Another Bush Lie

[Xiahou]

Under Ford and Carter, any auto maker who wanted to sell motor vehicles in the US was regulated by a high CAFE standard. This standard set the average fuel mileage rating for all of a corporation's motor vehicles. The standard was intended to rise periodically and eventually reach over 40 MPG. Under Carter, the standard reached its zenith. The companies were able to comply up to the point it reached, but complained like mad, and the administrations after Carter have lowered the standard so that SUVs could be marketed freely.

What's the problem?

If gas is cheap and plentiful, why force people into vehicles that they don't want to use? Now that gasoline is getting more expensive, people are buying less SUVs and more efficiency cars and even hybrids. No amount of government regulations and subsidies (hand outs) were going to make people buy hybrids. High gas prices are though. Yay free markets.

[Just A Girl]

Polution is the point

[Tachikaze]

What's the problem?

If gas is cheap and plentiful, why force people into vehicles that they don't want to use? Now that gasoline is getting more expensive, people are buying less SUVs and more efficiency cars and even hybrids. No amount of government regulations and subsidies (hand outs) were going to make people buy hybrids. High gas prices are though. Yay free markets.

Yeah, air pollution, ground water contamination . . .

Perhaps we might do better to stop oil trade in the Middle East. That can be reduced or eliminated if we cut back on oil consumption.

Don't you care at all about anything but being able to choose which fashionable vehicle to drive? Cars are just tools, not toys or fashion accessories. They should do their job as efficiently as possible.

[Major Robert Dump]

Lately I've been seeing some little cars zipping around, they are slightly bigger than a cycle with a sidecar, and a few of the drivers I've seen going between cars and on the shoulder like cycles do, exceptr its a car.

Personally, I think its cool as hell, except its a tiny seater that guarantees you will die when you get hit by the soccer mom on the cell phone driving the escalade.

anyone seen these cars? What are they? Seriously, they look like a bumper car from the state fair

[Seamus Fermanagh]

MRD:

I too believed as you did regading the relative safety of the SUV and the small car in a collision. There is some truth to it, of course, in an SUV v compact accident. However, in a thread centering on SUV's, there was decent statistical evidence presented that SUV's, Trucks, and smaller "sedan" style cars were all prone to accidents and fatalities at about the same rate once all the various causes were thrown into the hopper. The highest safety margins, overall, were those associated with the inglorious but very useful minivan.

Tachi':

I think you're tilting at windmills again. Nobody is going to argue that pollution is good, that finding alternative means for powering personal vehicles is bad, or that we should just accept the degree of dependency we have on foreign oil.

Your answer always seems to boil down to regulation and government mandate. Typical U.S. citizens react to such things the way any 13-year-old boy does to commands from his parents. We have laws preventing us from traveling more than 55mph on most roads -- these are routinely ignored by a majority of drivers. We have carefully articulated CAFE standards for automobiles -- so everybody started buying vehicles in the less-regulated "truck" class. "R" rated movies are restricted from viewers under the age of 17 -- yet most 13 year olds can recite the lines from those movies.

Short of a draconian effort by the government, which as a by-product will hack your individual rights to almost nil, the best that can be done is to promote R&D and work to reinforce market trends that tend toward the desired result.

[Tachikaze]

MRD:

I too believed as you did regading the relative safety of the SUV and the small car in a collision. There is some truth to it, of course, in an SUV v compact accident. However, in a thread centering on SUV's, there was decent statistical evidence presented that SUV's, Trucks, and smaller "sedan" style cars were all prone to accidents and fatalities at about the same rate once all the various causes were thrown into the hopper. The highest safety margins, overall, were those associated with the inglorious but very useful minivan.

Tachi':

I think you're tilting at windmills again. Nobody is going to argue that pollution is good, that finding alternative means for powering personal vehicles is bad, or that we should just accept the degree of dependency we have on foreign oil.

Your answer always seems to boil down to regulation and government mandate. Typical U.S. citizens react to such things the way any 13-year-old boy does to commands from his parents. We have laws preventing us from traveling more than 55mph on most roads -- these are routinely ignored by a majority of drivers. We have carefully articulated CAFE standards for automobiles -- so everybody started buying vehicles in the less-regulated "truck" class. "R" rated movies are restricted from viewers under the age of 17 -- yet most 13 year olds can recite the lines from those movies.

Short of a draconian effort by the government, which as a by-product will hack your individual rights to almost nil, the best that can be done is to promote R&D and work to reinforce market trends that tend toward the desired result.

The government doesn't have to regulate buyers; it can regulate the auto makers.

[Watchman]

Or it can just tax the snot out of gas. That seems to have worked on this side of the pond - at least by what I've heard of it, on the average the cars used in Europe tend to have *way* better mileages than their American equivalents.

[Tachikaze]

Or it can just tax the snot out of gas. That seems to have worked on this side of the pond - at least by what I've heard of it, on the average the cars used in Europe tend to have *way* better mileages than their American equivalents.

