Essential Reading

I try not to label articles "essential" very often but this article from The Spectator certainly is. While it makes a number of valuable points about global warming, I would like to focus on this statement:

Two decades ago, air bags were made mandatory for all autos sold in the U.S. Over the years, the National Highway Safety Administration began to recognize research that found that air-bags could either deploy when inappropriate — even taking lives, especially of children — or not deploy in accident situations. But it refuses to reconsider its mandate or even to allow the removal of faulty airbags firing at 200 miles per hour when a scientific Journal of Trauma study reported by NIH found that airbags provided little protection beyond ordinary seatbelts.

Independent research of mine, while I was working on Warnings, revealed exactly the same thing. Please consider:

• Airbags add about $1,000 to the cost of a new car. 
• While driver's side airbags have some value, there is little or no value to passenger-side airbags, especially when the passenger is wearing a seatbelt. 
• Yes, airbags are well-known to kill children on the passenger side.
• Some of the best conversations I had with my children (before passenger-side airbags were mandatory) were when they were buckled into their car seats on the passenger side. Current and future generations should give this up because a federal bureaucracy cannot admit their (huge) mistake?

Putting aside global warming, there is a lot federal rule making that is based on bad science.