[TestDrive]

Originally Posted by dcb

Yup, The solution isn't bigger vehicles, the solution is better drivers.

I basically agree, but suspect the solution is more complicated than a single change. In the case of better drivers, the question is what laws/regulations should be enacted to produce them.

Originally Posted by doviatt

Another thought...all of this safety gear and design in newer cars (including the perception of weight=safety) doesn't reduce accidents only the survivability of an accident. Imagine what would happen if they spent more time and money to educate drivers (slow down, awareness) and actually reduce the amount of accidents and the severity of these. Address the cause not the symptom.

Awareness is the crux of the matter, but may be the most difficult change to implement.

The later half of the report had some similar suggestions regarding speed.

Setting higher federal fuel economy targets isn’t the only way to conserve fuel. How about lowering speed limits? Going slower uses less fuel to cover the same distance. There’s a big safety bonus, too, that’s evident in the experience of the 1970-80s (see Status Report, Nov. 22, 2003; on the
web at iihs.org).

Goaded by federal lawmakers, every state adopted 55 mph speed limits on interstate highways in 1974. The impetus was the 1973 oil embargo, and the idea was to conserve fuel by slowing down motorists until automakers
could build cars that use less gas. The immediate effect was to save thousands of barrels of fuel per day — and thousands of lives. In
fact, highway deaths declined about 20 percent the first year, from 55,511 in 1973 to 46,402 in 1974. The National Research Council estimated that most of the reduction was due to the lower speed limit, and the rest was because of reduced travel. By 1983 the national maximum 55 mph limit still was saving 2,000 to 4,000 lives annually.

With the oil crisis a thing of the past by the middle of the 1980s, Congress lifted pressure on states to retain 55. Speed limits began going up in 1987, and so did occupant deaths in crashes. Fifteen to 30 percent increases
were documented.

“The national maximum speed limit was adopted to save fuel, but it turned out to be one of the most dramatic safety successes in motor vehicle history,” Lund points out. “The political will to reinstate it probably is lacking, but if policymakers want a win-win approach, this is it. It saves fuel and lives at the same time.”

Nobody in this thread has mentioned it thus far, but I also find this portion of the report agreeable.

Another way to serve both safety and fuel economy would be to curtail the horsepower race. Only a few cars used to be capable of 300 horsepower, but now many cars match this. Average horsepower is 70 percent higher than it was in the mid-1980s, and some of today’s high performance cars surpass the power of even the muscle cars of the 1960-70s. If an automaker were forced to use engine-enhancing technology to improve fuel efficiency instead of to boost performance, safety would improve, too, because vehicles with souped-up horsepower are associated with increased injury risk (see Status Report, April 22, 2006; on the web at iihs.org).