According to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the CAFE rules put in force by the government to reduce the amount of fuel consumed by our vehicles had a bit of unintended consequences. It forced the automakers to make smaller cars, and hence, cars that are less safe. Read about it here.
OK, the survey may be from the Belchfire SUV manufacturers association, but it does make sense. Lighter cars equal fuel savings. And it also follows that a car made basically from plastic isn’t going to stand up against a tree quite as well as one made of steel.
Gee, our CAFE (that’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy for those who don’t follow these things) standards have caused an additional 1300 to 2600 traffic deaths a year. That’s 10,000 people over the last 10 years alone.
The law of unintended consequences. Here’s another one to ponder. DDT was destroying the environment — caused egg shells to be weak. So we banned it all over the world. We then discovered that a lesser dosage of DDT had the same effect on mosquitoes and didn’t hurt the birds. IN the mean time literally millions are dying from Malaria born by mosquitoes, and we can’t get the DDT back into the system. How many millions of unneeded deaths did that one volume, "The Silent Spring" cause.
Where’s the outrage.
J
