JuniperBug, will you be thinking, “I’m glad natural selection is removing me from the gene pool for being stupid enough to drive something smaller than a 3/4 ton truck with side air bags” while you’re dying after some idiot with a suspended license and an old truck speeds through a red light and T-bones you? Or were you planning to use some driver safety training to change the path of that truck?

97escort, you’re one of very few peak oil believers who has faith in replacing our oil with agriculture. Most think the end of cheap oil will devastate agricultural production!

Hmm, that makes a good deal of sense. If people had more fear when driving they might think twice about hatting on the phone and pay better attention to the task at hand. The proliferation of safety equipment has made people too complacent.

Hey, My first car was a ‘73 Pinto wagon and my second one was a ‘70 VW Beetle convertible. Neither of those was a paragon of safety and I’m still here to tell the tale.

The #1 best way to increase car safety is to spend some money on driver training. People will pay thousands for the sense of security provided by hundreds of extra pounds of steel and a brace of airbags and electronic nannies in a car they’ll have to replace in 10 years anyway (if they don’t make use of those airbags and crash it first), but not on an education that will make them and the people around them safer for life? Driver education doesn’t affect fuel economy, performance, or use any of the earth’s resources. Bloating out cars does.

Maybe it’s time to intentionally make cars LESS safe; give Darwin a chance to do some housecleaning.

Anyone driving or being a passenger in a vehicle 40 years ago must have been suicidal, or espoused a death wish.

Back then, they actually paid attention to actually drive.

In 2008 with all the safety features, folks continue to be suicidal by multitasking in a vehicle. If the lack of seatbelts could kill you 40 years ago, the multitasking and using a phone will kill you in 2008.

It seems that we are constantly trading off “one thing” for “another”.

In typical Canadian fashion a study / inquiry / committe is the way to resolve the issue. They will conclude that in Quebec they use smaller vehicles, out west they still use pick ups, an Ontario is downsizing.

Remember that small cars, while more crunchable, are smaller targets to hit and more maneuverable.

To survive Peak Oil small cars and ethanol are absolute necessities.

I wish the general population worried half as much about avoiding running into things as they do about how well their car will hold up to hitting a solid wall at 80 MPH.

The thing is, there are already some really nice small vehicles available in Europe and Asia that aren’t tin cans and are demonstrably safer than the small cars we had back in the ’70’s and ’80’s. If they could be made available we wouldn’t have to go through “dark times” of crappy unsafe cars until companies get around to developing better ones. Hell, even GM and Ford build some decent small cars for other markets. I would assume Chrysler is still doomed and I don’t think anything can change that.

We should use this as an opportunity to capitalize on our weak dollar and see if we can have companies shift production of some of their small cars to the US.

I’m already a fan of small efficient cars (as long as they are well built and can be a little fun to hoon around in). Small cars are getting much more safe all the time. The whole perceived virtue of safety through mass is not always true.

The whole “3 tons of metal around me” is a myth, which works only when you’re actually crashing into another, SMALLER vehicle.

And the small cars should be considered responsible?