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Abstract
The previously found correlation of average annual temperature and motor vehicle travel among U.S. states suggests amplifying feedback of increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and warming. This study employed a regression model relating average annual temperature to motor vehicle CO2 emissions among the 48 contiguous states, controlling for other factors that affect travel. Increased emissions were associated with higher temperatures during 2000–14. Application of the model to 2015–16 data indicated that 27 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2015 and 38 million metric tons in 2016 would have not occurred if the average annual temperatures among U.S. states in those years had remained at 2014 levels. A 2018 proposal by the U.S. government to reduce future vehicle fuel economy standards ignored the potential effect of warming on vehicle travel and contained erroneous analyses of the relation of vehicle weight to fatality risk, vehicle scrappage rate to new vehicle sales, and the relation of new vehicle costs to fuel economy. Huge improvement in fuel economy and reduced CO2 emissions based on required hybrid technology are possible at reasonable cost.

Using National Acccident Sampling System files for the calendar years 1982-1986, shoulder belt use and effectiveness were compared among 1974-1980 model year cars with and without window shade devices, which human factors research has found to produce excess slack in the belts. Although shoulder belt use was not correlated to presence or absence of the window shade mechanism when model year and calendar year effects were controlled statistically, the effectiveness of belts in cars with the window shade device was consistently less than in cars without the device, particularly so in larger vehicles.

SummaryThe fifty states of the US were compared in 1971–72 and 1974–75 with respect to percentage apparent conceptions aborted and infant mortality rates attributed to various causes. Only non-vehicle accidental deaths were consistently related to abortion. The correlation is non-linear; non-vehicle accidental deaths were especially high in states with little or no abortion. A decline in non-vehicle accidental deaths from before to after the Supreme Court decision was most pronounced in states where there were fewest abortions before the decision and where increases in abortion occurred following the decision.