In a focus on issues of emissions, California has mandated that automobiles emit no more than a certain quantity of CO2 per mile traveled (at the tailpipe. I think electric cars still count as ‘zero emission’ vehicles, regardless of how the electricity is generated). The federal government has some not-so-successful legislation, the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standard. This means that no state is allowed to regulate fuel efficiency. There is an argument that the CO2 standard is a backdoor means of regulating fuel economy. And there is a very convincing argument to be made on that point. Particularly if CA isn’t regulating CO2 from other sources.
But, as often happens when I’m behind the wheel, it occurred to me yesterday, as I was driving a very heavy, fuel inefficient vehicle, that this only addresses one of the problems with excessive driving. Maybe two. Fuel consumption and vehicle emissions in particular. And it’s kinda iffy on those two. See, if fuel efficiency rises, it costs less to drive a mile, so people may drive more miles (in aggregate), counterbalancing gains in those two categories.
But there are several other problems with excessive driving. Congestion related delays, accidents, and scarcity of parking rank high among the problems.
In addressing the accident problem, half the popularity of SUVs is their purported safety for families. They never say what happens in case of a collision between a massive vehicle and a less massive vehicle, but “squish” says it pretty succintly. Now, a major part of this is an arms race. If I get a more massive hummer, then you want a hummer that weighs more than mine so that if I’m driving drunk on the wrong side of the road (oh-so-likely scenario here, if we change the identity of the actors), you and yours aren’t wiped out in one fell swoop.
So, to kill the arms race, a state could try to regulate car mass. No more than 1 ton or whatever. This might be considered a backdoor to fuel efficiency, but it is far less direct. Obviously this would only apply to non-commercial vehicles. This could kill the Minivan and SUV while resurrecting the station wagon. One could only hope. Even so, this would not address congestion or parking. A massive fuel tax would go a long way in all categories by getting people to mode switch and travel less. And no one’s saying that states couldn’t do that.
I also had a driving related thought at work. I work on the 7th floor of my building. We have two banks of elevators, one serving floors 1-14 and another serving the first floor and floors 15 and up. There are 6 elevators in our bank. To understand the problem with single commuters, do a little thought experiment. Pretend that the elevators would each take only one person at a time. imagine what a disaster it would be. Think about the relationship here.
Squish is definitely what happens in the meeting between massive SUV and smaller car. We were the middle car of a three-car pile-up a couple of summers ago. The lead vehicle was a Lexus SUV. Our mid-sized rental car knocked the spare tire off the back of the SUV, but if even a dent was left on the body of the vehicle, I didn’t see it. Our vehicle looked like an accordian. The vehicle behind us was pretty well caved in in front as well. And given the damage to our vehicle, if it hadn’t been something as massive and well-built in front of us, that vehicle would have been pretty well dented, too.
I’m all for station wagons. Mini-vans do have their strengths, though. And then you think about vehicles like the Spewick. That’s a very solid body, and protective of passengers, because that’s how they made them back then. Could we still produce vehicle bodies like that with more efficient engines?
Minivans don’t weight that much, but for some reason, usually get horrific mileage.
If you’re even interested, sometime, look at the vehicle fatality rates for the Ford Windstar (minivan) compared to a full-size Ford truck. You’re 10-1 better off in the minivan, with less mass, in an accident.
I wonder what the denominator is. Number of cars sold or number of cars in an accident? Because if it’s number of cars sold, you have to consider possible bias introduced by any possible difference in accident rates between SUV drivers and van drivers (among other variables…)
That’s comparing for every thousand vehicles sold. Mass isn’t the most important factor in surviving a crash.
Trucks are basically two I-beams with an engine and seats bolted to them. Minivans are built on a frame designed to give; crumple zones.
SUV’s built on a truck body are likely to kill you in a serious accident, and likely to roll over pretty damn easily. SUV’s built on a car body are much more like minivans in this respect, but can’t haul half of the weight of the full size SUV’s.
Yeah, but the statistic is a bad demonstration of that. Minivan owners may drive very differently from SUV owners. Having the denominator as accidents rather than sales would probably work out better.
I’m sorry, I’m misspeaking all over the place today.
The denominator is by accident. Out of every thousand accidents in a Ford Windstar compared to every thousand accidents in a full size truck, the Windstar has about one-tenth of the fatalities, apparently.
This is from memory, and being stunned at reading through the numbers about a year ago, so I could be wrong, but that’s what I’ve got.
It just occurred to me that this may be even more remarkable because I imagine vans to typically contain more passengers. Hmmm. Suggesting a better metric of fatalities / (passenger*accident), or a 1 if there are any fatalities. Statistics is always a tricky topic.
Essentially, you know how trucks don’t have to meet emissions standards the same way cars do?
Large SUVs are like full-size trucks. Minivans got placed with the cars.
Large SUV’s and full-size trucks don’t have to meet the same safety standards, either. They’re not as safe as they are portrayed by the auto industry. They do have a *much* higher markup, though.
Well and of course, much like vehicles you might have been driving (I assume a u-haul truck), wouldn’t be regulated by the CA CO2 rulings. At least not yet. Still, passenger automobile CO2 emissions are nothing to sneeze at – so its good to see some progress being made. Perhaps other states will adopt as well – and soon.
As far as increased fuel efficiency encouraging people to drive more, I would think people generally drive where they need/want to based on traffic patterns and what they need to do. My hunch is that “gallons consumed” by a trip is of notably less concern. If people were more concerned about ::really:: reducing their gas consumed you would see behavioral changes – such as reducing the “accelerate to the red light” driving habits(especially SUV owners with those huge engines). I’ve not seen much change here.
I’m not quite sure I understand your elevator analogy – since highways are inherantly much more parallel than an elevator. I agree that carpooling is generally good – just not sure if that’s really a close enough analogy to be persuasive.
It’s the question of 1 person to a vehicle (or elevator car) vs 6 or more. Lines in the lobby or no lines in the lobby. That’s the similarity.
My only issue with the elevator analogy is that, unlike the lobby floor, commuters don’t all start from the same point.
However, it is well taken, and to a large extent that can be answered by the various Park’n’Ride type mass transit options available, at least in/around metropolitan areas.
(Not that Shanghai has anything like that — traffic here just gets worse, and worse, and worse — but they are also steadily expanding the subway lines, thank goodness, even if it still isn’t anywhere near as good as Manhattan. But then, few places are… for all the people here, density in Manhattan is higher.)