by Christopher Mims. An economist at UC San Diego has made a startling finding: The peculiarly American system of having one fuel efficiency standard for cars and a different, less stringent one for SUVs and trucks is increasing highway fatalities. The problem is that under the existing, two-tiered system, increases in fuel efficiency standards force car makers to shrink cars even faster than they shrink trucks and SUVs (which by law have to remain above a certain weight, anyway). This means a greater disparity in the size of cars and trucks/SUVs, which leads to more fatalities as giant tanks kick efficient little hatchbacks all over the road. Indeed, economist Mark Jacobsen estimates that under the existing system, every 1 MPG increase in efficiency standards leads to 150 additional traffic fatalities per year. Or in other words, one additional Joplin, Missouri per year. Jacobsen's solution is as simple as it is elegant: Mandate a single, unified fuel efficiency standard for all cars and trucks, and peg it to the average MPG of the entire U.S. fleet of vehicles. Under this standard, every 1 MPG increase in efficiency would lead to only 5.6 percent as many deaths as our current standard, or about 8 per year. To reduce that, people might have to learn to drive without crashing into each other.

Go here to read the rest:
Double standard for fuel efficiency is literally killing Americans

More on SKCEA.org:

• Critical List: $4 billion for energy efficiency; SUVs rise again
  by Sarah Laskow. President Obama and former President Clinton are announcing $4 billion to make buildings more energy efficient over the next two years. A fierce wind storm hit the West yesterday, taking down trees and fanning fires. Coke ditched those white, pro-polar bear holi...
• Green Party candidate’s mother calls for tougher laws on hit-and-run
  by Sarah Goodyear. The mother of Natasha Pettigrew, the Green Party candidate for Senate in Maryland who was killed by the driver of an SUV while riding her bike earlier this week, is mourning the loss of her daughter....
• Green doesn’t sell to mouth-breathing Americans, says CEO of GE
  by Christopher Mims. GE is making billions of dollars selling the world wind turbines and energy-efficient technology, so it's a little surprising to hear that the biggest regret of its CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is all that hippy-dippy talk at the center of the company's Ecom...
• Infographic: How many jobs would solar create?
  by Jess Zimmerman. Stronger solar policies could create over 100,000 jobs in just a few years, according to ...
• Critical List: Kyoto will expire with no successor; Rock climbers scale wind turbines
  by Sarah Laskow. Global fail: The Kyoto Protocol will expire without a deal to take its place, the top UN climate official said yesterday. China's own Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a report that the country's not doing so hot on the environmental front. Th...