everything, raise taxes. The masters of the obvious, in a traffic accident, people are more likely to die in a small vehicle compared to a large one. I could have done that study in 5 minutes and got the same conclusion. PCH, you defend that crap?
But if you do read a lot of them then you need to get out more and see how the rest of the world lives.
In other words, you like to hold strong opinions about stuff about which you are clueless. Which is to say that you are both loudly ignorant, and boldly proud of it.
I’m sure that you didn’t send the NBER any money to read this study. So why you think that you are entitled to get your knickers into a stitch about it, I don’t know.
And if you knew anything about the NBER, then you’d know that they aren’t exactly a bunch of pinko commies. Here’s a bio about their president emeritus: http://www.nber.org/feldstein/shortbio.html
Martin Feldstein is the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and President Emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research…From 1982 through 1984, Martin Feldstein was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and President Reagan’s chief economic adviser…In 2006, President Bush appointed him to be a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
A real Marxist, no doubt. He probably prefers Harpo to Groucho.
Recall that the centre has moved a fair bit rightwards since Reagan, and that any of Reagan’s deputies—if not Reagan himself*—probably would be classified as pinkos by current standards. I’m reminded of this fact whenever I try to explain that, no, Obama really isn’t a Marxist and is to the right of Nixon on most matters and to the right of Reagan on many.
I know what a Marxist is because I used to be one.
* If I recall, Reagan is one of the few presidents to have been a member of organized labour, and the only one to head a labour union.
Recall that the centre has moved a fair bit rightwards since Reagan, and that any of Reagan’s deputies—if not Reagan himself*—probably would be classified as pinkos by current standards
Feldstein is definitely a conservative. His credentials on the right are pretty solid.
But the NBER itself is pretty balanced, unlike some of the right-wing groups such as the Heritage Foundation or CATO that are lobbyists masquerading as “think tanks”. Whether or not one agrees with the NBER’s various working papers and research, the work itself is generally credible.
Lets also tax people based on how many miles they drive a year because they are also more likely to get in an accident and hurt someone. We could keep going all day I’m sure. Sorry BS piece, no sale!
Except, of course, that the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled is at a record LOW figure, and continues to drop, despite changes in the vehicle mix. For that matter, the death rate dropped during the 1980s, when all of those lighter vehicles were supposedly killing us all.
There is no doubt an “arms race” of heft going on in the automobile market. Buying larger vehicles to make you safe but at the expense of all others. I’m not sure that a “mass tax” is the way to go but a good first step would be appropriate bumper regulations to ensure that the impact zone of smaller and larger vehicles match. Then a restriction on lift-kits for trucks and SUVs would ensure that that was kept that way.
The increasing weight of many vehicles is being driven by…demands for safety features, which adds weight, and increased desire for better control over noise, vibration and harshness. It’s not the result of some sort of arms race among vehicle owners. If anything, sales of larger vehicles have been flat or falling over the past few years, while sales of smaller cars – ranging from the Fit to the Cruze – have been doing rather well.
As has been explained above, the fatality rate per 100 million miles driven is at a record LOW figure, so the idea that all of these heavier vehicles are leading to some sort of Automotive Armageddon is simply not true.
I wonder if our roads were actually properly maintained, that if the need for heavier cars to provide a quieter smoother ride would be reduced.
So the trade off is an inadequate gas tax to provide road maintenance vs spending more money on a vehicle to insulate ones self from crap roads.
I’m in favor of changing the vehicle crash standards. Instead of requiring a vehicle to perform well in a crash, the *target* should be required to perform well in the crash. And the target should be a common, small, light sedan; perhaps a Focus, Civic, or Corolla.
If a manufacturer wishes to sell a jacked up vehicle that only passes the crash tests at a lower ride height, they could create a variable ride height system and the owner will be required to drive it in the lowered state when on public roads. An exception to the ride high could be made if there were more then 6 inches of snow on the road. If an extremely heavy vehicle doesn’t pass the test, maybe that vehicle could invest in a more effective crumple zone system–instead now we have a situation where all the other vehicles have to invest in a more effective crumple zone system, which is particularly difficult if trying to design a small car.
