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As an American I'm OK with our government regulations around diesel automobiles. We have too much pollution already. We have just switched to a cleaner diesel fuel and it has cost us a fortune.
Hopefully this will pave the way for more fuel efficient European automobiles. I don't want them here until they can meet our emission standards.
America has historically had counterproductive safety and efficiency standards. Our safety standards cause our automobiles to be heavy and inefficient. When faced with a choice between safety and efficiency our legislature always lets efficiency standards slip in favor of safety.
I was at a symposium of automobile designers and one of them stated that the American 5mph impact with no damage standard "costs" 500 lbs and 20% fuel mileage. He stated that a 20% gain in fuel efficiency was well worth telling Americans to stop bumping in to things in parking lots!
It is not true that America requires 50 cars for crash testing of all cars. The most famous case of this is the Porsche 959. Porsche tried to qualify it as a 911. America said no and asked for one of them to crash test. Porsche only made 200 of them and decided it was not worth crash testing one since they could sell all of them outside of America. Two Microsoft VPs bought one 959 each and tried to sneak them in through Canada. America customs seized them and held on to them for several years. Finally one of the VPs decided to allow his 959 be used for crash testing in order for the other one to be allowed in the country. Plus there were a handful of 959s coming on to the used market so he could (afford to) replace it. It was a dark day when America crash tested that 959. It passed the test. His buddy was allowed to bring the other 959 in to America and now they are legally available here.
Here is a really classic American misunderstanding of automobile safety. We now have the Smart Car. It is typically met with skepticism and disdain. I tell people that actually it has one of the best 70mph impact survivability of any car and that I saw it crashed at 70 mph on Top Gear and the passenger compartment was barely deformed and the doors still worked. "I just feel a lot safer in my Ford Explorer if I were to get in an accident". Actually the Ford Explorer has the highest fatality rate of any automobile on American roads by a wide margin.
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