Saturday, August 29, 2009

Cash For Clunkers A Boom For Foreign Cars

The "Cash for Clunkers" program is now over. The government spent almost all of the 3 billion dollars it had allotted for the program and it seems that the people who benefited the most were foreign car makers. As it turned out the American public ran to the dealerships to trade in their American cars and exchange them for foreign ones. The list of the top five cars that were traded in during the program were: 1. Ford Explorer 4WD, 2. Ford F-150, 3. Jeep Grand Cherokee, 4. Ford Explorer 2WD, 5. Dodge Caravan.
The list of the top 5 cars that were purchased during the campaign are: 1. Toyota Corolla, 2. Honda Civic, 3. Toyota Camry, 4. Ford Focus, 5. Hyundai Elantra. Basically the American public threw out its American "clunkers" and replaced them with brand new foreign cars that were in most cases far more fuel efficient and more reliable overall.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

U.S. Traffic Deaths Set To Hit Modern Low This Year

It seems that in The United States fewer and fewer people are dying in auto accidents this year. The country is on pace to have the lowest casualty total since 1961 in fact. In the first three months of 2009 the total number of motorists who had died in auto accidents was 7689. If that rate continues it would put the years total at 30,756. To give you an idea of how low that is in 2007 the total number was 37,621. In 2008 this figure was even lower than that by almost 10%. The decline has been attributed in large part to the recession. There is less economic activity going on and therefore fewer cars on the roads and therefore fewer accidents and fewer casualties. Another factor adding to the reduced volume of traffic has been the rising price of gas which has forced many motorists to due less driving simply as an economic necessity.