I wish it were so, but Americans still drive mass amounts of enormous vehicles and V8 coupes even after the fuel costs have risen. It shows that they have too much disposable income.

Plus, I wouldn't want to penalize small businesses who need delivery trucks.

The problem with the public is that most who drive big pickups and SUVs use them for single commuting, never filling them near their capacity. They are a fashion, a very ridiculous one.

At least I get to laugh at people trying to negotiate small parking lots or trying to make U turns in big-ass trucks. I wonder if they remember those times when they are at the car dealer.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The government doesn't have to regulate buyers; it can regulate the auto makers.

Only works in a closed system, Tachi. Otherwise you just up the cost on the domestic auto makers who have to play by your rules and then hand the business to somewhere else with lower cost and/or government subsidies. Trying to regulate your half of a free market is absurd. To make it work you have to have out-and-out protectionism closing off your market. Of course, that has its own long-term problems as well.

Or it can just tax the snot out of gas. That seems to have worked on this side of the pond - at least by what I've heard of it, on the average the cars used in Europe tend to have *way* better mileages than their American equivalents.

And what's the market share of these auto-makers? It's true the average vehicle in Europe gets far more mileage than its American counterpart, but do the various governments use those monies to remove the auto from the equation or do they promote autos and their manufacturers to keep up the revenues from the "invisible" tax they have in place?

[Watchman]

Damned if I know, frankly. I live in an urban region of fairly outstanding public transportation where cars are mainly a nuisance.

I don't really see how "removing the car from the equation" is relevant, though, although I may be misunderstanding the concept. AFAIK the point isn't to get rid of the things (although replacing them with public transportation to as great a degree as possible would be generally sensible), as they're still needed for all kinds of stuff, but to minimize the redunant and/or gratuitious fuel expenditure.

[Kralizec]

Only works in a closed system, Tachi. Otherwise you just up the cost on the domestic auto makers who have to play by your rules and then hand the business to somewhere else with lower cost and/or government subsidies. Trying to regulate your half of a free market is absurd. To make it work you have to have out-and-out protectionism closing off your market. Of course, that has its own long-term problems as well.

?

Why wouldn't the US government be able to regulate this?
US manufactured cars generally have small head support cushions, as opposed to larger head cushions in European cars (making the chance of getting a wiplash injury smaller in EU manufactured cars)
Cars that are imported from the US have to abide by EU safety standards and therefore American cars that are slated for export are equiped with the EU type head cushions.
If you force both domestic and foreign car manufacturers to abide by the same standards, how is this protectionism?

[Don Corleone]

Don't you care at all about anything but being able to choose which fashionable vehicle to drive? Cars are just tools, not toys or fashion accessories. They should do their job as efficiently as possible.

I thought Hippies were about freedom. You're advocating forcing everyone to use the most fuel efficient vehicle as possible, regardless of their personal needs or desires. Try going camping in the deep woods with a Prius. Aside from which, if you're going to go around forcing everyone to be as efficient as they possibly can be, why stop with the cars they drive?

I wish it were so, but Americans still drive mass amounts of enormous vehicles and V8 coupes even after the fuel costs have risen. It shows that they have too much disposable income.

Now you're going to take everyone's money away too? Wow, and I always thought the term 'angry left' was just a moniker. What a bleak, scary world you envision for us Tachi....you sound like Napolean in Animal Farm.

[Watchman]

I like to think of it as "your right to produce unnecessary exhaust gasses stops at my breathing air," personally.

[Don Corleone]

I like to think of it as "your right to produce unnecessary exhaust gasses stops at my breathing air," personally.

You don't really want to go that route Watchman. I assure you, everything you hold dear in your life, from raising your own children, to drinking beer, to how you spend your free time can be justified by using collectivist logic similar to what you put forward above. At the end of the day, you could claim that you have the right to force everyone to travel by foot, for no other reason than your claim to your 'breathing air'. You could also force everyone to live in unheated domiciles with no electricity. Heck, you could outlaw running water using that kind of logic.

[Watchman]

Or I could go live in a cottage in the woods and issue statements about the tsunamis killing folks being a good thing 'cause there's now less nasty humans around polluting the place, like one of our local eco-nuts. But I don't, because that'd be stupid.

I have enough confidence in people (or, rather, their selfish desire for creature comforts and general convenience) not to worry about that sort of thing happening. You'd need an eco-nut version of a military coup for that to become an issue, and I don't need to tell you how far-fetched *that* idea is.

There's a thing called "moderation."

[solypsist]

this thread title is not very helpful in explaining the topic of this thread. please try to be accurate in naming threads.

[Xiahou]

Now you're going to take everyone's money away too? Wow, and I always thought the term 'angry left' was just a moniker. What a bleak, scary world you envision for us Tachi....you sound like Napolean in Animal Farm.

We have too much money and are too free to spend it how we see fit. That's the root of the problem, eh?