January 15, 2013

Talking about unnecessary deaths in America

Everyone is focused on gun deaths these days but few people realize just how dangerous our Federal Government has made our automobiles -- all in the name of burning less gasoline. From US News and World Report:
Carmakers Steering Away From Steel in Order to Meet Fuel Economy Standards
Faced with increasingly stringent benchmarks�the government's new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards require a passenger vehicle fleet that averages 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025�carmakers are taking another approach to achieving better fuel mileage: shaving weight off vehicles by experimenting with lighter materials.

Automobiles have long been made from steel�a very strong, but heavy material. Now manufacturers are experimenting with new materials�ranging from aluminum to carbon fiber composites to metal alloys�to help companies reach the ambitious fuel efficiency standards.

"They don't have to make these changes immediately, but there's much more a sense of urgency now," says Bruce Belzowski, research scientist at University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. "They've experimented in the past with small applications, [but] now that they have to meet these [CAFE] standards [automakers] are willing to experiment and pay for materials that might be a little more expensive."
Emphasis mine -- no, they will not bear the burden of the increased cost, that increased cost will be passed down to us, the consumer. This is both in the increased cost of the new vehicle and in the greatly increased cost of minor collision repair as entire sections of the body will need to be replaced instead of just being pounded back into shape. And there is another, more dire, cost of this practice: From The National Center for Public Policy Research (July 2006):
CAFE Standards Kill: Congress' Regulatory Solution to Foreign Oil Dependence Comes at a Steep Price
On the heels of the Arab oil embargo, in 1975 Congress enacted Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards as a regulatory solution to reduce the United States' dependence on foreign oil and gasoline consumption. CAFE standards mandate that vehicles sold in the U.S. meet fuel efficiency - or "fuel economy" - standards. Current standards require an average of 27.2 miles per gallon (mpg) for cars and 21.6 mpg for light trucks.
More:
According to a 2003 NHTSA study, when a vehicle is reduced by 100 pounds the estimated fatality rate increases as much as 5.63 percent for light cars weighing less than 2,950 pounds, 4.70 percent for heavier cars weighing over 2,950 pounds and 3.06 percent for light trucks. Between model years 1996 and 1999, these rates translated into additional traffic fatalities of 13,608 for light cars, 10,884 for heavier cars and 14,705 for light trucks.
From a USA Today article: James R. Healey, "Death by the Gallon," USA Today, July 2, 1999 -- mirrored here. (USA Today doesn't have this online any more and they have opted out of the Wayback Machine):
Death by the gallon
James R. Healey. USA TODAY. McLean, Va.: Jul 2, 1999. pg. 01.B
Copyright USA Today Information Network Jul 2, 1999

A USA TODAY analysis of previously unpublished fatality statistics discovers that 46,000 people have died because of a 1970s-era push for greater fuel efficiency that has led to smaller cars.

Californian James Bragg, who helps other people buy cars, knows he'll squirm when his daughter turns 16.

"She's going to want a little Chevy Cavalier or something. I'd rather take the same 10 to 12 thousand bucks and put it into a 3-year-old (full-size Mercury) Grand Marquis, for safety.

"I want to go to her high school graduation, not her funeral."

Hundreds of people are killed in small-car wrecks each year who would survive in just slightly bigger, heavier vehicles, government and insurance industry research shows.

More broadly, in the 24 years since a landmark law to conserve fuel, big cars have shrunk to less-safe sizes and small cars have poured onto roads. As a result, 46,000 people have died in crashes they would have survived in bigger, heavier cars, according to USA TODAY's analysis of crash data since 1975, when the Energy Policy and Conservation Act was passed. The law and the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards it imposed have improved fuel efficiency. The average of passenger vehicles on U.S. roads is 20 miles per gallon vs. 14 mpg in 1975.

But the cost has been roughly 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained, the analysis shows.

Small cars -- those no bigger or heavier than Chevrolet Cavalier or Dodge Neon -- comprise 18% of all vehicles on the road, according to an analysis of R.L. Polk registration data. Yet they accounted for 37% of vehicle deaths in 1997 -- 12,144 people -- according to latest available government figures. That's about twice the death rate in big cars, such as Dodge Intrepid, Chevrolet Impala, Ford Crown Victoria.

"We have a small-car problem. If you want to solve the safety puzzle, get rid of small cars," says Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The institute, supported by auto insurers, crash-tests more vehicles, more violently, than all but the federal government.

Little cars have big disadvantages in crashes. They have less space to absorb crash forces. The less the car absorbs, the more the people inside have to.

And small cars don't have the weight to protect themselves in crashes with other vehicles. When a small car and a larger one collide, the bigger car stops abruptly; that's bad enough. But the little one slams to a stop, then instantly and violently accelerates backward as the heavier car's momentum powers into it. People inside the lighter car experience body-smashing levels of force in two directions, first as their car stops moving forward, then as it reverses. In the heavier car, bodies are subjected to less-destructive deceleration and no "bounce-back."

The regulations don't mandate small cars. But small, lightweight vehicles that can perform satisfactorily using low-power, fuel-efficient engines are the only affordable way automakers have found to meet the CAFE (pronounced ka-FE) standards.

Some automakers acknowledge the danger.

"A small car, even with the best engineering available -- physics says a large car will win," says Jack Collins, Nissan's U.S. marketing chief.
And any advances in materials science will not do a damned thing to change this. Automobile manufacturers used to advertise their safety -- Volvo had their famous 'crumple zone'. Now safety is not mentioned. This article from National Review Online concludes:
But rather than leave bad enough alone, Obama and company clamp down, ever harder. Strengthening CAFE standards by 53.5 percent by 2025 likely will yield deadlier cars. Airbags will do only so much while surrounded by materials that recall aluminum siding.

Before Washington sends additional Americans to early graves, Team Obama should step off the gas pedal and ponder the physicist who wrote Traffic Safety. Dr. Leonard Evans was perfectly clear: �CAFE kills, and higher CAFE standards kill even more.�
If we are looking at preventing unnecessary deaths in America, we should look all around us. Hell, swimming pools kill more children each year than guns (link to PDF -- hat tip to Og). Leading cause of death in fact. Ban them -- limit swimming pool 'clips' to 7 gallons or less. Ban assault pools. Posted by DaveH at January 15, 2013 9:31 PM