IIHS: CO2 Rules Need CAFE Index

One of the Nation's Leading Safety advocates says if the U.S. government ditches corporate average fuel economy standards in favor of rules limiting carbon-dioxide emissions, as the new Obama Admin. has suggested in recent weeks, regulators must retain a weight/sizing index or risk an uptick in injuries and deaths from car crashes.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety President Adrian Lund also thinks the nation should lower the speed limit and reiterates the group's desire to raise the legal age for teen drivers.

Lund says that after the federal government peeled back the national speed limit to 55 mph (89 km/h) in 1973 as a response to that era's oil crisis, the nation booked significant fuel savings and witnessed an average of 3,000 to 5,000 fewer crashes annually in subsequent years.

Some argue differently, saying the law led to more speeders, and 14 years later the limit was increased to 65 mph (105 km/h). In 1995, the law was repealed altogether and most states switched to a highway speed limit of 70 mph (113 km/h), with a number of Western states hiking the limit to 80 mph (129 km/h).

Washington law makers occasionally have raised the possibility of pulling the limit back down to 65 mph, talk that typically has coincided with increases in gasoline prices.

But Lund says the safety benefits are clear, and with expectations for gasoline prices to increase again once the U.S. comes out of its recession, instituting a lowered national speed limit would be a smart move because last summer's record-high gas prices didn't slow motorists.

“Anecdotally, I can say people aren't driving slower,” Lund says, noting the roads he travels around Washington are less congested, freeing remaining drivers to go faster. And while he reports fewer crashes since last summer — “a silver lining” to the recession — Lund expects speeding to occur more frequently in the coming years.

“People are getting busier; they have less time in their day,” he tells the recent Society of Automotive Engineer's Government/Industry Meeting in Washington.

Lund also suggests automated enforcement of speed limits, “to make the limits we have now real.

“Anybody who thinks the speed limit on the Beltway around Washington is 55 (mph) is kidding themselves,” he says.

Lund also reiterates his group's desire to see an increase in the licensing age of U.S. drivers to as high as 18 years old from the 16 to 16.5 years required in most states. The IIHS considers it the best way to reduce crashes involving beginner motorists, but also a way to conserve fuel and regain green space by shrinking high school parking lots.

“That does mean Mom and Dad would have to be the taxi for a little longer,” he says.

Other ways to reduce fuel consumption and improve safety, Lund says, include using more roundabouts to alleviate congestion; limiting the horsepower or governing the acceleration potential of vehicles; and ordering auto makers to reduce the “damageability” of vehicles in low-speed crashes through measures such as bumpers that “really bump” so highway fender-benders don't lead to miles of traffic backups.

“Crashes are backing people up, they're sitting there waiting for the accident to clear,” Lund says, admitting the insurance industry also would realize a significant gain from such an action. “Less damage in low-speed events would allow people to just drive on.”

Lund makes these suggestions and others to demonstrate ways to save fuel and lives, without shaving weight from a vehicle.

For example, after Congress enacted CAFE in 1975, fuel consumption dropped as auto makers took weight out of their vehicles. But by 1993, the number of fatal crashes in the U.S. annually grew by 1,300 to 1,600, suggesting mass saves lives.

For that reason, Lund says, if the nation moves to a single national standard regulating tailpipe CO2 emissions and discards CAFE, it should retain the weight/sizing index regulators were to include in formulas for determining new standards.

Previously, CAFE standards did not take into consideration a vehicle's weight and size, also referred to as its “footprint.”

The new formula means manufacturers of larger cars and trucks likely would be required to meet less stringent fuel economy bogeys, but Lund says it would keep auto makers from simply building lighter passenger cars that jeopardize the safety of lower-income families relying on cheaper and, oftentimes, smaller vehicles.

“The increased risk of the old CAFE regulations really came from insensitivity to vehicle attributes,” he says. “(The new CAFE) focuses auto makers on fuel-efficient technologies, rather than putting people into smaller, lighter vehicles. Now every vehicle must become more fuel efficient.”

Lund also reports crash data on hybrid vehicles remains too small for the IIHS, or the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin., to make any reasonable determination regarding their level of safety compared with conventional vehicles.

“We need to sell more, but we have no evidence” hybrids are less safe than conventional cars and trucks, he says. “They are very similar vehicles.”

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