A Place Where Having A Stick Shift Can Get You Towed Away

As I’m sure most of you know, the most important movie release of the summer — Turbo Kid — appeared in a very limited selection of theaters two weeks ago. Here in sunny Columbus, Ohio, the sole place to see it is down on the Ohio State campus. This past weekend, therefore, I headed down for a late-night show of just the second film in history to use “Thunder In Your Heart” as the main theme.

Upon my arrival, I was greeted by the newest fad sweeping American campuses — LEED-certified parking. And it was there that, thanks to my hasty reading of a spreadsheet, I broke the law.

We analyze automakers’ test results for fuel economy and emissions as reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board, along with other specifications reported by automakers. We estimate pollution from vehicle manufacturing, from the production and distribution of fuel and from vehicle tailpipes. We count air pollution, such as fine particles, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and other pollutants according to the health problems caused by each pollutant. We then factor in greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide) and combine the emissions estimates into a Green Score that runs on a scale from 0 to 100. The top vehicle this year scores a 61, the average is 37 and the worst gas-guzzlers score around 17.

If you read the entire site you’ll eventually come to the meat of it: about 70 percent of the emissions scoring is based on CO2 emissions. Other pollutants don’t count for much at all. This is emissions control for politi-climate reasons, not for reasons of preventing cancer or lung disease or old people dying in their apartments from ozone. And as our friends in the UK found out when that august monarchy began arbitrarily taxing vehicles based on idling CO2 emissions, that’s simply a factor of energy consumption, with a significant comparative benefit accruing to diesel vehicles because those vehicles tend to have less power and consume less fuel.

So the “Green score” is even more heavily biased in favor of low fuel consumption than you’d think. And that’s where I got tripped up. To park in the “LEFE” zone, which has various other names at various other campuses, you need to be on the special list, which you can read here. I downloaded the list to my phone and took a brief look. 2014 Accord Coupe — 3.5L V6 — check! And off I went to the movie.

As I sat in that movie, however, watching Turbo Kid do battle with an assortment of post-apocalyptic, BMX-riding monsters, I started to wonder about the entire composition of that list. More specifically, I started to wonder what the purpose of the list was. It had to be more than just selecting fuel-efficient vehicles — were it that simple, you could put a sign up saying, “You must get more than XX EPA combined mileage to park here.” Instead, the ACEEE uses a Byzantine calculation system which applies various “fudge factors” to arrive at a meaningless “Green Score”. And when the numbers are fudged this heavily, there has to be a purpose.

So I read the list again, to see what the purpose was. You can read it yourself now, and think about it for a moment, before continuing on. The purpose of the list is to…

wait for it…

…exclude SUVs. Only the smallest CUVs with four-cylinder power, like the CR-V and the Equinox/Terrain, make the list. If the ACEEE budged their arbitrary “Green” rating down a couple of points, it would let all sorts of CUVs and SUVs in. The Camry V6, for example, scores 41 and makes the list, which is cut off at 40. The Highlander Hybrid scores 39 and doesn’t make it. The vast majority of the Highlanders and Pilots and the like score 35.

The net effect of the ACEEE-compliant parking will be to create a sea of cars in the campus garages of America. It encourages people to get vehicles with reasonable fuel efficiency, traffic-friendly heights, and sensible exterior dimensions. It permits the Lotus Exige but excludes the Lexus RX350. It’s an unpleasant piece of social engineering and in my opinion it comes dangerously close to being a bill of attainder (look at the entries in the spreadsheet for CHRYSLER and GMC if you want further proof of that) but if the program expands it could create oases of sorts across the country, places where one is not continually faced with the monstrous visage of a Tahoe or Expedition or QX-whatever at all times, where it’s possible to drive a normal car in traffic and not feel like one is driving through the valley of the shadow of the SUV. There would be something nice about that.

Not that I’ll be able to participate, unless I ride one of my motorcycles. Accord V6 Coupes with the automatic transmission score a salutary 41 and are permitted to park as they like; with the manual shifter, the score drops to 38. So unless I want to put a Solo cup over my center console every time I park, I’d better think about finding a spot somewhere else. At most campuses, parking in the ACEEE spots without an appropriate vehicle will get you fined; at Ohio State, there’s somebody waiting to tow you away.

Who would have thought that the day would ever come when having a clutch pedal meant you were choosing the less efficient, less economical, and less ecological version of a car? O brave new world, that has such cars and people in it!