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Who knew that Reagan was a commie too! He hiked the gas tax and lowered freeway speeds to 55, under the threat of withheld federal funding to states.
You people are either:
A) Too young to understand politics
or;
B) Just pretending to be outraged because it's Obama and you have a Pavlovian reaction to anything he does because you are so deeply entrenched with your "football team". I can praise Bush for his efforts on AIDS in Africa -- even though I disagreed with most of his other policies.. so... whats your excuse, hateful, fearful ones?
Obama isn't the first to try and impose future safety and mileage limits -- it's been done many times before, by both sides of the aisle. Sorry, not buying your fake outrage, as usual.
Scroll to about the 36:20mark of the speech and answer me one thing....what in the world is that square transparent looking thing in front of Reagan? Reagan and Kennedy did not use a teleprompter, they read their speeches off of paper, yet there are the shields you want to call a teleprompter.
Every president in the history of the USA may or may not have used a teleprompter. Many likely have. The question is: What do we get without the tele-prompter?
It seems to me that, in the past, some vehilces were built with engines that did offer this kind of mileage. I think Honda had one back in the day. That's not to say that ALL vehicles can do this, obviously big large work vehicles need to be handled differently, but for the average passenger car this shouldn't be too hard.
As I drive around town in my Civic, dodging the Hummers and other large vehicles in the Safeway parking lot, I have to wonder why these kinds of vehilces are even used for in town driving and running kids to school. It's rediculous. And for every family that "requires" one for their frequent trips to the snow country or whatever, there are 3 more who rarely leave town. If I have to hear one more time "I bought it for safety reasons" I'm going to scream. Especially since they make it UNSAFE for ME half the time.
You kind of answered your own question. Americans have shown that we prefer SUV's for safety reasons, so Honda and Toyota beefed up the bodies of Civics and Corollas to make them safer. Consequentially, mpg suffered as a result. In addition, mpg's are measured differently today than before. When the mpg ratings were revised in 2006, it was determined that the previous ratings were about 10% overstated on average.
What is so wrong about wanting to protect the Eart we live on and producing vehicles that get better mileage? Pick up trucks will also be improved. You will have your precious full size pick up. Dont you worry about that.
This may come as surprise to you but many people use trucks for what they were intended for like construction, hauling small equipment, firewood, rocks etc. 30 MPG on say something like F-350 super duty is a bit of stretch.
Generally speaking you size your truck to the type of work you'll be doing with it, hence the F-150, F-250... F-350. Each truck is incrementally more powerful and more capable and with that comes more weight in the truck itself. If you are towing around a lot of weight you need bigger tires, bigger springs, bigger axles, bigger brakes, bigger everything.. Once you get past the F-350 you get into commercial trucks.
So if they can't make a F-350 "pick-up" that meets this criteria what do you suggest the person that needs such a truck do? Buy the bigger much less efficient commercial truck?
Who knew that Reagan was a commie too! He hiked the gas tax and lowered freeway speeds to 55, under the threat of withheld federal funding to states.
You people are either:
A) Too young to understand politics
or;
B) Just pretending to be outraged because it's Obama and you have a Pavlovian reaction to anything he does because you are so deeply entrenched with your "football team". I can praise Bush for his efforts on AIDS in Africa -- even though I disagreed with most of his other policies.. so... whats your excuse, hateful, fearful ones?
Obama isn't the first to try and impose future safety and mileage limits -- it's been done many times before, by both sides of the aisle. Sorry, not buying your fake outrage, as usual.
It was president Ford who lowered the freeway speeds to 55 mph, not Reagan. It was in 1974.
Trucks will smoosh your SUV quite easily, don't fool yourself.
The current problem is that people have bought into the "weight equals safety" paradigm, and that just leads to an arms race - whoever carries most armor wins. Of course, heavier vehicles are de facto harder to stop and steer, so while they're comparatively safer for ramming other people's cars with, they're not at all safer to drive in the first place. The Hummer brand was the crowning - something - of this line of thinking.
Avoiding the crash - through active safety and alert drivers - is the much superior solution.
The Germans, for instance, manage to build and buy cars with an eye to fuel consumption and safety both - and their roads are far from untamed carnage.
Regarding the Germans, a lot of that has to do with how they treat driving. It's a PRIVILEGE, not a RIGHT. They go through extensive drivers training that teaches them how to drive in all types of weather, and how to correctly maneuver your car in many types of situations. I HATE driving in the rain where I live because of idiots who have no idea how to adjust their driving when it gets wet out, and they end up hydroplaning and crashing into things.
I think we need to make getting your license a lot harder here. Not everyone deserves one.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this discussion. This country's middle is in dire straits. I fear that we have been permanently divided as a nation, and it's becoming more and more obvious that there is no place for me unless I adopt an extreme position. A kick to the head hurts just a much coming from the right foot as it does from the left.
Where did all this anger come from and what is it really about? It can't possibly be about cars, can it?
Last edited by formercalifornian; 04-05-2010 at 02:02 PM..
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