Another argument about CAF� that has become popular among the auto hacks and their political allies is that fuel efficiency is dangerous. When the House voted on raising CAFE standards for SUVS, the Times quoted Billy Tauzin, the petro point man in the house, as saying "This amendment will end up killing Americans." The argument goes like this: since the automakers have unleashed a flood of heavier �light trucks� on the roads, small cars are less safe. And so any attempt to reduce the throw weight of a car, now, is a sort of unilateral disarmament in the arms race. Of course, this argument is in itself a little screwy. In fact, it is the logic of power Detroit always, in the last resort, relies upon. It is as if a bankrobber were to argue that since he now is in effective possession of the bank�s money, there�s no sense in preventing him from investing it. USA today published a canonical, and influential, version of this script in an article by their automobile journalist, James Healy, Death by the Gallon, in 1999.
. The article�s point is summed up like this:
�� 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. �
Small cars �pouring� onto the roads? And big cars shrinking to �less safe sizes�? I suppose one should parse this sentence the way one parses Clinton�s court testimony. Big cars aren�t the equivalent of �light trucks,� so possibly the throw weight of your average Mercury Lincoln has been modified, although isn�t there something, well, pre-formed about describing downsizing as shrinking it to a �less safe size?�

The sensational news in the USA piece, widely quoted, is that there are �roughly 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained, the analysis shows.�

Notice, of course, the assumption that auto emissions are harmless � that the increase in emissions from cars cause no loss of life to be measured against the 7,700 deaths. Air pollution, subtext is, is a airy fairy issue � I mean, who dies from ingesting a few thousand pounds more CO2 every year?
As for that number and its link to CAFE standards � even Healy is a little nervous about the direct correlation, since it implies
1. the only way to make a car more fuel efficient is to downsize it.
and
2. that materials technology has not advanced a whit from 1975.
In fact, outside of the Auto industry, it certainly has. Bill Lovens, who has been working on the clean car for years, has advocated using carbon fiber technology, instead of moving to aluminum alloys � Detroit�s favorite way to shave car weight. Instead of spending billions on robotic factories that don�t make money, GM could have spent the equivalent sum re-designing smaller cars with safer and lighter materials.
But Detroit has always played a passive aggressive game when it comes to auto manufacture. When the California Air Resource Board, in the early nineties, mandated a certain percentage of zero emission vehicles, Detroit grumblingly created some Evs, which they then priced exorbitantly and closed down as soon as they could � the latest victim being a GM EV that it claims was not selling, although it refuses to back up that claim by showing any records. Similarly, it is due to Detroit that we play this game of trading off fuel efficiency against safety.
Healy�s article goes on to make a curiously schizophrenic point � that small cars are no match for large cars, or trucks, so that they are unsafe by physical law - but that the majority of small car fatalities don�t involve crashing into large SUVs, or trucks. After all, point one leads to asking about point two � where did these large vehicles come from? Since the article�s premise is that there has been a general downsizing of �cars,� it renders the real composition of the road unintelligible. But the reality principle demands that you admit that, yes Virginia, the real question isn�t larger �automobiles� � it is the monstrous �large trucks� which have infested the road and made driving in a smaller vehicle more hazardous.
The report�s odd logic when it comes to the safety of small cars becomes positively bizarre when it lays out the case againt CAF�. It notes that �CAFE and its small cars have not reduced overall U.S. gasoline and diesel fuel consumption as hoped. A strong economy and growing population have increased consumption. The U.S. imports more oil now than when the standards were imposed.� Really? You freeze a standard for twenty years, you make a loophole for the largest percentage of vehicle sold, and you don�t reduce oil consumption? My god, call the presses!

As for USA�s statistical analysis, it is disputed. Paul Rauber of Sierra Magazine responded to Healey�s article:

�The General Accounting Office studied the same basic data as USA Today and declared that "it is not true that cars become more dangerous simply by becoming lighter." Nor is that the main reason they're becoming more fuel efficient; rather, 86 percent of fuel-efficiency improvement is the result of technological innovation." CAFE does not dictate vehicle size, weight, or safety," says Dan Becker, head of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy campaign. "Automakers do." Cars have become twice as fuel efficient since CAFE was instituted, he points out, but automobile death rates have been cut in half�

With all the demos against the WTO and the G8 - demos that I heartily approve of - its the phalanxes of the auto industry that really determine what is going to be done about our atmospheric deterioration. Instead of to the barricades, may I suggest: to the auto-lot?