Parallel parking crash tests should also be required. If a vehicle’s bumpers are so high it completely misses a small car’s bumpers, the vehicle should not be allowed to parallel park in public parking.
You can’t legislate against bad driving. Hiking up cigarette prices hasn’t stopped smoking, spiking fuel costs haven’t stopped people from driving huge trucks. I don’t think its effective, but I sure wouldn’t mind taxing people that drive Hummers even more!
+1.
I agree. People will pay whatever it takes to get what they want, if they want it bad enough and if they can afford it. Same with large, heavy vehicles. Those who can afford it will continue to drive them.
The environmentalists and other green-weenies have their work cut out for them if they want to apply behavior modification techniques to get all drivers to downsize to meet their conservation goals.
Hiking up cigarette prices hasn’t stopped smoking, spiking fuel costs haven’t stopped people from driving huge trucks.
Cigarette smoking has generally lost popularity and we all know that the US auto industry has suffered financially for being overly dependent upon truck sales. You really need to come up with a better analogy, because you’re zero for two with this one.
I don’t know if another tax is the best solution, but there must be some way to solve the (IMHO) unfair disadvantage at which I’m put because I want to drive a smaller, more fuel efficient car in a land dominated by gas-guzzling behemobiles. I’m glad my little car is as maneuverable as it is, because if it wasn’t, I’d likely have been a grease spot after one of many run-ins with the idiot X5, RX350, and QX56 drivers that permeate this area.
What a surprise! Some Berkeley tofu eaters advocate increasing taxes on big cars/suvs and raising the gas tax. I smell Al Gore-think. Any study out of the peoples republic of Berkeley has to be doubly scrutinized.
You mean the same People’s Republic of Berkeley that ran the Manhattan Project and created the first nuclear weapons?
Yeah, back when winning a war was ok with liberals.
Totally different era and attitudes.
Fatality rate is a more realistic number when talking about road safety. Since the rate is basically getting lower every year, the agenda of the study is quite obvious. Especially when you consider that the answer the study came up with is higher taxation.
Leftists LOVE killing people, particularly when it is done by the box car lots and not face to face. Look into the Fabian socialist heros of our current bunch of villains.
@ CJinSD “Leftists LOVE killing people, particularly when it is done by the box car lots and not face to face.”
What an absolutely ridiculous and inflammatory statement to make. There’s absolutely no need for vacuous, hate-filled comments like that.
The truth is an ugly thing when it comes to the left.
CJinSD, reading your political drivel has convinced me of one, and only one thing:
Boy, you need to get laid.
What’s that supposed to prove? How does that show that people with left-leaning political views “love killing”?
How is it that you can get banned on this site for calling someone an Id*ot (and I agree that there should be no place for this sort of name-calling on a site like this) but it’s okay to say “Leftists love killing people” and other similar hate-filled comments?
The truth certainly can be ugly at times, so ugly that some will erect whatever defenses they can to shield themselves from it.
There’s no place for dogmatism in democratic politics, but I see far too much of that from some people here.
There’s no place for dogmatism in democratic politics, but I see far too much of that from some people here.
Dogma is a hell of a lot more fun than thinking.
PCH, finally something I agree with. You ought to try thinking. Just a suggestion, there is a video making its way around the net called “Why I am a Democrat”. Take a look at it, you’ll me mortified that those people are on your side.
It would seem like it’s more like ‘leftist have a bad tendency to be led by fascist bastards who don’t mind killing those who stand up against them’
Not that any ‘rightist’ would understand the difference…
We (the ‘leftist’) may not mind if the odd ‘rightist’ kills himself ‘ghostriding’ his Hummer into a three while his buddy holds the beer though.
(Ok, this ‘leftist’ does not know every American word)
http://www.google.com/search?q=leftist+definition&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7RNWN
Ignorance isn’t a convincing defense, at least not to the people you disagree with.
