mrtrumpBy Tom Becker of Buellton
On Friday, October 25, tragedy struck in the mountains of Santa Barbara County. A Chevrolet Volt was struck head-on by a Chevrolet Camaro that had crossed the centerline of Highway 154 just east of Cold Springs bridge. The driver of the Volt, and two children in the back seat, died at the scene.
The Chevrolet Volt is a small, compact hybrid-electric car. For years, local politicians and environmental groups have advocated for electric cars. The State of California, with the support of local elected officials, have touted cars like the Volt as environmentally friendly motor vehicles, and politicians and “environmental” groups are attempting to force people out of larger vehicles and into small compact and subcompact cars.
However, warnings have been raised about the safety of small cars like the Volt. Indeed, the collision protections that small cars provide have been discussed for decades. Those concerns have been swept aside by local politicians, all for the sake of environmental “protection”.
I can guarantee the reader, thousands of people who looked at the mangled remains of that small electric car on Highway 154 are thinking long and hard about what kind of vehicle they want their loved ones travelling in.
Honest people can have honest disagreements over large versus small car crash statistics, but it is hard not to imagine a different outcome for the victims of that crash if the car they were travelling in had been a Hummer instead of a Volt.
Local politicians should respect the rights of people who wish to protect themselves and their families by purchasing and operating large motor vehicles. City councils, the Board of Supervisors and state and federal elected officials should all support efforts to protect the rights of the motoring public to choose the vehicles they determine are best suited for their needs.
There are people out there who do not respect speed limit signs or public service announcements warning about the dangers of drunk driving. It is up to the people to defend themselves against the maniac, the drunk driver, the speed demon. The best defense is a car that comes as close to a tank as you can get, and the politicians and environmentalists must not be allowed to interfere with the choices the people make to protect themselves, their families and their loved ones.
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This would be hilarious if it weren’t so stupid.
This is despicable. How dare you.
I find it extremely offensive that this sort of veiled victim blaming would be allowed here. This is despicable and should not be published so soon after a massive tragedy that has hit so close to home for so many readers. Not cool.
I wonder if the chevy volt would have been fine if not hit by giant suv that hit it after the camero. Ohhh im sorry did i just destroy your rediculous diatribe about suvs being safer?
“Camaro” “ridiculous”
Good point about electric cars in high fire danger areas. You need to make sure you have a reliable way to get out.
Hope the car is charged before a PSPS & you keep it charged somehow.
Stay safe. This is not a climate issue, it’s a personal safety and preparedness issue.
sounds like a Mad Max world
Electric & Hybrids bite you in the a** when So. Cal. Edison & PG & E turn the power off for long periods as they attempt to hide their poorly maintained transmission lines & substandard maintenance of the same.
Irony being the public utilities were forced to spend their maintenance money on electric car rebates and the development of alternate energy sources. Now we have neither. California “progressivism” in action, leading to inaction on all fronts. Laws of unintended consequences. There was simply not enough money to go around to provide both – a fundamental lesson that always escapes progressives.
What? Really? Are you really trying to assign blame on their death on the size of their car? Wow. There are not too many cars or trucks would have done much to stop 2tonnes of high velocity steel coming at you at some 75MPH down a 20% grade and hitting you straight on. This kind of Monday morning quarterbacking does not help anyone. Sounds like the NRA argument as to why we all need high powered assault rifles. You know, to protect against other high powered assault rifles… Ridiculous on so many levels.
Hybrids have an internal combustion engine with a gas tank.
This is what burns so quickly if hit the wrong way.
Fully electric cars do NOT have gas engine and so will not burn the way other cars will.
Get a full electric, hybrids are a bad (wasteful) combination !
i would like to thank Edhat for posting this letter. the point is, even if you believe electric cars (i.e small cars) are safe, don’t take away the right of people to choose large vehicles to protect their families. Let parents decide what kind of vehicles are safe for their children.
