You probably Imagine that they are comfortable, and your remembering the smell of a new car. The sleek new style of the new car trend isn’t something you mind either. Because of the recent economic crisis, many of these newer greener cars are even affordable and within reach to even lower income consumers.

At what price do we get these almost luxury technologies? They’ll stop pollution, they’ll use less essential resources, and they’ll save money. But what bad things could result from these “better” cars?

Here’s something else to chew on, “Loud Pipes Save Lives”. I’m not the first person to coin the phrase, and I’m not sure who did. However, they are right. I bet you never thought that your noisy belt, or rattling engine could save a life? They can, just think about for a moment. Stew on it for a while if you need to.

There’s no doubt that most drivers in todays world are distracted, stressed out, and just plain old not paying attention. Even with the new laws banning cell phones, loud stereo’s and in car TV’s, it just doesn’t stop. People are too busy thinking about everything but the heavy machinery under their palms. Couple that with the idiotic people that jay walk, wear black at night, or just plain don’t notice a car coming, and you have quite a deadly equation on your hands.

Those loud hoopties that barrel down the road may be polluting road hazards, but you surely know when they are coming! There’s no way you can miss those squeaky belts or ear bending worn brakes. Loud custom exhaust, and pumping stereo’s tell us someone is driving near by. We automatically pay attention to the road around us when we hear these things, and yet, they are so under appreciated.

Sure, we all prefer a quiet drive, wear we can comfortably listen to our music and not fear some crazy other driver who might cause and accident with us. But I personally would prefer to know just where all the other drivers are. 

When new hyrbids, Bio Fueled and Smart Cars start becoming more popular, we’ll lose all those old loud clunky machines that alert us they are near. Most people are shouting “Hurray” to that, but what they aren’t thinking about, is that newer cars are much much quieter than their predecessors. 

A low hum is usually they only thing heard from new generation cars coming out. Thats one of the perks, but does it have the potential to become a deadly hazard?

Picture that dark evening, while someone is walking on a road that has been car-free for hours. Its not a main road and the shoulder is really small, so that someone decides to walk in the road a bit. They assume that they’ll be able to hear the car coming and get out of the way. They get deeply consumed in their thoughts as they continue their walk home.

Another person, who was upset from a fight, is driving around trying to straighten their thoughts. They don’t really have a destination and finally give up, deciding to turn around and head back home. They roads that person drive back on, are dark with few street lamps. The lanes are small, but its not busy with other drivers, so they continue on. 

The person walking home is so consumed by their thoughts, they hear nothing but the wind through the tree’s. They look up at the trees, and miss the headlight beams on the ground.

The driver could barely see the guy wearing a dark blue sweater and black jeans. They were busy thinking about getting back home to straighten things out.

When the car and the person collided, it was to late. The driver didn’t see the person walking in the road, and the person walking didn’t hear or see the car coming behind them.

If that same car had been a loud, purring hotrod, or a clanky old mazda, that person in the street would have heard it coming with enough time to get out of the road. Instead, an accident occurs, and who’s to blame?

With all common sense, we can say that the driver should have been paying more attention, and the person should not have been walking in the road for any reason. But is it really their fault?

The road was dark and uninhabited from cars and people, as far as they could tell. There weren’t any street lamps and the shoulder and lanes of the street were small. This is not a common accident these days, unless you ad in alcohol or drugs. Yet, the quiter the cars are, the more likely this accident will happen, and it will only be magnified by substances.

Well, readers, it is up to you to make the final judgement. I can only state my opinions and the facts I have researched. In the the end, you decide if its fact or fiction.

          62% of the worlds energy comes from oil and coal, such a high percentage that we all bought into. Think about this, Solar energy was discovered in the 1800’s and in 200 years we have not yet begun to really focus on the radiant energy we all take for granted each day. Solar cells are increasingly becoming cost efficient, and typically pay for themselves after a few years, when do we expect oil or coal resources to pay for itself? If you own a oil or fuel company it already has, for the rest of us it never will.

          The price of oil has tripled since the begining of 2002, and yet there has been no conversions to cost effecient energy. We have all sat around and watched each year as oil companies annually post Billion dollar profits. A Billion dollars? would it have been to much to ask to shave some profits and put it into price reductions? Dont most major companies buy into their own stock, it’s relatively the same idea, Shave 2% profits and increase sales 5%. You make the same amount of money, and save the rest of us from selling our skins to get to work, and give up our money to do so?

          Its not all about oil companies. Motor companies have been selling off twin models of popular U.S cars to Europeans for years, what does this have to do with the crisis? Well the same car you may be driving would get about 12 miles a gallon more if it were being sold to Europe. Do the research. In fact, the whole crisis has been the fault of our greedy, ride the lightning style, blissful ignorance. The first self propelled vehicle was invented in 1769! It may seem as if we have come a long way, but we haven’t. In the 1970’s most cars got 15 MPG. nearly 40 years later we have only doubled that. http://www.pewfuelefficiency.org/docs/cafe_history.pdf

         Sounds great huh? That’s terrible numbers. Do you know that there was a car made that got a rough MPG of about 9,000? That’s right, go around the world on about 3 gallons. They say it was ugly, they say it was expensive, they say it wasn’t worth it. I dont know about you, but to me it sounds worth it. People we have been kept in 20′ level MPG for a reason: Money.  The work could have been done, it wasn’t, the research and work could have been achieved, but it wasn’t. We could have all been driving ten times what we do now and used 75% less oil. Demand would have been so low, Gas would cost about 37 cents a gallon. And the same greedy people making billions would have quickly looked for other forms of energy to make money, there would be no Energy monopoly, and we would all be living better.

          So, the energy crisis is now upon us, and we are all to blame. You bought into it, I bought into it. the crisis is Superficial.

Why be driving this “fuel hog” when you could be just as easily be driving a hybrid? It wouldn’t even have to be a hybrid there are also hydrogen cell cars that are on the verge of coming out and even diesel cars. My parents have a 2007 Volkswagen Jetta TDI (turbo diesel injected), which nicely gets 45 mpg CITY. Although that may be impressive, you also need to know that it will go up to 49 mpg highway.

Most of all the other countries in the world are taking on fuel consumption and having mandatory mpg minimums that in places such as England reaching in the mid 40’s. To give you an idea of how committed these foreign countries are I will give you a fact. The Jetta TDI car that I mentioned earlier will have a 2008 model released in early spring much later than most other cars. You care to know why? Because they promised 60 mpg and they wouldn’t release it until it was that high. Now that is downright commitment. There is so much more that can be learned about better fuel efficiency if we only open our eyes to the truth: times are changing and we should demand better fuel efficiency in America.