Copyright 1999 Gannett Company, Inc.
USA TODAY
July 2, 1999, Friday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: MONEY; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 2647 words
HEADLINE:
Death by the gallon
BYLINE: James R. Healey
BODY:
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A USA TODAY analysis of
previously unpublished fatality statistics
discovers that 46,000 people have
died because of a 1970s-era
push for greater fuel efficiency that has led to
smaller cars.
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Californian James Bragg, who helps other
people buy cars, knows
he'll squirm when his daughter turns 16.
"She's going to want a little Chevy Cavalier or something. I'd
rather take the same 10 to 12 thousand bucks and put it into a
3-year-old (full-size Mercury) Grand Marquis, for safety.
"I
want to go to her high school graduation, not her funeral."
Hundreds
of people are killed in small-car wrecks each year who
would survive in just
slightly bigger, heavier vehicles, government
and insurance industry
research shows.
More broadly, 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. The law and the corporate
average fuel
economy (CAFE) standards it imposed have improved
fuel efficiency. The average of passenger vehicles on U.S. roads
is 20
miles per gallon vs. 14 mpg in 1975.
But the cost has been roughly
7,700 deaths for every mile per
gallon gained, the analysis shows.
Small cars -- those no bigger or heavier than Chevrolet Cavalier
or Dodge Neon -- comprise 18% of all vehicles on the road, according
to
an analysis of R.L. Polk registration data. Yet they accounted
for 37% of
vehicle deaths in 1997 -- 12,144 people -- according
to latest available
government figures. That's about twice the
death rate in big cars, such as
Dodge Intrepid, Chevrolet Impala,
Ford Crown Victoria.
"We have
a small-car problem. If you want to solve the safety
puzzle, get rid of
small cars," says Brian O'Neill, president
of the Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety. The institute,
supported by auto insurers, crash-tests more
vehicles, more violently,
than all but the federal government.
Little cars have big disadvantages in crashes. They have less
space to absorb crash forces. The less the car absorbs, the more
the
people inside have to.
And small cars don't have the weight to
protect themselves in
crashes with other vehicles. When a small car and a
larger one
collide, the bigger car stops abruptly; that's bad enough. But
the little one slams to a stop, then instantly and violently accelerates
backward as the heavier car's momentum powers into it. People
inside the
lighter car experience body-smashing levels of force
in two directions,
first as their car stops moving forward, then
as it reverses. In the heavier
car, bodies are subjected to less-destructive
deceleration and no
"bounce-back."
The regulations don't mandate small cars. But small,
lightweight
vehicles that can perform satisfactorily using low-power,
fuel-efficient
engines are the only affordable way automakers have found to
meet
the CAFE (pronounced ka-FE) standards.
Some automakers
acknowledge the danger.
"A small car, even with the best engineering
available -- physics
says a large car will win," says Jack Collins, Nissan's
U.S.
marketing chief.
Tellingly, most small-car crash deaths
involve only small cars
-- 56% in 1997, from the latest government data.
They run into
something else, such as a tree, or into one another.
In contrast, just 1% of small-car deaths -- 136 people -- occurred
in crashes with midsize or big sport-utility vehicles in '97,
according
to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, the
agency that enforces safety and fuel-efficiency
rules. NHTSA does not
routinely publish that information. It performed
special data calculations
at USA TODAY's request.
Champions of small cars like to point out
that even when the SUV
threat is unmasked, other big trucks remain a
nemesis. NHTSA data
shows, however, that while crashes with pickups, vans
and commercial
trucks accounted for 28% of small-car deaths in '97, such
crashes
also accounted for 36% of large-car deaths.
Others argue
that small cars attract young, inexperienced drivers.
There's some truth
there, but not enough to explain small cars'
out-of-proportion deaths. About
36% of small-car drivers involved
in fatal crashes in 1997 were younger than
25; and 25% of the
drivers of all vehicles involved in fatal wrecks were
that age,
according to NHTSA data.
Gas shortage worries
U.S. motorists have flirted with small cars for years, attracted,
in small numbers, to nimble handling, high fuel economy and low
prices
that make them the only new cars some people can afford.
"Small cars
fit best into some consumers' pocketbooks and driveways,"
says Clarence
Ditlow, head of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer-activist
organization
in Washington.
Engineer and construction manager Kirk Sandvoss of
Springfield,
Ohio, who helped two family members shop for subcompacts
recently,
says that's all the car needed.
"We built three houses
with a VW bug and a utility trailer. We
made more trips to the lumber yard
than a guy with a pickup truck
would, but we got by. Small cars will always
be around."
