All posts by Thomas L. Knapp

It seems like a common sense, life-saving proposal: US Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) want state motor vehicle agencies to require completion of automakers’ safety recall repairs before issuing license plates (“Senators unveil bill to require recall fixes,” Detroit News, March 2).

Their justification, of course, is safety. But on a closer look, the bill is just a sop to the auto industry. Its biggest effect will be to hurt working people.

Pop quiz: Of the top three causes of auto accidents, where does “failure to get recall items fixed” rank?

Answer: It doesn’t.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control (no, auto accidents aren’t a disease; neither is “gun violence;” take it up with CDC), the top three causes of car wreck injuries are distracted driving, speeding, and drunk driving. The vast majority of accidents are caused by driver error (often due to driver stupidity). Mechanical failure of any kind, let alone due to unrepaired recall items, doesn’t make the list.

The auto industry’s lobbyists indicate cautious support for the Markey/Blumenthal proposal (they’re awaiting details). Why? Because it covers their bottom lines. If they’ve sent recall notices out, they can deny liability in accidents occurring after the covered cars next get licensed. Good for them, I guess.

But bad for those of us who drive “beaters” — older, cheaper cars like my wife’s 1989 Volvo.

Many drivers can’t afford to buy cars new off the lot or make mid-three-digit monthly payments on fairly recent models. They take their chances on older, cheaper vehicles because they live paycheck to paycheck.

Yes, the costs of recall repairs are theoretically covered. If you live with reasonable distance of a dealership. If you can afford to do without your car for awhile. If you can get off work for multiple trips to the DMV.

Those may not be problems for upper-middle-class drivers with late-model cars, bought from dealerships that make “loaner cars” available to valued customers.

For the working poor, the policy may mean missing work hours required to make rent. It might even mean losing a job. Not for lack of safe transportation, but for inability to satisfy politicians’ desire to “get something done” (and be seen doing so).

If Markey and Blumenthal really want to use federal power to enhance highway safety, here are two suggestions:

First, forbid the states to require license plates for driving on federally funded highways (they’d likely follow suit to state roads on their own). Let insurance companies handle safety requirements and inspections. They don’t like paying off accident claims. Their safety and inspection requirements might be even more stringent than government’s.

Secondly, stop forcing automakers to install features that aren’t ready for prime time (the most well-known recall at the moment concerns airbags, which should be optional but which federal law requires). Automakers, insurers, and drivers are more competent to decide than politicians and bureaucrats.

Absent those steps, let’s at least put the brakes on Markey’s and Blumenthal’s very bad idea.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Total Recall: Bad for the Working Poor” by Thomas L. Knapp, Gulf Breeze, Florida News, 03/05/15
“Total Recall: Bad for the Working Poor” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader [Iowa], 03/10/15
“Total Recall: Bad for the Working Poor” by Thomas L. Knapp, Bell Gardens, California Sun, 03/12/15

Op-Eds

Does Gaia Hear the Prayer of a Climate Alarmist?

March 1, 2015 Thomas L. Knapp 4 Comments

Global warming has a pause button? Who knew? It “seems to have paused since the turn of the millennium,” reports James Maynard at Tech Times, “but climatologists believe this slowdown is not a reason for celebration.”

The pause, they say, may be due to cooling of the Pacific Ocean since the last El Nino cycle, and warming will probably re-start with the next such cycle. Climatologist Michael Mann of Penn state calls it a “false pause” and notes that none of the explanations offered for it “involve climate models being fundamentally wrong.”

Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe the global climate just does what it does instead of what Michael Mann’s models decree it must do.

Bailey Smith, then head of the Southern Baptist Convention, raised hackles in 1980 with his announcement that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.” While Smith found a few defenders, most Christians condemned the claim. The most trenchant criticism came down not to any denomination talking point, but to a simple notion, one even agnostics could buy into : God, not Bailey Smith, decides who God listens to.

A disclaimer: I tend to agree that what’s often falsely characterized as the “scientific consensus” is plausible. That is, it seems very possible that human activity exerts non-trivial effects on global climate.

That said, the alarmists — you know, the people who warned us in the 1970s that Earth was slipping into a new Ice Age, who by the ’90s had changed their wolf cry to global warming, and who lately stick to the safer, less specific term “climate change” — might do well to heed the Bailey Smith lesson. Certitude concerning powerful forces goeth before a fall.

When the testable elements of the “scientific consensus” — predicted temperature changes, predicted frequency of large-scale weather events like hurricanes, etc. — routinely fail to transpire, that failure calls for some degree of re-examination. And perhaps a bit more humility before the forces of nature.

But no. Climate alarmists characterize the “scientific consensus” as so unquestionable, and the stakes as so high, that the two taken together constitute a strong argument for putting the alarmists in charge of public policy.

I disagree. Power is a dangerous thing. Perhaps even more dangerous than global warming. At the very least, we should require more proof of the latter before granting the former. Let’s not surrender our freedoms lightly.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Does Gaia hear the prayer of a climate alarmist?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Macomb County, Michigan Advisor & Source, 03/12/15

Site News & Notes

Support the Center’s Authors and Admin

February 27, 2015 Thomas L. Knapp Leave a comment

As you’ll see if you click on “About The Center” in the links bar atop this page:

The Garrison Center is not a 501(c)(x) institution. It neither seeks nor accepts institutional financial support and such support for its authors and administrators is not tax deductible. Center administrators and authors may benefit from site monetization, such as ad placements, “tip jars,” etc.

I’m currently running a little fundraiser over at my blog to get things started on that end. Click here to read all about it. And thanks in advance for your support.

Best regards,
Tom Knapp