Daily Gut: Deadly Dreams in Tiny Cars

So according to MSNBC, President Obama is enjoying amazing support from “an uncommon alliance of auto executives, union leaders and environmental activists” concerning is new proposal to raise mileage standards and curb vehicle emissions.

But if you look at this support, you can see why it`s as pathetic as spoilers on a Yugo.

Of course, the auto executives are behind it, because the government is paying them to be behind it. For the union leaders and environmentalists, it just means a preservation of power and an increase in influence. The only people missing from this equation? The rest of America. They will pay with their wallets, and their lives.

According to the experts, Obama`s proposals will add about $1300 in costs to every car. How that helps an industry during a bottomless recession is beyond me. Worse, the National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards to roughly 2000 deaths per year. According to Steve Milloy, the author of Green Hell, every 100 pound reduction in the weight of small cars causes traffic fatalities to rise as much as 715 per year. He claims that Obama`s proposed plan will kill more Americans at a faster rate than the Iraq War. He might be right: last month, for example, crash tests found that drivers of the 2009 versions of so-called Smart cars- basically sardine cans without the odor or the protection – could suffer serious injuries in front-end crashes with larger, mid-size vehicles. (more…)