A new game... Post pics from your cel phone V.1.0

[Mudhen]

I've said this before as well!  Even something as simple as a seatbelt law - I never wore one on my bike!   

Just don't want to say it or they'll take those away from us too.

[94touring]

I've been trying to learn more about cafe standards to make sense of some of this. I vaguely was aware of them but not all the finer details. A couple things I found interesting so far was it started in the late 70s during the fuel shortage. Certain car companies just pay the fines to produce cars they (we the buyer) want, which of course gets passed onto the buyer. Some of the roll backs need to go back prior to 2012 to help reduce truck prices, which isn't the current rollback policy. The emissions standards and associated equipment on current trucks is just very expensive. Car companies plan ahead in design years in advance to comply with standards so either way will take awhile to see a change in price on trucks if they roll back those standards.

[Dan Moffet]

I seem to recall that the CAFE standards referred to "Corporate Average" and something about larger vehicles (trucks) being rated differently, so they produced larger vehicles en mass to lower their corporate average. Maybe something about consumption or emissions per weight?

[94touring]

I posted some info a page back on it. The "footprint" rule which is how the wheelbase effects it to fit within a category that doesn't get hit with penalties for MPG. If you dive deeper the emissions standards are extremely high. So you end up with a big truck that has all this special stuff to keep it under a certain percentage of emissions. The next set of Cafe standards that were about to take effect made it virtually impossible for the gas engine to not be fined the fuel mileage standards were so high. 

[MiniDave]

There also was a weight limit, if your vehicle was over a certain weight (6K lbs?), it was exempt - another incentive for bigger vehicles.....

[94touring]

Yep!

[BruceK]

Some unusual things from a car show this morning.

Drift trikes!

[BruceK]

More

[BruceK]

Ready for the desert. 4WD and miles of suspension travel. 

[BruceK]

Tempting. If for nothing more than garage decoration. Or a flower pot.

[BruceK]

I love some of the features of old cars. On this '56 Ford the back of the back of the speedometer binnacle facing the windshield is clear plastic, letting light shine through to illuminate the speedometer numbers.