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Since Americans first debated government regulation of the fuel efficiency of passenger cars, it’s always come down to safety vs. efficiency: lighter cars get better mileage, the conventional wisdom goes — but they’re not as safe as heavier cars.
Thirty years after that debate began in the energy crisis of the 1970s, does the argument still hold water?
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDM3NjYwMjA5MDE1MjA1MzQ1NDk1N2ZmZQ004) "Auto Efficiency: The Mileage vs. Safety Debate 1")
Kathleen Schalch is a general assignment reporter on NPR's national desk. Her coverage can be heard on NPR's award-winning newsmagazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.
Since joining NPR in 1995, Schalch has covered a wide variety of subjects, from trade and globalization to tax policy and energy. She is currently focusing on some new issues, including transportation.
Schalch has had a long career in public radio, starting back in the 1970s at KGNU in Boulder, Colorado. In the early 1990s, Schalch reported from Appleton, Wisc., for Wisconsin Public Radio. Schalch began her reporting career in Washington at the Voice of America, where she worked between 1985 and 1993.
There she covered diplomatic and security issues and events ranging from the Gulf War to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Schalch grew up in Rochester, New York. She went to Oberlin College and earned her bachelor’s degree in American history and literature from Cornell University. She received her master's degree in American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania, and a second master's degree, in international affairs and international economics, from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Schalch lives in Maryland with her husband and four children. When she's not on the air, or doing laundry, she likes to read and listen to music, especially jazz and rhythm and blues.
