Banning Fast Cars to Save the World

The hysterical global warming crowd, always on the lookout for a new way to save the world, wants to ban all cars capable of exceeding 100 mph:

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- If one of the more extreme responses to global warming comes true, driving a sports car anywhere but on a racetrack might be relegated to history's dustbin.

Fast, powerful cars within a few years may be outlawed in Europe, an idea that has been raised ostensibly because Ferraris and Porsches produce too much carbon dioxide. For those who abhor sports cars as vulgar symbols of affluence (along with vacation homes, furs and fancy jewelry), such a ban could be a two-fer: Saving the planet while cutting economic inequality.

Who are these people anyway who decide on behalf of everyone what car is proper to drive? In the U.S. they're members of Congress, which is considering fuel-efficiency standards that will affect vehicle size. In Europe, it's the ministers and parliamentarians of the European Union, which wants to limit how much CO2 cars can emit as a proxy for a fuel- consumption standard.

Chris Davies, a British member of the European Parliament, is proposing one of the most-extreme measures -- a prohibition on any car that goes faster than 162 kilometers (101 miles) an hour, a speed that everything from the humble Honda Civic on up can exceed. He ridiculed fast cars as ``boys' toys.''

The proposed ban would take effect in 2013. Davies told the Guardian newspaper that ``cars designed to go at stupid speeds have to be built to withstand the effects of a crash at those speeds. They are heavier than necessary, less fuel-efficient and produce too many emissions.''

This is the same twisted logic that has led the war on SUV's in this country. After all, it's not fair that one driver gets to drive a heavy vehicle which fares better in a crash with a smaller gas-saving skateboard. In the view of the wacky left, both drivers should have an equal opportunity to be killed in the crash.

What would be left after you ban all cars that can theoretically exceed 100 mph? Al Gore III proved that even the vaunted fuel-miserly Prius would have to be banned since he proved it capable of such high speeds while driving on the freeway right by my house.

The fact is, the auto-buying market likes big, fast, powerful cars and no European twit or American Congressidiot is going to take them away.