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