But small cars have an erratic history in the USA. They
made the
mainstream only when the nation panicked over fuel shortages and
high prices starting in 1973. The 1975 energy act and fuel efficiency
standards were the government response to that panic. Under
current CAFE standards, the fuel economy of all new cars an automaker
sells in the USA must average at least 27.5 mpg. New light trucks
--
pickups, vans and sport-utility vehicles -- must average 20.7
mpg.
Automakers who fall short are fined.
In return, "CAFE has an almost
lethal effect on auto safety,"
says Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich., who sides
with the anti-CAFE
sentiments of his home-state auto industry. Each year,
starting
with fiscal 1996, he has successfully inserted language into
spending
authorization bills that prohibits using federal transportation
money to tighten fuel standards.
Even if small cars were safe,
there are reasons to wonder about
fuel-economy rules:
*
Questionable results. 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.
* Irrelevance. Emerging fuel
technologies could make the
original intent obsolete, not only by making it
easier to recover
oil from remote places, but also by converting plentiful
fuels,
such as natural gas, into clean-burning, competitively priced
fuel. And new technology is making bigger, safer cars more fuel
efficient. The full-size Dodge Intrepid, with V-6 engine, automatic
transmission, air conditioning and power accessories, hits the
average
27.5 mpg.
"Improved fuel economy doesn't necessarily mean lighter,
inherently
less-safe vehicles," says Robert Shelton, associate administrator
of NHTSA.
* Cost. Developing and marketing small cars siphons
billions
of dollars from the auto industry. Small cars don't cost automakers
much less to design, develop and manufacture than bigger, more-profitable
vehicles. But U.S. buyers won't pay much for small cars, often
demanding
rebates that wipe out the $ 500 to $ 1,000 profit.
Consumers pay,
too. Though small cars cost less, they also depreciate
faster, so are worth
relatively less at trade-in time. And collision
insurance is more expensive.
State Farm, the biggest auto insurer,
charges small-car owners 10% to 45%
more than average for collision
and damage coverage. Owners of big cars and
SUVs get discounts
up to 45%. "It's based on experience," spokesman Dave
Hurst
says.
CAFE has been "a bad mistake, one really bad
mistake. It didn't
meet any of the goals, and it distorted the hell out of
the (new-car)
market," says Jim Johnston, fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington and retired General Motors vice president
who
lobbied against the 1975 law.
Here to stay
CAFE is
resilient, although concern over its effect on small-car
safety is neither
new nor narrow.
A 1992 report by the National Research Council, an
arm of the
National Academy of Sciences, says that while better fuel economy
generally is good, "the undesirable attributes of the CAFE system
are
significant," and CAFE deserves reconsideration.
A NHTSA study
completed in 1995 notes: "During the past 18 years,
the office of Technology
Assessment of the United States Congress,
the National Safety Council, the
Brookings Institution, the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety, the
General Motors Research Laboratories
and the National Academy of Sciences
all agreed that reductions
in the size and weight of passenger cars pose a
safety threat."
Yet there's no serious move to kill CAFE standards.
Automakers can't lobby too loudly for fear of branding their small
cars unsafe, inviting negative publicity and lawsuits. And Congress
doesn't want to offend certain factions by appearing too cavalier
about
fuel economy. Nor, understandably, does it want to acknowledge
its law has
been deadly.
"I'm concerned about those statistics about small cars,
but I
don't think we should blame that on the CAFE standards," says
Rep.
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who supported CAFE and remains a
proponent.
Pressure, in fact, is for tougher standards.
Thirty-one
senators, mainly Democrats, signed a letter earlier
this year urging
President Clinton to back higher CAFE standards.
And environmental lobbyists
favor small cars as a way to inhibit
global warming.
Although
federal anti-pollution regulations require that big cars
emit no more
pollution per mile than small cars, environmental
activists seize on this:
Small engines typical of small cars burn
less fuel, so they emit less carbon
dioxide.
Carbon dioxide, or CO[-2], is a naturally occurring gas
that's
not considered a pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency,
which regulates auto pollution.
But those worried about global
warming say CO[-2] is a culprit
and should be regulated via tougher CAFE
rules.
Activists especially fume that trucks, though used like cars,
have a more lenient CAFE requirement, resulting in more CO[-2].
"People would be much safer in bigger cars. In fact, they'd be
very safe in Ford Excursions," says Jim Motavalli, editor of
E: The
Environmental Magazine, referring to a large sport-utility
vehicle Ford
Motor plans to introduce in September. "But are
we all supposed to drive
around in tanks? You'd be creating that
much more global-warming gas. I
demonize sport utilities," says
Motavalli, also a car enthusiast and author
of the upcoming book
Forward Drive: The Race to Build the Car of the
Future.Not
all scientists agree that CO[-2] causes global warming or
that
warming is occurring.
Seeking alternatives
Worldwide, the market is big enough to keep small cars in business,
despite the meager U.S. small-car market of 2 million a year.
