Sometimes the truth hurts.On slashdot it gets marked flamebait!

Add that with increased sound deadening to make everything whisper quiet and you get a crap ton of weight. Weight is probably our biggest issue these days. Our cars have gotten fat.

That used to be really true, but the american engines have really improved in the past few years. Ford for example basically just completely redesigned their engine designs. What they have put out is far far better than their line up 5 or 6 years ago.

Also our diesel issue is in part y'alls fault, those MB 240 and 300d's didn't do much to better our view of diesels. Sure they run forever but gawd they're slooooooooow. (Yes I know new diesels are better and I wish we got more of them).

A lot of the weight stuff has not to do with safety but the comfort people now demand in cars. People want quiet cars with electronic everything, and gizmos coming out the wazoo. Look at even the new Hyundai's have sat nav and and sun roof in their small cars. All those things weigh something, a lot in fact. The sound deadening we use weighs a ton. If you stripped all this crap out of a new car you can bet it'd weigh a bunch less. That has driven car weight a lot more in the last 10-15 years than safety has.

The emissions controls also have little to do with it at this point, we have engineered around the problem. The formulation def has hurt milage though, we really suffer for it in CA. I often wonder if it's really worth it if we burn more gas. My guess is no.

It's not all the EPA, VW sells diesels here for example. A good chunk of it is americans won't buy diesels. It's sad and it sucks but it's true. Why won't they? Diesels of the 70s and 80s soured many americans against them. There were some really unreliable diesels that came out, combined with a bunch of really underpowered diesel cars means that people still won't buy them. It sucks. I wish we had good diesel options here.

Like it or not, the gas tax is made to keep the roads maintained, (isn't that how it should be?) A study it was found to maintain, not improve, just maintain the roads in their current condition, we would need to raise gas taxes by about $1.50 (sorry I can't find the article right now). Why do you object to taking care of what you drive on?

Ummm most cars of that era didn't get 32MPG. Maybe 12MPG or 15MPG average, but not 32MPG. If you are referring to the falcon, that thing was extremely under powered (2.4L 85hp), and ford themselves claimed UP TO 32 MPG (http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Ford/1960_Ford/1960_Ford_Falcon_Brochure/1960%20Ford%20Falcon-11.html) so it probably got more like 25 (still good compared to most cars of the era but still not amazing).

Let's start with the safety stuff, I would argue even if all that went away tomorrow, the weight of cars would change very little, why? People want a lot more in a car now, they want really quiet cars, they want cars that have gizmos, all that weighs more. Look at the CRX from the late 80s, certainly safer that falcon you mentioned, they got 40-50 MPG highway generally, didn't make that much less power than that falcon with a 1.3L engine (the second gen made 5 more HP with a 1.4L, yup those emission controls sure are killing fuel economy and power) and got 50 MPG. Why did it get 50 MPG? It weighed nothing. It certainly had to meet safety standards by then, instead it had nothing in it. Had almost no sound deadening, no gizmos, nothing. Sound deadening weighs a ton! You can bet if we pulled that stuff out, pulled out all the power seats, electronic gizmos and so on cars milage would increase. Would anyone stand for it? Probably not. But safety gets an unfair portion of the blame for this.

As far as CAFE killing station wagons, I don't buy it. American consumers weren't buying wagons anymore so people stopped making them. Volvo, a company who for years, their bread and butter was wagons, now no longer sells wagons in the US. Why? Hint it wasn't because of CAFE, it was because they had only sold a few 1000 the year before. When VOLVO can't sell wagons, no one can.

You do understand why the EPA was created and started regulating vehicle emissions right? Have you seen what LA looked like in the 60s and 70s? GROSS! And it wasn't just LA, it was many major cities throughout the country. When that stuff hit it caught all the american car makers off guard, they had to jump through hoops to make their horridly inefficient V8s meet emissions standards, while the europeans for example, had to do little as they had moved to more modern OHC designs and embraced fuel injection. GM instead insisted on using computer silly controlled carbs (that Japanese did some of this nonsense too) well into the 80s which held down milage and power down, especially when combined with out of date engine designs. Seems to me they tried to ignore emissions regulations as much as they could in hopes that they'd go away. Also technology has us building far more efficient engines than we've ever built that put out almost no emissions, and aren't hindered by these controls like american V8s were in the 70s and 80s.

In the past 30 years many cars have gotten heavier, small economy cars have gone from weighing a ton or not much more to weighing 1.5-2 tons! That's huge. Suddenly you need more displacement, and more power to maintain just what we already had. This weight is mostly comfort items. People won't drive a noisy car anymore, so they add tons of sound deadening, all those gizmos, they add weight, lots of it. Safety equipment has also added weight but not to the extent of passenger comfort has. Look at the old CRX or the geo metro, they could get 50 MPG, but that was mostly because they weighed nothing and there for could be pushed along by tiny engines.

As in it's acceptable to block someone in?

I work for a guy who is in a wheel chair, thus he has a ramp van, let's say there are no handicap spots open, so he parks in a normal spot, then someone parks next to him so he can't use the ramp to get back in his van. If anything there should be more.

Have you SEEN congress? I wouldn't put it past them ban ALL dns. Would solve the problem.

Is that really that much better? It's visual spam. And typically the response rate is pretty poor. Also it's harder to localized ads (specially with people on mobile devices, verizon for example has my location set as kansas city despite the fact that I live in CA).

Also you can always opt out http://consumerist.com/2008/03/8-ways-to-opt-out-of-junk-mail-lists.html

In terms of advertising, I feel like direct mail is some of the most intrusive in my life. It doesn't pop over the article I am trying to read, it doesn't make noise, it's not actively trying to get my attention, it's not flashing.

Yea cause you know there's a surplus of those around right now *rolls eyes* Again it has been proven junk mail works, that's why they send it so it drives business (many times to local businesses).

Its more than just them though, it's the businesses they generate business for. By your logic half the country would be out of work

Do you realize how many jobs come from so called junk mail? You do realize it is sent because the return rate is something like 2% (which in the world of marketing is HUGE!) right? Just sayin.