When I drive down to Fort Hood to work every week I drive a Minnie Winnebago, which is a 30 foot long legal vehicle on the road that weighs more than 10,000 pounds. I go past these people in their little put putts, in some cases not more than a covered, colorful lawnmower. What are they thinkin’?
I have a UTV, which is a 4 wheel drive all terrain vehicle up grade from a golfcart–and it’s more sturdy than these things that people are driving on the roads.
Is this some kind of statement–for these people who are all anxious about the threatened risk of warming, which might actually make their older lives more comfortable if they live that long and if warming actually occurs.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/01/greenies_and_their_twisted_sense_of_risk.html
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My point is they are at risk. My vehicle is large because that’s what it is, so I sleep in it at work, a long way from home.
However I could have just as easily said, what are they thinking driving on the road with nothing to protect them from the hit they would take just for going 40 or 50 miles an hour if they ran into something.
I drive a heavy vehicle to work so I can sleep in it. It’s not as heavy as the trucks on the road, but weight provides crash protection. These smart cars are able to go fast enough that the lack of crash protection is a real problem. What are they thinking is what I said–a foolish gesture for fuel economy?
Fuel economy is down since the early 80s?
The number of deaths and terrible injuries from lighter vehicles is not theoretical, it’s real.
Somebody said, well what about motorcycles–yes–and by a matter of degrees don’t get in a wreck on a motorcycle or you will find out how much your body can take.
Remember I started practicing emergency medicine before seat belts–used to see a lot of terrible facial and head injuries. Now I worry will see more lethal total body injuries–pelvic and trunkal injuries that will kill and of course more complicated and devastating extremity injuries. Belts and bags and safety barriers have made a big difference, and seeing these light things on the road is troublesome.
This is the first time I have ever disagreed with one of your posts.
Just because you drive a huge vehicle that threatens others around you doesn’t make them wrong. You have the right to drive yours – they have the right to drive theirs.
Making cars lighter increases gas mileage tremendously. Weight is the greatest factor in lowering gas mileage.
In the late 70′s, early 80′s plastic bumpers, etc. lowered the weight of cars by 100′s of pounds and many early 80′s cars got better mileage than cars today. I had a Mercury Lynx that regularly beat 40 mpg on the highway – but weighed around 2200 pounds – today’s Honda Civics are over 3000 pounds.
Why did gas mileage go down after the early 80′s? In this order.
1. Government safety requirements added back the several hundred pounds of weight, and then some. I am not against safety–but as Milton Friedman said, there is no free lunch.
2. Ethanol – a lot less mileage per volume than gasoline – with no real benefits.
3. SUV craze – most people buy SUV’s to protect themselves from other SUV’s. It is scary to drive around in a small, light car these days.
4. Heavier people? No doubt about it. A car with 700 pounds of people will get worse mileage than a car with 500 pounds.
Today’s engines are much better than 30 years ago – but carrying all that weight has prevented them from achieving the gains we should have accomplished a long time ago.
People don’t think about crash worthiness of those cars, or like the Smart car, they have some unbelievable crash rating info. A while back I had the misfortune to meet a Henrico County Dodge Neon running a red light. Quite a bit of damage done to my Tahoe and I had a sprained finger. The driver of the Neon had broken legs, pelvis, cracked vertebra among other things and that car is bigger than the cars in the article. Size matters.
Disclosure: I drove a VW Bug for 10 years back in the 70’s. Really, great car for crashes. And for my second childhood, Mazda Miata, which isn’t even rated by these guys. It’s about the size of the riding mower my wife said I didn’t need. But I’m indestructible.
True. If the free market were responsible for the choice, that’d be fine. The problem is that government mandates for mileage targets, emissions regulations, tax breaks, and gas price fixing have more to do with most people’s decision to avoid a large, all-steel vehicle than any concern for the environment.
I am all for people having the freedom to buy flimsy, high mileage vehicles with no crush space.
I rode on for years.
It’s called a motorcycle.