I’m going to step in here on CJ’s side for a second. I’ve got a little quiz for everyone who has been ganging up on him, who said, paraphrasing, that it would be necessarey to kill 25 million Americans for the revolution to suceed?
Apperantly leftist is a word.
Leftist may be a word, but it is also a nice little red-flag, a warning that you are entering a discussion with a teabagger.
As for who espoused killing 25 million Americans, I don’t know, Elinore Roosevelt?
I know most American’s who died in violent conflicts did so against Tories/loyalists, Confederates, Kaiser henchmen, and Nazis. You will note that all four are flavors of conservatism (National Review mental-deficient arguments equating liberalism with fascism, notwithstanding, as they are beyond ridicule.)
America is a liberal experiment. Deal with it.
Nazis were nationalistic, but wanted to rule the world. Liberals aren’t nationalistic, but want to rule the world. Other than that, they were exactly the same. Nazis were a faction of the left. The red on their flag was for Marxism. Their centrally planned economy: Marxism. Genocide: communist standard. Environmentalism: Secular humanism. Animal rights to the point of confusion about whether or not humans are more valuable: Cass Sunstein.
It is ironic, to say the least, that it is people that had teabagger in their vocabulary that use it to dismiss people that read the constitution instead of gay porn.
Ok, leftist is a real word, I might even tatto it on my shoulder so that people who see what cars I like don’t hink I’m some ignorant redneck :P
( I assure you I loathe a Prius as much as an X6)
Something in this discussion made me think of this drawing I once saw…
]http://home.comcast.net/~fxgpic/teater.jpg
Since no one has answered yet, a little hint: William Ayers, a good friend of the current resident of the White House. He wasn’t a Nazi was he?
And for the teabagger loving cackalacka, a little helpful hint, don’t compare Confederates to Nazis if you are ever near me. You won’t like what happens.
So CJinSD explicitly claims that leftists “love killing” (with the implication, of course, that all those with left leaning politics on this forum also love killing–which I think is one of the most despicable and reprehensible claims I’ve seen on this forum, period), and now Mike is making threats?
Things are gone over the top yet again. I’m done.
OK, so it wasn’t Elinore Roosevelt then.
Mea culpa.
Go Golden Bears!
now Mike is making threats?
Don’t forget defending the Confederacy, while bleating about how leftists supposedly want to turn everyone into serfs, all without any hint of irony.
“And for the teabagger loving cackalacka, a little helpful hint, don’t compare Confederates to Nazis if you are ever near me. You won’t like what happens.”
Perhaps you and CJ should shack up and teabag each other while throwing darts at pictures of the evil democrats. He really needs to get laid.
So much hate on a car blog.
Looking at fatality and injury data, our highways have never been safer despite more vehicles, bigger vehicles and higher speed limits.
Nothing in the report can refute that.
A gas tax, or any talk of reducing speed limits, is just another attempt at a money grab from us.
I quite agree that the agenda behind this report is obvious.
Pete, it is up to each one of us to accept its premise, or to reject it. In my case, I accept it, but I’ll continue to drive large, heavy vehicles for my own reasons.
As a proud Berkeley alumnus and spelling curmudgeon, I have to point out that the article consistently misspells “Berkeley”.
“The price tag climbs beyond $150 billion per year if you include the cost of pedestrian and motorcyclist deaths and figure in multi-car collisions.”
So they failed to allow the offset for taking out bicyclists?
So the dept of transportation values my life at $5.8 million?
I’ll take mine in small bills, please, non-sequential serial numbers. I’ll even give the IRS their several pounds of flesh….
Rationalize bumper height.
Eliminate the favored fuel efficiency treatment for ‘light’ trucks and SUVs.
All done.
What do you drive? You have no right to tell me what to drive.
Mike –
Drive whatever you want.
