Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Cars

Americans Vote for Fuel Efficiency. Why Do They Buy Guzzlers?

10:26 AM EDT on July 25, 2007

hummers.jpg

With new fuel economy standards under consideration in Congress, James Surowiecki ponders why Americans continue to buy gas guzzlers when polls show that the majority would like to see the government mandate big increases in fuel efficiency. What does all of this have to do with professional hockey players wearing helmets? This was in last week's New Yorker:

Americans may want to buy the biggest and most environmentally damaging vehicles available, but polls show that, given an option, some three-quarters of them vote for dramatic increases in fuel-economy standards-increases that may well force automakers to sell fewer (or at least smaller) S.U.V.s. We buy gas guzzlers but vote for gas sipping. This isn't because people are ignorant about how higher fuel-economy standards would affect them personally; polls that explicitly lay out the potential trade-offs involved still find support for tougher standards. And it isn't as if voters and car buyers belong to two different groups; one recent survey of pickup owners found that seventy per cent strongly favored tougher requirements. The curious fact is that many people buying three-ton Suburbans for that arduous two-mile trip to the supermarket also want Congress to pass laws making it harder to buy Suburbans at all.

What's happening here?

Back in the nineteen-seventies, an economist named Thomas Schelling, who later won the Nobel Prize, noticed something peculiar about the N.H.L. At the time, players were allowed, but not required, to wear helmets, and most players chose to go helmet-less, despite the risk of severe head trauma. But when they were asked in secret ballots most players also said that the league should require them to wear helmets. The reason for this conflict, Schelling explained, was that not wearing a helmet conferred a slight advantage on the ice; crucially, it gave the player better peripheral vision, and it also made him look fearless. The players wanted to have their heads protected, but as individuals they couldn't afford to jeopardize their effectiveness on the ice. Making helmets compulsory eliminated the dilemma: the players could protect their heads without suffering a competitive disadvantage. Without the rule, the players' individually rational decisions added up to a collectively irrational result. With the rule, the outcome was closer to what players really wanted.

The same phenomenon is, to some extent, at work in the fuel-economy debate. People believe that bigger and heavier cars are safer in a crash (forgetting that, often, bigger cars are also more likely to crash). And people like the fact that driving a higher-horsepower car makes you look better at the stoplight. So our desires as individuals to protect ourselves and to outclass our neighbors encourage us to buy bigger and bigger vehicles with more and more horsepower. And the market doesn't create counter-incentives that would push us in a responsible direction, since someone who drives a Hummer doesn't suffer the effects of pollution and global warming any more than someone driving a Prius does, and isn't charged more for the extra environmental damage.


Photo: mj*laflaca/Flickr

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday’s Headlines Are Tired Out

Whether it's from degradation or the dust resulting from wear and tear, it's becoming increasingly clear that tire and brake emissions are harmful, perhaps even exceeding tailpipe emissions.

September 22, 2023

Study: What Road Diets Mean For Older Drivers

"After a road diet, all motorists seem to drive at a rate that feels comfortable to a mildly-impaired older adult."

September 22, 2023

Op-Ed: Why Is Fare Evasion Punished More Severely than Speeding?

A.B. 819 offers California the opportunity to decriminalize fare evasion and replace punitive measures with more equitable approaches.

September 21, 2023

Talking Headways Podcast: Local Culture and Development

We chat with Tim Sprague from Phoenix about supporting local culture through development projects and the importance of sustainable development and transportation.

September 21, 2023

City of Yes Yes Yes! Adams Calls for Elimination of Parking Mandates on ALL New Housing

Mayor Adams today announced the historic end to one of the city’s most antiquated — and despised — zoning laws requiring the construction of parking with every new development.

September 21, 2023
See all posts