There is so much wrong with this op-ed. As much as the author dearly to want to blame local politicians and environmentalists, they have absolutely nothing to do with vehicle safety regulations. Nor do they have any influence on your choice of vehicle to drive. And never will. And advocating for environmentally friendly choices is not a bad thing. They are not “forcing” you to do anything. Are you touting everyone to drive equally sized giant trucks in the name of safety? Did you know the Volt has a higher occupant safety ratings than the Hummer? There will always be larger and smaller vehicles on the road. Your hypothetical Hummer would be just as obliterated if it ran head-on into a semi-truck. Those two cars ran into each other at well over 100mph closing speed. It’s amazing anyone survived. The fact that one vehicle was (mostly) electric has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on the sad result. It seems, as usual, your anger is misdirected. Perhaps instead if just stating “It is up to the people to defend themselves” you should be pushing for better enforcement of driving laws by the CHP, or as it seems in this case, advocating for better funding of mental health services to assist those that are a danger to themselves and others.
Bring back the gas guzzlers baby!! Ford F-350s for all… with lift kits… and gun racks. Yeee Hawww!!
“Honest people can have honest disagreements”
Sure. And then there are people like the author …
To comment @1026 A.M- I was required by the rules of edhat opinion letters to eliminate all references to the issue of the revisions of federal fuel economy standards, which are opposed by our local, state and federal elected officials. Those revisions are intended to allow motor vehicle manufacturers to build and sell large, solidly constructed cars and trucks for people who want a large vehicle to protect themselves and their families.
Mr. Becker – First of all, the Chevy Volt would probably be classified as a mid sized four door sedan. It is not small compared to many other cars. The fact that it’s drivetrain is plugin hybrid electric has absolutely no bearing on the safety of the car. And if it weren’t for the fact that you are hijacking someone else’s horrible tragedy to air your paranoid right wing fantasies about politicians and environmentalists forcing you to buy a certain type of vehicle, you, sir, would certainly be laughable.
The size of vehicle, type of vehicle, wheelbase and tires have much to do with the ability of drivers and their vehicles to maneuver and avoid accidents. A small vehicle with short wheelbase and narrow tires is more prone to a driver losing control in an emergency maneuver. The same goes for large SUV’s which are no more than truck chassis mounted with a comfortable body interior. Many SUV drivers do not have the skill to maneuver a large SUV or prevent a roll-over when they over steer the vehicle. A small vehicle that is hit hard by a larger vehicle or truck stands to have more damage to the vehicle and its passengers. This is simple physics law. Would you rather be in a large truck that hits a small car or be in the small or any car in the accident? No matter what they contain in safety equipment, many small cars are death traps! Look at the statistics. New small cars are safer than they’ve ever been, but new larger, heavier vehicles are still safer than small ones. It’s a matter of physics: Bigger and heavier is safer than smaller and lighter. … The highest is for mini cars: 64 deaths per million registered vehicles. Bigger cars are heavier and therefore can absorb the force of an impact more efficiently than a smaller car. Higher weight minimizes damage (and thus risk). The larger hoods in bigger vehicles have the advantage in head-on collisions because it has a has a more significant crumple zone.
Some accident and safety statistics are slanted because some models of cars are driven by younger drivers, who a more prone to accidents.
Large lithium ion battery + small electric car seems like a modern tech revival of the Ford Pinto. If the battery is breached, an uncontrollable fire may initiate. Drive whatever car you want, and don’t criticize others for their choices. I just downsized my F-150 to the new Ford Ranger. I need to haul stuff and people at the same time. I’ll gladly help evacuate stranded EV owners when they can’t charge up due to a PSPS. Unless of course you are like my Mount Shasta off grid neighbor who charges his EV with his solar panels. He never has to worry about a PSPS.
I think that perhaps we should all respect Mr. Becker’s right to air his opinion without fear of being piled on and called names and compared to NRA etc. I don’t agree with him. I agree with many of the posters who have made good points– but I cringed at the mean spirited way that some of these points were made. Even if your position is right, name-calling, making suppositions about the character of someone you don’t even know, and generalizing their comments on one topic to other unrelated topics just doesn’t feel right. These “pile-ons” seem to be done by people who would never condone bullying—yet fail to see that this is just what they are doing. There should be a classy way to express your “morally superior” argument.
Also, even if we don’t agree with Mr. Becker, I don’t think it is necessarily fair to condemn his comments as “capitalizing on this tragedy.” Every time there is a tragedy, a mass shooting, etc., every news commentator and internet commenter come out with reactions and ideas that they think will help prevent that kind of tragedy from happening again. After shootings, we all respond with gun control comments, after too many deaths on the pass we all respond with ideas on how to prevent more deaths. I don’t know that it is fair to assume that Mr. Becker’s intentions in sharing his ideas for avoiding deaths is any less well intentioned.