Do you have a problem with bumper heights that would reduce your chance of killing occupants in a lighter vehicle? Really, how many of the soft hands truck-drivin’ brigade actually ever get in situations where approach and departure angles matter? That’s the only argument contra I can think of.
Further, I shouldn’t have to subsidize favored treatment of some vehicles. Car drivers do because the economy of scale payoff from modern technology is lessened by granting old tech and excess avoirdupois special consideration.
I drive a Cayman S – 3100lbs and now also a Caddy DHS – 4200lbs.
“Eliminate the favored fuel efficiency treatment for ‘light’ trucks and SUVs.”
That goes away with the new regulations. Except for 3/4ton and larger. So me and my family will be in a 3/4ton suburban.
Same thing happened with the last round of fuel economy regs… drove people from large cars and wagons to SUVs.
That goes away with the new regulations. Except for 3/4ton and larger. So me and my family will be in a 3/4ton suburban.
There shouldn’t be any special treatment of the Suburban class of dreadnought either. Its my understanding that there is a footprint adjustment to how much improvement needs to be made – the larger the footprint, the lower the relative improvement required. If you want a Suburban, God bless. But there shouldn’t be two standards, one for cars and one for trucks/SUVs. Toss them all into one corporate fleet average.
Damn if the easiest way out of the rules mess isn’t a significant Fed gas tax. But I don’t want to go there. Show me some real spending cuts with concomitant government layoffs (just like the private sector has to make) first.
I’m glad you put “UC Berkley” and “Slate” right there at the start so I could stop reading.
There is a huge fallacy in this study. It kind of makes it all worthless. They look at it from a societal point of view. Small cars fail when they come into contact with big cars, people in the small cars are more likely to be hurt or killed. So far they’ve got it right.
But the huge fail is that those of us who drive look at the safety equation from the self-interst view. In other words, how will I or my family fare in a car crash if they are in a small car compared to a large car? My point of view is that I’d hate to see anyone hrt at all but better the guy in the little car than me or mine. Call me selfish, but that’s how most people look at the question. Am I willing to sacrifice myself for the sake of less greenhouse gases? No.
I’m afraid you are right about this. There is a reason many women have to drive their kids to and from school in ‘High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle’s. While their husbands use the 3-series Bimmer or Prius to work.
I’m not very selfish myself, but I feel safer in my BMW 525ix than i do in my Ford Sierra.
(Ps, in my eyes a SUV will always be a El Camino or Ranchero, what’s so sporty about an APC?)
Thinking of people I know (who are in my circle of aquaintences) I can only think of two couples with children where the husband and wife regularly drive “small” vehicles. Couple #1: She has a brand new Cruze and he drives a Corvair coupe almost daily. Couple #2: She drives a Versa hatch and he drives a 2009 Vibe hatch. Everybody else, wife CUV/SUV and husband pick-up truck. Does the hubby need a truck everyday? Nope.
I have no problem with the study, only the conclusion. The simple conclusion is: All else being equal, to be safe, drive a bigger and heavier car. The conclusion reached by those reporting on the stury is: All else being equal, the government should force everyone to be in a smaller car so that everyone at large has a better chance of surviving the collision.
The second philosophy has a problem. You can’t outlaw all of the pickups really needed for work, or the box trucks or the FedEx vans or the semis hauling construction equipment, or – well you get the idea. So what we are REALLY being asked is to take a gamble. If I am forced to drive a Honda Fit instead of a Suburban, so long as I collide with another Honda Fit, we are both likely to be OK. But, if my family collides with a UPS truck, they are more likely to be killed.
In real life, I actually replaced a Ford Club Wagon with a Honda Fit. It was my choice to make a tradeoff – more economy in exchange for an elevated risk if I get hit by the guy who bought my old Club Wagon. My problem is with the philosophy that would FORCE me to incur the higher risk of injury whether I am willing to or not. That is not the sort of country in which I care to live.
