Talk Back Tuesday: Crush Old Politicians instead of Old Cars
I'm surprised (though I probably shouldn't be) when politicians recycle the same old, bad
ideas no matter how many times they are shouted down by common sense.
So here we ago again with the "brilliant" idea of crushing older cars to save the planet. Previously this theory was used to get "gross polluters" off the road. The idea was to give industry giants smog credits for every old car they crushed. If, for example, they gave someone $700 for an old car they would get the equivalent of several thousand dollars in credits against air pollution fines.
I first heard of this program when I was a bright-eyed editorial assistant at Hot Rod Magazine in the fall of 1994, and the project car they used to illuminate the program's stupidity was the Crusher Camaro. Basically, the Hot Rod staffers found a one-owner, all-original 1967 Camaro about to be driven into the crusher by an old guy who wanted the $700 without the hassle of selling it (it still ran fine, but he hardly ever drove it). They gave him the $700 instead and turned it into a tire-shredding street terror with a crate engine and bright yellow paint job.
I actually tackled this issue way back in June of 2001, when it was raised for the 18th time. Now, if my count is correct, we're on the 47th time, with Nancy Pelosi leading the latest charge. This time the politicians want to use taxpayer money to encourage the crushing of old cars so that people will buy new cars. Am I the only one wishing the government would stop trying to "help" the situation?
Anyway, let's cover the fallacies of this plan in rapid-fire form:
1. Almost all old cars are rarely driven cars, so the benefit of crushing them in terms of air pollution is miniscule at best. Don't think so? Look around the next time you're out driving and count how many pre-1990 (or even pre-2000) cars you see.
2. Crushing a fully functional car so you can build/buy a new one is possibly the most wasteful and envinronmentally unfriendly thing you can do. Do you know what goes into building a car? The factory emissions? The shipping fuel? The heat of manufacturing? Talk about a poor use of resources.
3. Will a small payment for an old car really get someone to buy a new one? We don't know what the "stimulus" amount offered for each old car will be, but I have to wonder how many people would really be pushed into buying a new car because they get a relatively small amount of money for an old one. Conversely, for low-income people who shop cars in the $3,000-$,5000 range these programs literally eat up potential purchases and drive the price of cheap used cars up. Once again, the government's "help" programs are most hurtful to low-income families.
Dumb old idea revived by dumb old politicians. Contact the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) or read this page if you'd like to assist in defeating it.
- Posted by
- Karl Brauer January 6, 2009, 6:00 AM
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That was and always will be a HORRIBLE idea. This country is constantly trying to get rid of the "old" for the new. Thats why when a building is 5 years old, its time to rip it down. How many new football stadiums are going up this year? Can we have some sort of preserved history?
It's a no-brainer for politicians. Most of the lobbyists they hear from are representing new products, and this may be seen as helping create demand.
Bottom line, I would never vote for a politician unless his mantra is for government to get out of the way and out of people's lives as much as possible. However, we are in a brave new world...
I live in a neighborhood that used to be poor, but now is gentrifying -- so I see plenty of pre 1990 cars on the streets. The late 1980s Chevy Celebrity/Olds Ciera/Buick Century seems to be especially prevalent for some reason.
But other than that, I completely agree with you Karl. The rebate is nowhere near enough to help the people who depends on these cars replace them, and the whole idea of replacing them with something more efficient is flawed, because it doesn't account for the environmental costs of manufacture.
Most importantly, we've been living in a culture that consumes and disposes of things too quickly. If the government is going to be in the business of encouraging behavior (which it has been trying to do at least since prohibition), it should be encoraging thrift and smart purchases. That would do more good for people's finances and the environment.
The environmental argument is pointless. The push for this program is money and special interests. If you want to get this proposition dropped, you have to find some way of showing the alleged lobbyists that the companies they work for are better served by allowing older cars to exist.
1. Obviously, domestic automakers benefit from the continued existence of muscle cars. It's a PR element that money simply cannot buy.
2. All automakers benefit from showing off the fact that their cars can survive beyond many miles and years. Back when I lived in Nacogdoches, TX, the Honda dealership I went to had a wall dedicated to folks and their old Hondas. You'd see pictures of cars with 200K, 300K, 400K, or even more miles. That sells Hondas.
