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Briefing Paper De-Bunking Safety and Fuel Economy Myths

    This memorandum lays out the recent legislative history of fuel economy and presents issues in the fuel economy and safety debate.

I.     Legislative Events Relevant to Fuel Economy and Safety

 In the Senate floor debate over S. 517 (“The National Laboratories Partnership Improvement Act of 2001”), Senators John Kerry (D-MA), and John McCain (R-AZ) offered as an amendment but withdrew before a vote the “National Fuel Savings and Security Act of 2002” in the spring of 2002.   The amendment contained, among other provisions, fuel economy standards, improved fuel economy testing procedures, and improved vehicle crashworthiness. 

 The amendment would have required the Secretary of Transportation, after consultation with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to set fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, beginning with model year 2005, to reach a combined average fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon by 2015.   The measure also redefined light trucks to include vehicles up to 10,000 lbs.

 The amendment required EPA to examine the accuracy of fuel economy testing and the degree of change in vehicle fuel economy over the life of the vehicle, and to submit a report on the results to the Congress.

 The amendment also included provisions to ensure the safety of cars and light trucks.   It required the NHTSA to issue:

    1) Safety standards for rollover crashworthiness that would include dynamic roof crush standards, improved seat structure and safety belt design, side impact head protection air bags, and roof injury protection measures; and

    2) A safety standard to reduce the injury suffered by car occupants because of vehicle mismatch in crashes with light trucks.

 The safety provisions in the Kerry-McCain amendment were very similar to measures recently passed by the full Senate in Title IV of S.1072, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA).   Like the amendment to S.517 in 2002, Title IV includes provisions requiring NHTSA to issue safety standards to reduce vehicle incompatibility and aggressivity.  It also requires NHTSA to issue rollover crashworthiness standards that would consider a roof strength standard based on a dynamic test, as well as improved seat structure and safety belt design, side impact head protection air bags, and roof injury protection measures.  The bill represents a significant step forward for safety by bringing the regulatory system into line with the risks imposed by SUVs and pickups in the current vehicle fleet, and would save thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of needless injuries.

 The companion bill to S. 1072 is currently pending in the House of Representatives, where the auto industry has threatened to bottle it up or kill it.   The Bush Administration is also strongly opposing the safety mandates in the bill, both in its Statement of Administrative policy issued by Secretary Mineta and House of Representatives hearing testimony submitted by Dr. Jeffrey Runge, NHTSA Administrator.  In a March 18, 2004, hearing, Dr. Runge stated that: “the Administration is opposed to legislatively mandated rulemaking actions that displace deliberative research and regulatory actions.”  This position was echoed in the hearing by the industry spokesperson, Robert Strassburger, of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

  While Congress responded promptly in 2000 to the 200 deaths and 700 injuries in Ford/Firestone incidents, more than 30,000 people, or 150 times that number, have died in rollover crashes alone since 2000.   At a press conference on March 23, 2004, in which more than half a dozen crash victims spoke about their suffering, and auto suppliers demonstrated safety technologies available to automakers, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and Public Citizen suggested that the measures in the Senate bill are long-overdue, feasible and morally necessary.  A report released at the press conference answers all of the objections raised by the auto industry and the Administration at the hearing.  The bill would create jobs and would cost consumers very little for a substantial benefit in improved motor vehicle safety.

II.       Improvements in Fuel Economy and Safety Are Compatible and Necessary

 In the debate over fuel economy standards, an oft-voiced claim is that gains in fuel economy would necessarily compromise safety.   It is contended that vehicles would be made lighter to increase fuel economy, and that lighter vehicles are unsafe.   

   Historically, however, fuel economy standards did not decrease vehicle weight or cause the proliferation of tiny vehicles.   Eighty-five percent of the gains from the 1977 fuel economy standards came from technologies that had no impact on vehicle weight or size.   As to the other 15 percent, while the heaviest vehicles in the fleet lost roughly 1000 lbs., manufacturers did not reduce the weight or safety of lighter cars.   In fact, safety improved in many of the most popular vehicles.  

Because vehicle re-design is relatively expensive, any weight changes are likely to be concentrated in only the heaviest vehicles in the fleet, where a re-design would reap the most benefit for manufacturers.   Weight reductions in the heaviest vehicles, according to NHTSA’s own research, would save lives, because lighter vehicles would do less damage in crashes with smaller ones.

Moreover, the notion that heavier vehicles are safer is a myth.  In fact, increased weight can raise the level of violence in crashes between two large, heavy vehicles.  Because heaviness is often correlated positively with stiffness and negatively with rollover propensity for light trucks, the overall effect is that large, heavy vehicles offer little or no safety advantage to occupants.

  Weight is the single most important determinant in the risk posed by SUVs to others on the road, and weight disparities, especially when combined with incompatible vehicle designs, can be deadly.   In front-to-front crashes, SUVs are more than 4 times more deadly than cars, and pickups are over 6.2 times more deadly.  These facts are especially grim given the SUV and pickup sales explosion. 

The market share of new SUVs and pickup trucks has almost tripled since 1976, with market share for the largest SUVs and pickups increasing by more than 550 percent.

 What matters most for overall occupant safety is good crash design, not weight.   The Chevrolet Blazer, for example, has a driver death rate that is more than 3 times higher than the Honda Civic’s death rate.[i] 

  Given the accumulation of on-the-shelf fuel economy technologies and long-stagnant federal standards, substantial fuel economy gains are feasible today and in the immediate future.   In fact, because fuel/engine efficiency has been increasing by an average of 1.9 percent per year,[ii]every year, cars could now get 35.7 mpg and light trucks 25.9 mpg, had manufacturers maintained the same acceleration and weight as in 1988, and used fuel efficiency gains to improve fuel economy instead.  

 Public Citizen analyzed EPA data from its annual “Trends Report” to demonstrate the lost opportunities from these gains in engine efficiency, showing that the absence of meaningful federal standards has led to harmful increases in weight in the heaviest vehicles in the fleet— turning the myth about safety and fuel economy on its head.

Conclusion

 The claim that safety must be traded for fuel economy is a misleader.   Substantial fuel economy and safety gains are compatible and achievable.  Furthermore, safety provisions that set a baseline for safety based upon sound and achievable improvements in vehicle design, such as those in Title IV of S. 1072, would result in a win-win on both fuel economy and safety.

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