I’m looking at that picture, and thinking:
“if only that pickup had been a Smart – the HUMMER wouldn’t have suffered hardly a scratch”
Check out some crash test of the Smart versions on Youtube and your in for a shock. Any Smart would have made a still noticeable dent in the Hummer, and maybe even make it roll over. And maybe even the passenger in the Smart could have been saved.
Check out the only Smart crash test that was likely to have any real world relevance, the one where a Smart has an offset crash with a midsize sedan and mimics a deflating soccer ball.
http://www.google.com/search?q=leftist+definition&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7RNWN
Now imagine a Smart hitting a rigid truck chassis with over a ton more mass than the sedan that the IIHS used to remind themselves that physics happen.
The mercedes S-class which I’ve seen them test it against did not ‘walk away’ undamaged to say it the least. It weighs approximately 4000lbs
So i still think the Smart would make a noticeable dent.
@Zykotec: Don’t be ridiculous.
Smart may do very well at protecting the occupants against a stupid driver running into a (non-moving) parked (compressible) car.
However, Smart can’t change the laws of physics, and the laws of physics say an 8600+ lb SUV with a rigid, reinforced frame is going to barrel over a 1,600 lb kei-class microcar.
In a perfect case, the Smart sticks to the H2’s bumper like a fly going “splat” on windshield. Conservation of momentum says that the H2 will hardly be slowed from 40 mph down to 33 mph, and the Smart will go from 40 mph to -33 mph in reverse. In reality, due to the offset, the Smart will bounce off the HUMMER like a tennis ball off a brick wall. The H2 might be slowed to 35 mph, and the Smart would be lucky not to be flipped while it is spun and tossed aside.
CJ is completely correct. In his example, the IIHS tested the Smart against an C-class, and the C-class easily won:
http://autos.aol.com/gallery/small-car-collision-test/
While that C-class weighs twice as much as the Smart, it’s only a mid-size car designed with a high-deformation front end (like hitting a pillow). The H2 is twice as heavy yet again. And the Smart will be taking the hit with their bumper aligned with a non-yielding, reinforced ladder frame (literally a brick wall).
How is saying ‘noticeable dent’ ridicolous ? Ok, saying the passenger may survive could have been optimistic (I didn’t even imply the driver would survive?)
@Z: I’m sorry, I misunderstood and thought you were taking a different position in your posts. I understand now.
One study found that higher fuel-economy standards imposed in the 1980s led to 2,000 additional deaths per year. If Americans suddenly start buying many more ultra-light cars, it is not hard to imagine more deadly accidents as a result.
Modern small cars are way safer than the tin cans that were around in the 80ish, than any car that was around then for that matter. So it is wrong to automatically assume that a modern 5star crash rated car is going to perform the same way a Ford Pinto.
Classic video, size DOES NOT always matter.
The old car enthusisast in me rushes to say that, even if it’s very correct that size alone does matter, the Renault Modus in this test is only around 3-400lbs lighter than the Volvo 940, and that weight is spread on a much smaller area. So weight still matters.
@MikeAR
There are a number of ways to look at this. I like smaller cars – they stop faster, they provide more room to avoid accidents, and the ones I buy have greater visibility, all of whcih help prevent me from getting in accidents. If I get in a head on crash or get T-boned, my car will probably not fare as well as your large vehicle (although air bags have closed the gap). I drive 25,000 miles per year, however, and over the past 14 years i have never been in the type of catastrophic accident on which you focus. I am not willing to spend more money on a large car and the gas it uses and the increased maintenence (tires esp) to maybe increase my odds slightly in a very rare event that I feel I am taking postiive steps to prevent. Subconsciously I think most people look at the car size question the same way. Its a financial decision first, an environmental or safety issue a distant second (unless you’re very politically motivated or outside on money concerns). This must be true because when gas prices go up, people move to smaller cars. Is it because gas prices make them care less about safety or the environemnt?
I like smaller cars – they stop faster, they provide more room to avoid accidents, and the ones I buy have greater visibility, all of whcih help prevent me from getting in accidents.
