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NHTSA asserts the program has influenced manufacturers to build vehicles that consistently achieve high ratings. Many governments outside North America promote fuel economy by heavily taxing motor fuel and\/or by including a vehicle’s weight, engine size, or fuel economy in calculating vehicle registration taxes (road tax). The NHTSA administers the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), which is intended to incentivize the production of fuel-efficient vehicles by dint of fuel economy requirements measured against the sales-weighted harmonic average of each manufacturer’s range of vehicles. The NHTSA disapproved the SM’s designs featuring steerable headlamps that were not of the sealed beam design that was then mandatory in the U.S. as well as its height adjustable suspension, which made compliance with the 1973 bumper requirements cost-prohibitive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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The per mile risk for vehicle transportation is therefore 750 times higher than the per mile risk for commercial air travel. The number of deaths per passenger-mile on commercial airlines in the United States between 2000 and 2010 was about 0.2 deaths per 10 billion passenger-miles, while for driving, the rate was 1.5 per 100 million vehicle-miles for 2000, which is 150 deaths per 10 billion miles for comparison with the air travel rate. It is sometimes understood that fatalities increase with the increase of VMT, but this is not systematic as fatalities might remain quite stable while the VMT change.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n