What Auto Recession? (National Review, 05.28.10)

Posted by hpayne on May 28, 2010

Detroit — Toyota is grappling with a recall over obscure acceleration problems. And Democrats in Congress aren’t even waiting for a full diagnosis of what went wrong: They’re using the car maker’s troubles to load more regulations (on top of expensive new miles-per-gallon laws) on the back of an entire industry that’s struggling to emerge from the deepest sales swoon in 30 years.


Hasn’t the beltway heard there’s a recession on?


New regulations will be piled on top of the previous “new” regulations, which were drafted after the 2001 safety “crisis” involving rollovers from faulty Firestone tires. Those “early warning” requirements were supposed to “enable the NHTSA to collect data, notice trends, and warn consumers of potential defects in vehicles,” like, say, sudden acceleration in Toyotas.


They didn’t — and these new regulations won’t, either. But they will allow Henry Waxman to claim “a red-letter day for auto safety.”


Want a better quote? Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas) calls the rules a “kick in the groin” to the auto industry — not to mention consumers, who will be stuck with a new $3 tax (rising to $9 in three years) to pay for the new regulations.


This bill sets rules that have nothing to do with sudden acceleration. For example, $40 million of your money will be spent to research ways to expand in-vehicle systems that would prevent drunk drivers from being able to start their cars.


Another: The bill requires that “quiet cars” — read hybrids and electrics — must alert blind pedestrians, bikers, and others with chirps or other sounds. No one knows what this will entail except more expense. Must these cars sound an alarm all the time? Must they be linked to satellites to chirp only at intersections? Are there so many blind pedestrians wandering America’s streets that we need beeping cars? Isn’t most vehicle noise at low speed generated by air disturbance, not engine sound?


Barton called the amendment “extreme overkill.” Is “overkill” what a struggling industry needs?

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