There isn’t statistical support for that position, either. Active safety doesn’t prevent drivers from crashing. In the mind of the average driver, it’s grossly overrated.
If you don’t want to crash, the best way to avoid it is to drive defensively in a vehicle with as many passive safety features as possible. Large sedans seem to be the safest bet.
SCO, I actually agree with PCH’s reply. But in my case I alternate between having a truck only or a truck and a muscle car. Nothing political or anything like that, I need a truck to do what I like to do. It so happens that I like to drive trucks but I also like cars of all sizes. Don’t forget everyone is differant, what world for you isn’t universal.
I, for one, cannot wait for the day when we are all driving gigantic behemoths in the name of safety. You must always buy a bigger vehicle to protect your family, therefore soon we should all be driving these: http://www.8-lug.com/features/ford/0803_8l_2007_ford_f750/photo_01.html
F the environment! F everybody! I’m out for myself. Get out of my way!
Notch up another, if somewhat more debatable, reason to increase the gas tax (as if we needed another).
We absolutely need another debate. Ladbrokes has set the 1 week total over/under for comments in this thread at 224…
Anyone who really cares about their personal safety while driving will opt for a member of the Ford Panther family rather than a truck. Better brakes, better handling, unlikely to roll over, unlikely to “trip” over a guardrail, and still plenty of good ol’ free-marketplace steel between you and that Sendero Luminoso cadre leader whose Smart car you’re about to T-bone.
Agreed, anyone who really thinks a ‘High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle’ belongs in City traffic should pay ‘unrealistic view of the world’-tax.
But on the question of tax I think with a 8000lbs vehicle, the driving experience and fuel cost as it is today should really be punishment enough.
I live in a country where we have tax even on tax, and we still have a quite diverse mix of cars on the roads, it doesn’t help at all.
(well, there are offcourse loopholes for ‘light trucks’, but at least the diesel versions have speed limiters like ‘real’ trucks :P )
If a Ford Panther crashes into a Smart it’s not so much a T-bone so much as dotting an i.
Too bad that ship has sailed.
Must. Resist. Panther. Nautical. Allegory.
Come on! Everybody knows that GM cars make the best land yachts.
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_jun2007/LandYacht.jpg
http://primemovers00.tripod.com/landyacht.gif
I have always been told that life is about choices.
The economic theory behind Capitalism in essence maximizes the choices available to us, and limits or removes the least effective from the selection process–UNLESS the government steps in and picks the winners for us. (not that that could happen in the land of the free?)
Higher gas taxes always hurt the poor the most, because they are the least able to afford newer energy efficient vehicles, and/or live closer to their work, if they have any.
They drive the furthest to get to everything they need, and are the least able to repair an old car that most people on this site would have towed away if it parked on their street.
My understanding is that most car fatalities occur at intersections. If you have the choice, what would you want to be driving, or more importantly, what would you want your kids sitting in, when a drunk teenager texting his girlfriend blows a light as your kid enters under a green?
A Smart car? A Honda Civic? A Ford F450?
If it makes liberals angry that we members of the hoi-polloi choose safety over mpg elitism, I can live with that. Literally.
And offcourse, what car do you want the- ‘drunk teenager texting his girlfriend blowing a light as your kid enters under a green? ‘ -to drive.
A Smart car? A Honda Civic? A Ford F450?
The economic theory behind Capitalism in essence maximizes the choices available to us,
No, the idea is that the government doesn’t get involved. That doesn’t stop participants in the market from restricting choice or, for that matter, becoming a de facto government.
The market is very, very good at short-term optimization, but it’s strategic track record ranges from average to mediocre, and it’s ability to handle externalized costs is atrocious. So in order to avoid the hardship this would cause, you temper the market with regulation that forces strategic vision, sometimes to the detriment of the tactical.
For cars, this could mean making them more expensive to own or operate, but with the intent of ensuring that you’ll have a car to drive should fuel prices spike, or a domestic car manufacturer who can be competitive on the world stage.
