Quote:
Originally Posted by kodos78
Why not trust people to buy the cars that they want? I can understand engineering cars so that they do not create excessive danger to pedestrians or other vehicles, but if a car is flimsy and gets 150mpg, and weighs 500lbs -- I'm all for it if all I'm endangering is myself!
This safety argument has to stop. For God's sake -- our children are encased in large child seats until they are almost old enough to shave these days!
And there will always be auto makers that pride themselves on safety -- like Volvo. People who are interested in safety will buy a Volvo. Those that don't, won't.
Otherwise, this is the classic protect people from themselves argument, that led to prohibition and in the case of automobiles -- leads to bloated cars where every vehicle requires a safety cage with thick doors and an assortment of airbags. Driving up the cost of the vehicle and the weight while lowering the MPG.
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No doubt, there are some very absurd safety regulations out there that do very little in protecting occupants in a crash, all because the NHTSA wants to pretend they're actually doing something to protect us. A prime example of this is the recent roof crush safety standards, which will add weight and cost to every vehicle to save an estimated 4 people a year. I'm not advocating those standards. However, I fear that manufacturers would sacrifice safety to build a cheaper car in the price-war enviornment that we have right now. Consumers have always shown a penchant for choosing cost savings over safety, even if it is not a prudent choice.
We don't need ridiculously small, unsafe cars in this country to take care of the energy crisis we're having. What we need to do is take better advantage of the resources we have, like making diesel from coal or natural gas. We need to innovate and get phev's out there, and get cellulosic ethanol working. We need to do better getting our goods from a to b, like using our train system to ship goods instead of semis. Those things would effectively change the game, so when there's a major cost increase in the price of oil, we have alternatives to go to, and we would force oil to compete with other resources.