There you go. I knew it would take only seconds for the down votes to start in on me–and I simply asked for people to be a little kinder.
BENE – nice try, but “Mr. Becker” is essentially blaming the victim of this horrific tragedy for their choice in car, and is doing so only days after this terrible event rocked so many of us in the area. He is entitled to his opinion, but when he voices it in the in which he did, please don’t cry me a river if most of us are not happy about it. Attempting to politicize this completely NON-political tragedy while at the same time, all but directly blaming the family for their choice in motor vehicle is despicable, misguided, inappropriate and just all around awful. This should have never been posted.
Nice try? You know comments have been shut down on all the other on-line news outlets because of mean and vicious comments. Surely you don’t think that if Mr. Beckers position is wrong that justifies vicious pile ons? Remember the old saying that two wrongs don’t make a right? I watched my little sister be bullied in school and I get very triggered when I see people attack others. It doesn’t matter who is right because if you can’t rebut someone’s opinion in a respectful way, you are becoming part of the problem of making a more violent and unkind world. I like to read comments and value getting other people’s opinions. But I wrote what I did because it was making it hard for me to read through the opinions when so many were expressed in ways that were painfully mean.
Buy a used school bus. Plenty of room for the family tree and their pets. Everyone should drive one, although the parking at Trader Joe’s might be an issue. 😉
I have lived here all my life. I have driven 154 dozens and dozens of times. I have almost been in a number of accidents not of my doing, and learned to drive extremely defensively, more so than more conventional routes. It is that road and many drivers who do not care about anyone else. To opinion piece sounds like a Second Amendment rant, “I need my gun to protect my family” sounds like, “I need my Hummer to protect my family.” What about that Camaro? I used to own a 1967 Camaro, and those are muscle cars. I used to own mine before seat belts were required. People were still getting killed on 154 back then. I also was an auto claims adjuster, and saw many internal combustion vehicles in the same crumpled state as that Volt. It’s not electric cars that are the problem, it is drivers who drive too fast on a road not designed to handle modern cars of any size or power source, and is especially dangerous to motorcycles, who tend to push the limits of that stretch at the top of the pass an on down. Part of me thinks that the opinion piece is being sarcastic since it is such a ridiculous argument.
It’s been said, but in short:
A) this is not an issue of election vs combustion vehicles.
B) Of course the larger car is going to “win” in the majority of collisions, but that doesn’t mean we should all race to have the largest car on the road. If we all drove more reasonably sized vehicles, we would do more for the environment (whether elec or gas) and we would all be on a more even playing field.
C) An article said the Camero had reinforced steel panels. This guy was diagnosed with behaviorial issues and so you can’t turn this situation around to make an argument why people shouldn’t drive fuel efficient cars.
This is a very short sighted post, but I am glad to see the audience is not falling for it.
So you’re Tom Becker, the guy who wrote this ridiculous article with its awful logic that even other right wingers are tearing down? Makes sense given your previous contributions. And something we’ll remember the next time you pretend to be living in Santa Barbara.
Tom Becker of Buellton is the Edhat poster: “MRTRUMP”? But, still, in Santa Barbara County. So he does have some standing on issues related to the City of Santa Barbara. Sorta.
The premise that larger cars are safer than smaller cars has been used before. That was in the late 70’s and early 80’s when the “Big Three” were still churning out large domestic gas guzzling polluters. Times sure have changed.
Somehow this argument, that size/weight means everyone should drive one for protective reasons Sounds remarkably like the gun argument, justifies bullying, and falls into the belief system that “might makes right” and justifies territorial wars. When Golda Meier was president/chancellor–wahtever the top administrator of Israel is–people came to her suggesting that there be a curfew since so many women were being raped. She agreed and commented something like, a curfew for men after sundown would address the problem. If hulking vehicles weren’t a superior source of income for car manufacturers and could be eliminated from production, this issue would go away (and smaller vehicles wouldn’t be forced to back out of parking places blindly and be disabled from safely seeing ahead on roads.)
Ahhh…. putting all the blame on politicians and government, manically.
So you and Tom Becker have a right to air your opinions but no one else does. Got it.
You are right about the mean spirited comments but Mr. Trump has done this quite a bit in his commenting on this site. So he is just reaping what he has sown. Hard to be sympathetic in this situation.