If it makes liberals angry that we members of the hoi-polloi choose safety over mpg elitism, I can live with that. Literally.
It doesn’t make this liberal angry. It does make me despair that many conservatives can’t see the forest for the trees, or rather the cliff on the horizon. And that if we were totally free of regulation that we’d probably be down to one or two car makers cranking out total crap until we hit the proverbial iceberg.
I’m also amused at how many conservatives can’t seem to take the piss and get really indignant (if not outright whiny) if someone dares criticize their choices. Guess what? Freedom means that you can do more or less what you want, but that I can question your judgement, intelligence and/or sanity when you do.
You can buy an F-450 if you like. Don’t cry when someone calls you a d-bag for commuting in it.
“You can buy an F-450 if you like. Don’t cry when someone calls you a d-bag for commuting in it.”
Bingo. It’s not the 5000+ lb vehicle that pisses this liberal off.
It’s the 5000+ lb vehicle in the PASSING LANE that pisses this liberal off.
You want to get a 3 ton vehicle because you think it pisses of liberals, by all means, drive whatever you can afford. Just stay to the right with all the other soccer moms.
The same Newtonian physics that work against me in a crash, work against the F-450 driver when he presses down on either pedal.
My understanding is that most car fatalities occur at intersections.
Not even close. It’s about one in four; during 2009, it was 22%.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Crashes/CrashesLocation.aspx
The economic theory behind Capitalism in essence maximizes the choices available to us
The theory of capitalism is centered on free trade (versus mercantilism). Sales taxes aren’t incompatible with the theory.
In any case, Detroit liked SUVs during their heyday because they could sell them at a premium. They weren’t giving them away to save lives; they sold their passenger cars for less.
I think that you’re trying to say that you don’t like gas taxes. That’s fine if you want to believe that, but don’t talk about capitalism (or socialism, or just about any other -ism) as if it provides you with ammo for your argument, when it doesn’t.
“don’t compare Confederates to Nazis if you are ever near me. You won’t like what happens.”
Well, they were both fond of slave labor, and they both started a war they couldn’t finish.
JFCOAS, the “discussion” has degenerated into comparing Confederates to Nazis?
Really?
FFS, can somebody (Ed.) put a gun to the head of this thread and put it out of its misery?
With pleasure. Comments are closed. I hope everyone looks back at their comments one last time and makes an honest assessment about the quality of their contribution. I’m always wary of moderating comments on posts with a strong political component in order to maintain an even playing field, but some of y’all are taking advantage of my leniency and taking things way off track.
TTAC is a forum for sharing ideas (preferably about cars), not evangelizing your personal perspective and condemning those who disagree with it. On a professional level, I want TTAC to be an exercise in the honest, open-minded pursuit of truth, and on a personal level I find the partisan droning tiresome. If you’d rather wage ideological war than respectfully contribute to TTAC’s collective understanding, I’ll notice and you’ll to start noticing your comments disappearing (which you will either take the hint from or leave, whining about my left/right wing bias).
TTAC’s staff works hard to make this site what it is, and all we ask for in return is a basic level of respect for writers and your fellow commenters. The diversity of our staff and readers, (geographically, culturally, and politically) is a point of intense pride for me, and I won’t have that compromised so that any one of you can aggrandize your principles. No one opinion is as important or interesting to me as the rich tapestry of responses we get from around the world and across the political, economic and social spectrum.
Wasn’t the whole psychological point of the big, bigger and biggest SUV fad to put fear in the hearts and minds of other drivers? Isn’t that what the Hummer was all about, why the Ram trucks look like a Freightliner and why all pickup trucks now sport absolutely massive front ends?
We should not be surprised to acknowledge that when said fear inducing vehicles collide with their prey, it is the prey who most often die. That is, after all, the point!