3. Forcing folks to crush their their babies is not a good way to develop public relations. If you don't believe me, watch "Who Killed the Electric Car". Imagine if next year there was a "Who Killed the Muscle Car" movie.
4. Finally, there's good ol' fashion nostalgia. Down the road from me, there's a classic Datsun 240Z. I want that thing so bad, but it also inspires passion when I look at the '09 370Z. If there were no '69 Camaros left, would anyone want an '09 Camaro?
My parents and I used to be in the economic demographic that buys $700 cars. No interesting cars ever came our way... the number of cool cars that would be crushed for that amount would be tiny. Only a lazy and stupid bum would take $700 for a car worth more than that to anybody. So I'm not too worried about classics being lost in this way.
But you're right, it won't do any good environmentally. In that price range you tend to buy cars very similar to the one you just got rid of (usually because they failed a smog check, and need an engine rebuild). You're not going to replace it with something greener except through the smog check system, which I'm totally okay with (I'm a greenie, and it really has reduced smog).
The only real effect of this law is to give smog credits to manufacturers and I think they should have to work for those instead of having them handed over by the government.
I don't like the idea of smog credits as it accomplishes nothing .
I do like the idea of buying up old beaters ($700 buys you a dangerous polluting POS, not a fully functioning low milage pride and joy). Cars from the 80's are going to be the bulk of crushed cars and they polluted far more then the worst new vehicle.
If you really believe classics will be crushed, here's a project for Edmunds....
Take $700 and try to find a car worth saving.
Alternative proposal: Don't require crushing old cars to eliminate their pollution. Instead, put a bounty on taking polluting cars off the road. Allow rebates for sending failed catalytic converters in for recycling and worn out engines in for rebuilding. Old cars in could then be recycled with a rebuilt engine vs. destroying all old cars.
Scary thought that we are getting that close to a collection of private property by the government for the "common good". It worries me that the next logical step after giving people money, is simply combing DMV/Secretary of State records and confiscating someones pride and joy.
Now that's a paranoid stretch of the imagination.
Bitchin' Camaro notwithstanding, I've seen many gross polluters lately that need to be taken off the road. These aren't super-old beaters, either. I've lately seen early Saturns, some Civics, and yes, the occassional beater spewing dense pollution.
Based on your article and the link, I don't see any specific legislation on the docket. The value in any legislation would be basing the remedy on emissions rather than merely vehicle age.
To be fair to your premise, the "pollution footprint" of the old car should include the energy required to make it, ship it, transport it, recycle it, and the energy to operate it, and the cumulative pollution it generates. The replacement car's "pollution footprint" should calculate the same thing. All things being equal, I wonder how a 1967 Camaro would compare to a 2010 Camaro assuming an operating life of 20 years.
Around here, mandatory emissions testing seems to have taken care of this problem without needlessly spending my taxpayer money and without giving any incentive to scrap otherwise good cars.
My only gripe is that it's every two years. How about a national every-four-year program?
FWIW, in ours if you spend 1500 or more fixing the car, you get exempted. So some cars that will never pass [cough... mazda rotary] still exist on the road.
Ah...the late 80s GM A bodies... You still see those because they last. They aren't necessarily reliable at that age, but they usually keep going without major work. My parents bought an '87 Celebrity wagon in '92 and it went through pop-up camper towing and at least 2 accidents like a champ. I destroyed it in its 3rd accident in the spring of 2005 at 18?,000 miles. Also those old 2.8L 60* V6s had a very distinct, almost V8 sound. The muffler rusting through produced some wonderful sounds from that engine. They also have somewhat of a cult following. A friend I work with has a family member with a baby blue Celebrity wagon with ultra low miles and has been offered large sums of money for it. Dad and I certainly miss our Celebrity...
If they gave the owners of these older cars a $200 tax credit to perform a tune up on them annually, they would reduce pollution by much more than any other scheme devised by our brilliant politicians. Political stupidity seems to have peaked recently with the ethanol craze that is by far the greatest folly yet seen.
Amen.