Posted on April 21, 2004 by Paul

Here’s a little something that causes me no end of irritation. Apparently Midsize sedans fail SUV side-impact test. These normal, perfectly usable, perfectly decent cars are “failures” because when some behemoth urban assault vehicle hits it the car gets a dent. Yes, there’s a failure here, but the failure is with the SUV. These are cars that almost nobody needs, that actually decrease road safety, and that suck gasoline like, well, insert your own crude imagery here. Yes the cars “fail”, in the same way that the nerdy kid’s nose “fails” when punched by the school bully.

I suppose I should make a practical suggestion here (or not, this is a blog after all). So count the number of buttocks in your household, divide by two, then go and buy something reasonable that holds that many people.

Must Try Harder

Posted on April 13, 2004 by Paul

Just reading about a report on the British government’s record on the environment. The article itself is interesting to me (being something of an enviro-weenie), but the bit I enjoyed most was the grading system used in the report, which struck me as very British. The reports lowest grade? Not ‘D-‘, or ‘fail’, or even ‘disaster’. No, in certain key areas the government was damningly labelled…. ‘dreadful’.

Excess

Posted on February 17, 2004 by Paul

Great Easterbrook column today about the harm of SUVs and large pickup trucks. He quotes research showing that not only do these behemoths pollute more than the average car (which is obvious), not only are they a greater risk to people involved in accidents with them (obvious if you think about it), but they actually increase the number of accidents and injuries in the US! It is hard to explain just how common these vehicles are over here, though not as difficult as convincing someone that their lifestyle doesn’t really necessitate an armored assault vehicle with cup holders.

I don’t know how many people I’ve met while in the US, but several hundred would be a fair guess. Of those, there are two who actually need a pickup truck, as they both own farms and have to haul hay and whatnot. I’ve also met one family that probably needed an SUV, as they lived on an unfinished road some miles from the highway in the middle of nowhere in snowy Wisconsin. They had a Ford Fiesta and a Ford Escort.

Note: We are guilty of a small sin in this regard as we drive a Minivan (or People Carrier for those in the UK). But ours is reasonably fuel efficient by minivan standards, we do only 3/4 the mileage of the average American (and less even than the average Brit), it’s our only car, and minivan’s in any case aren’t as bad as SUVs. And only having one car means that we actually do need the extra space to accomodate visiting relatives often enough that it’s worth having a minivan. So that’s why this piece is only somewhat a middle-class angst-ridden whine against whatever you’ve got.

Bunkum-Busting Bombs

Posted on January 13, 2004 by Paul

Nick made an interesting comment below about it being better to spend money on stadia than on nuclear bombs, referring to the Bush plan to build ‘little’ nukes to get at underground bunkers. Let’s put aside for a while the ideal of politicians looking at spending as a choice, and concentrate on the explosive side of this.

The case for something to kill people in bunkers (assuming you want to kill people at all) is very fair – terrorists hide in holes in the ground, we like to blow stuff up, it’s a perfect match. What is disturbing about this is the arrogance it demonstrates. These are nuclear bombs, the only true weapons of mass destruction, and have traditionally held a place apart in world history. Yet we want to use them in a tactical setting, like they were just very powerful conventional explosives. They’re not. They devestate their targets, their fallout (and in this case I use the word literally) cannot be controlled, and the effects last for millenia. There will be an accident involving one of these devices if they are developed (there have been accidents at nuclear plants in most countries, and we’re not getting 19 year olds to strap them to planes in the middle of a desert). And we will have no ability to mitigate its effects.

I believe strongly that in any area of discussion you should start with all options on the table. Nothing is too ludicrous to be considered. But many things are too outright stupid to do anything with except reject them. The only country in history known to have used WMDs in anger should embrace the responsibility their position gives them and fight this idea worldwide, not champion it.