Faith

The Obama administration has just raised the mileage standard for new cars by about 33%.

I was trained as an Engineer, which means I had to take a lot of math and science. Despite the government's best efforts, you cannot change laws of nature. If you want a car to go 33% further on a gallon of gas, you have only three choices:

1. Increase the efficiency of the engine by 33%. Unfortunately, we've had 30 years of research into more efficient engines, and all the big gains are to be had in the early years. Front wheel drive (shrink the power train), unibody construction (instead of a frame), and computer-controlled fuel injection (instead of carburetors) make up the bulk of the gain to date. Despite the promise of hybrid technology and regenerative braking, there simply isn't anywhere near 33% gains in this (for highway driving, at least).

2. Reduce the power-to-weight ratio. No more V8 for you, Mr. Zette - how about a nice 5 cylinder like Mr. Volvo? Well, then Mr. Vette drives just like Mr. Volvo. Say goodbye to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, President Obama! (translation: ain't gonna happen).

3. Reduce the weight of the car by 33% or so, while reducing power by an equal amount. Car handles the same, but gets better mileage. You can have performance and fuel efficiency. You can have it all!

Except you can't. Sir Isaac Newton will not be denied:

Whenever a object A exerts a force on another object B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction.

Let's consider an object A:

Which of these object B options would you be safer in?







Kind of obvious, isn't it? You can't have it all. Even when some politician pushing an agenda tells you that you can. King Canute couldn't command the tides to recede, and President Obama can't command roadside trees to be gentler on the occupants of cars that crash into them.

Someone's fixin' to die. A lot of someones:

The National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards with about 2,000 deaths per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars increases annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715.
...

The Natural Resources Defense Council said that the 35 MPG standard would save about one million gallons of gas per day. So how does that savings balance against the 2,000 fatalities per year that the National Academy of Sciences says are caused by those same lighter cars?

For the sake of being utilitarian, let’s generously assume that the mileage standards reduced the price of gasoline by $1. That would translate to daily savings of $1 million. Is that savings worth killing more than five people per day, plus other non-fatal injuries and property damage?

In I'm Here To Help, I talked about what is the problem with government: people who think that they know more than they actually do:

They will look at you blankly if you ask them what the unanticipated consequences of their proposal is:

So if you were actually able to ban all legal guns, how would that reduce crime?

[Lots of over-estimated benefits and under-estimated costs redacted]

OK, what will this do to the rate of women killed by abusive boyfriends or ex-husbands, who can't get a gun to defend themselves. What does your study predict for numbers?

[Blank stare]

Dead homeowners are part of the over grazed Common Pasture of society. Women and kids, too. So are higher levels of gun violence.

Who gets hurt? This question needs to be asked any time someone proposes one tiny, incremental, almost unnoticeable further harvest of the Common Weal. Nobody is not an acceptable answer - someone always gets hurt, intentionally or not. Maybe this cost is outweighed by the benefits, maybe it isn't. But it's never zero.

Dead drivers. Widows and orphans. Dead children. In their thousands each year, sacrificed on the altar of Mother Gaia by a priesthood of unquestioning faith. Unshakable faith, matched with overweening power, creating overwhelming carnage.

Just remember, though - these people are smarter and nicer than you are.

UPDATE 21 May 2009 20:31: Megan McArdle has another example of government scientists finding the politically expedient answer, despite the fact that it will kill sick people:

The most worrying thing here is the real possibility that the FDA got the result the EPA wanted. Will they be tempted to get the answer Medicare would like to hear about the relative merits of expensive medications?

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't do CRE. But for all that Democrats are enjoying thinking of themselves as the Party of Guys in White Coats With The Answers, the binary discussion of CRE (we'll find what works!) is borderline religious in the way it treats government researchers.

RTWT.