It is indeed the motoring equivalent to walking to the store with a sawn off shotgun in one hand. Only for protection offcourse :P
For those of you who are interested, there’s a great little test that a group has set up at http://www.politicalcompass.org/test which situates your views politically in relation to some notable world leaders (Hitler, Stalin, and so on). It’s good fun, but make sure you follow down the page after you finish the test because your results will be listed further down the page (and not in the first box your see). Of course some people here may not like where they end up and will attribute this to the test being fixed, but so be it.
By the way, I was listed as a Left Wing Libertarian (down very close to Ghandi and Nelson Mandela).
I can’t take anything seriously that places Hitler to the right of center. Don’t believe me? Who came up with this marvelous, well-meaning program:
We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all. Therefore, we demand:… an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand… the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments. In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education… We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents… The government must undertake the improvement of public health—by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor… by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth. We combat the… materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of the common good before the individual good.
Yep, it was the Nazi Party, Munich, February 1920.
The only difference between Nazis and other socialists was nationalism. Mind you that doesn’t apply to organized labor, since they can’t even claim that distinction from the Nazis.
Mind you, there were some slight differences between the 1920 program and how germany looked in 1939. And Hitler’s society was certainly divided into several classes of people with either more or less (some, a lot less, not even deserving the right to live or reproduce) power and rights, so it was not completely socialistic. I too would definately put him to the rigth side of the center. He and Stalin weren’t excactly the best of friends. On the other hand, if you were one of the better-off bermans (not jewish, handicapped,gay, immigrant etc.) you would probalby love what you thought was socialism in 1938…
I too missed Ghandi by some millimeters, allthough I can’t really see him enjoy the rumble of a V8 or enjoy a good Sci-fi movie. But then again, I’m no leader, I’m a follower, and I sadly accept the society I happened to be born in.
Not sure how this makes any difference when it comes to driving a unpractically huge car like structure on a road or not….
I must Quote 86er’s post further up.
‘But hey, what do we know? I’m a talking truck and you’re a lithograph.’
I can’t take anything seriously that places Hitler to the right of center
Given your general lack of knowledge of all things political, it’s not surprising that you would make such a comment.
Hopefully, you know more about cars than you do about politics. Maybe you should try discussing those, instead.
“don’t compare Confederates to Nazis if you are ever near me. You won’t like what happens.”
Lighten up, Francis.
Off course I like gas taxes, sales taxes, income taxes….it’s nice to be needed.
Capitalism increases the number of choices, this is not incompatible with the text book definition. No true monopoly could exist with out protection, at least that’s what Uncle Milton taught me. That’s why corporations invest so much in lobbyists…helps keep the wolves at bay.
Why would commuting in an F450 make me a D-Bag? I don’t block the left lane, I use my turn signal, and let old ladies cross the street.
Such anger! BTW-F450’s check in at closer to 4.5 tons full of fuel, not 3 tons. But I guess I’m being a D-bag by pointing that out.
Honestly, if you ever load up that truck bed, I can’t see no reason to call you a D-bag, I have bigger problems with the soccer moms in the ‘High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle’s that weigh about the same but has no practical function at all…
And I seem to own one of the few BMW’s in Norway with a functional turn-signal myself ;)
Capitalism increases the number of choices;
You keep talking about "capitalism" as if that has some relationship to this topic.
The topic is that two economists have drafted a working paper that concludes that SUVs create externalities. The ways that they explore for reducing those alleged externalities is by increasing taxes that would impact the demand for SUVs.
They aren't talking about outlawing SUVs. They're talking about increasing the costs of ownership, so that they pay for the costs that they supposedly generate.
If people want to own SUVs under this scenario, then they can increase their incomes, reduce their savings or divert spending from other sources. As is the case with a Ferrari or a 911, you can own one, but there's no Constitutional guarantee that you can afford to pay for it.
I’d rather get in a wreck while driving my wife’s mid-size SUV then in my daily driver Civic.
I’d rather wreck in my 3500+lb E60 sedan than our 5000+lb W251 CUV, only because it’s more likely that I’m the only family member involved.
If it’s just me alone in the car, then I’ll choose to have the accident with the extra “crush space” and body steel all around, TYVM.