Outside
the USA, roads are narrow and gas is $ 5 a gallon, so Europeans
buy 5
million small cars a year; Asians, 2.6 million.
Automakers are
working on lightweight bigger cars that could use
small engines, fuel-cell
electric vehicles and diesel-electric
hybrid power plants that could run big
cars using little fuel.
But marketable U.S. versions are five, or
more likely 10, years
off. That's assuming development continues,
breakthroughs occur
and air-pollution rules aren't tightened so much they
eliminate
diesels.
Even those dreamboats won't resolve the
conflict between fuel
economy and safety. Their light weight means they'll
have the
same sudden-stop and bounce-back problems as small cars. Improved
safety belts and air bags that could help have not been developed.
IIHS researchers Adrian Lund and Janella Chapline reported at
the Society of Automotive Engineers' convention in Detroit in
March that
it would be safer to get rid of the smallest vehicles,
not the largest.
Drawing on crash research from eight countries, Lund and Chapline
predicted that if all cars and trucks weighing less than 2,500
pounds
were replaced by slightly larger ones weighing 2,500 to
2,600 pounds, there
would be "nearly 3% fewer fatalities, or
an estimated savings of more than
700 lives" a year. That's like
trading a 1989 Honda Civic, which weighs
2,000 pounds, for a '99
Civic, at 2,500 pounds.
Conversely, the
researches conclude, eliminating the largest cars,
SUVs and pickups, and
putting their occupants into the next-size-smaller
cars, SUVs and pickups
would kill about 300 more people a year.
Market skepticism
U.S. consumers, culturally prejudiced in favor of bigness, aren't
generally interested in small cars these days:
Car-buying expert
Bragg -- author of Car Buyer's and Leaser's
Negotiating Bible --
says few customers even ask about small
cars.
Small-car sales
are half what they were in their mid-'80s heyday.
Just 7% of new-vehicle
shoppers say they'll consider a small car,
according to a 1999 study by
California-based auto industry consultant
AutoPacific. That would cut
small-car sales in half. Those who
have small cars want out: 82% won't buy
another.
To Bragg, the reasons are obvious: "People need a back seat
that
holds more than a six-pack and a pizza. And, there's the safety
issue."
That hits home with Tennessee dad George Poe. He went
car shopping
with teen-age daughter Bethanie recently and, at her
insistence,
came home with a 1999 Honda Civic.
"If it would have
been entirely up to me, I'd have put her into
a used Volvo or, thinking
strictly as a parent, a Humvee."
Myths about small cars
Myths about small cars are strong. Here are two of the most common
and why they are wrong:
1 Small cars have a high death rate
because they get hit by
those big sport-utility vehicles all over the roads.
Fact: In 1997, latest-available government data, 56% of
small-car
fatalities involved only small cars: 46% from single-car
crashes, 10% from
small cars running into each other. Just 1%
of small-car deaths in 1997
involved collisions with midsize and
large SUVs -- 136 out of 12,144 total
small-car deaths that year.
2 Small cars are necessary because they
pollute less than big
cars.
Fact: Federal regulations impose the
same pollution restrictions
on all cars, big and small. The limits are
stated in "grams per
mile" of acceptable pollution, not in grams per gallon
of fuel
burned. Thus, a large Lincoln Town Car with a V-8 engine can't
legally pollute more in a mile, or 10 miles, or 1,000 miles, than
a tiny
Chevrolet Metro with a three-cylinder engine driven the
same distance.
Beetle shines in rating of crashworthiness
The Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety, a research organization
supported by auto
insurers, has found only one small car that
"turned in a good overall
performance" in IIHS 40-mile-per-hour
crash tests -- the 1998-99 Volkswagen
New Beetle. IIHS named the
car a "best pick," a designation not given any
other small car.
Here, in order, is how IIHS rates other
recent-model small cars
it has tested for overall crashworthiness.
Average
'99 VW Jetta/Golf
'96-'99 Honda Civic
'98-'99 Toyota Corolla/Chevrolet Prizm
'98-'99 Hyundai
Elantra
'97-'99 Ford Escort/Mercury Tracer
'95-'99
Saturn SL
'98-'99 Nissan Sentra
'99 Mazda
Protégé
Marginal
'00 dodge/Plymouth
Neon
Poor
'97-'99 Mitsubishi Mirage
'98-'99 Kia
Sephia
FOR TEXT WITHIN GRAPHIC "What is a small
car?" PLEASE
SEE MICROFICHE
GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC, Color,
Illustration by Jim Sergent, USA TODAY; PHOTO, Color, Insurance Institute For
Highway; GRAPHIC, B/W, Alejandro Gonzalez, USA TODAY, Source: Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety; PHOTO, B/W, AP
LOAD-DATE:
July 02, 1999 
