Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Fuel Efficiency: Good for the Environment (but not really), Bad for Not Killing People

I suppose that most of you have heard of CAFE Standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) and how they put restrictions on automobile mileage. Sounds good, right? The government is telling private companies how to make their product, because they know better. Right.

That's bad enough, but it turns out that this case of government meddling is costing lives. I found this to be quite interesting, if not infuriating: CAFE Standards Kill

Turns out that smaller, lighter cars are less safe to be in in the event of a crash. Who knew? As usual, I have a key paragraph for those who may not be interested in reading the whole thing:

"An extensive 1999 USA Today analysis of crash data found that since CAFE went into effect in 1978, 46,000 people died in crashes they otherwise would have survived, had they been in bigger, heavier vehicles. This, according to a 1999 USA Today analysis of crash data since 1975, roughly figures to be 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained in fuel economy standards."

I think that CAFE Standards may have killed more people than anthropogenic global warming. Pretty safe bet, considering that the latter is a myth.

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