My question to debate is: Is it worth having the CAFE standards if it involves more traffic fatalities.

Where's your evidence that SUVs are as safe as passenger cars? I won't respond further and will consider you to have forfeited the point until you at least try to make such a case using real numbers that the rest of us can verify

Here we see results from five different data sets. Look what happens when two cars of the same mass crash into each other. What we see is that if two very light cars crash into each other, the risk to each driver is approximately twice what it is when two heavy cars crash into each other. It is plotted against weight, which is not necessarily identical to mass but which, practically speaking, is usually representative of it. But what really causes this difference in risk is not the fact that the cars are heavier, but that heavy cars are also larger. This is intrinsic. A big car is heavier, and heavy cars are bigger. The extra size provides additional crush material in front of the driver, and additional occupant space. This  provides more time for the driver to come to rest, and that reduces risk.

So if a completely homogeneous fleet of very heavy cars replaced by a completely homogeneous fleet of very light cars, this would roughly double the number of driver injuries and deaths. There is a very fine safety researcher in Europe who addressed question theoretically by considering the way in which the components of vehicles crush in a crash. He came up with this relationship by plugging in the different size components that go into the different-sized vehicles.

So you see there’s a great coherence here. Five data sets, one theoretical relationship – all say that big, heavier cars crashing into big, heavier cars are safer than small, lighter, more fuel-efficient cars crashing into other small, light, fuel-efficient cars.

We are now in a position to pull apart this 14.5 percent number when I, with my extra passenger, crash into you.  We both have identical cars, but I have my passenger and you don’t. My risk is down by 7.5 percent. Your risk goes up by 8.1 percent. And so in this case there is a net social loss in that crash.  The extra passenger adds to my protection but decreases yours.  On balance, social risk has gone up a little bit.

But that is a pure mass effect; that is, the effect of just adding mass to one of the cars. Suppose that instead of carrying a passenger, I swapped my present car for another car that is heavier by that passenger’s weight.  Suppose too that my new car is also larger by the amount that you’d expect of a car that is 165 pounds heavier.  When this happens, the relationship changes. Now my risk is lower by 11.5 percent and your risk is higher by 6.9 percent.  Overall, society doesn’t lose; it gains. The reason that your risk is doesn’t increase as much as it did before is that you’re now crashing into a slightly larger vehicle with slightly more crushable structure. So you also do better hitting a slightly larger car of the same mass than a smaller one of the same mass. On balance, there is a societal gain.

The paper does deal with that one.

Suppose that instead of carrying a passenger, I swapped my present car for another car that is heavier by that passenger’s weight.  Suppose too that my new car is also larger by the amount that you’d expect of a car that is 165 pounds heavier.  When this happens, the relationship changes. Now my risk is lower by 11.5 percent and your risk is higher by 6.9 percent.  Overall, society doesn’t lose; it gains. The reason that your risk is doesn’t increase as much as it did before is that you’re now crashing into a slightly larger vehicle with slightly more crushable structure.

I don't know or particularly care if this is conclusive scientific proof, but its good enough to make me glad I drive a Ford Crown Victoria instead of a Honda Civic.

Does it make you glad that there are more two- to four-ton SUVs on the road than Civics and Corollas?

Shaq and Pee Wee Herman, both running at full speed collide...I see Shaq getting up first. In fact I doubt if Shaq even hits the floor.

How cute...why are these two runnig toward each other? Bad analogy.

How about the driver of the SUV can see the other car and avoid the collison based on prepardness while the smaller car has greater manurerability and agility and can avoid it?

Issue Description
Congress set out to improve fuel efficiencies of U.S. automobiles and to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources after the Arab oil embargo of 1973-1974 contributed to a surge in oil prices. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program was initiated in 1975 by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA).


Definitions
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards - A program initiated by EPCA, sets standards for vehicle fuel efficiency measured by miles traveled per gallon of burned fuel. The current CAFE standards require passenger automobiles to travel at least 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) of fuel burned and 20.7 mpg for light-duty trucks (classification includes sport utility vehicles (SUVs)). The passenger car standard of 27.5 mpg has been the standard since 1990. The light trucks standard of 20.7 mpg has been the standard since 1996. The standards were enacted in an effort to reduce U.S. energy consumption and dependence on foreign oil. Supporters of the program also hoped it would improve air quality.

CAFE unquestionably leads to lighter vehicles, because fuel is consumed in ways that are intimately related to mass. The energy required to accelerate a body from rest to 30 mph is directly proportional to the mass of the body. So the heavier the vehicle, the more fuel you must use, other things being equal.

Look what happens when two cars of the same mass crash into each other. What we see is that if two very light cars crash into each other, the risk to each driver is approximately twice what it is when two heavy cars crash into each other. It is plotted against weight, which is not necessarily identical to mass but which, practically speaking, is usually representative of it. But what really causes this difference in risk is not the fact that the cars are heavier, but that heavy cars are also larger. This is intrinsic. A big car is heavier, and heavy cars are bigger. The extra size provides additional crush material in front of the driver, and additional occupant space. This  provides more time for the driver to come to rest, and that reduces risk.

So when I purchase this larger car, society is on average better off.  Now there are many complicated questions about equity, but those issues are in a different arena. But in terms of just the total number of lives, when I purchase a larger car, there is a reduction of risk.  I’m safer, and so is society overall.

The Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a trade association, has mutated over the years to reflect the changing reality of global warming issues. GCC started full-force in 1989 as a corporate lobbying and public relations front for business interests engaged in a no-holds-barred campaign to convince America that global warming doesn’t exist. GCC hired a handful of scientists who are of the opinion global warming is not a threat, and amplified their voices across the op-ed pages of the U.S.

After losing most prominent corporate members in recent years as well as its multi-million dollar P.R. campaign to wish away global warming, GCC has softened its message. The coalition now focuses its efforts on opposition to the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, "sound science", and on promoting the idea of (unspecified) "pragmatic and viable solutions" to global warming.
.....
Though GCC has toned down its rhetoric regarding the non- threat of global warming, the links on the web page are almost entirely to other industry-funded anti-Kyoto sites (Western Fuels’ Association’s Greening Earth Society, The Science and Environmental Policy Project, George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, junkscience.com, etc.). GCC has a disclaimer stating they do not endorse the content of the other sites, but the "information about climate change" proffered is far from balanced.

The reason that your risk is doesn’t increase as much as it did before is that you’re now crashing into a slightly larger vehicle with slightly more crushable structure. So you also do better hitting a slightly larger car of the same mass than a smaller one of the same mass. On balance, there is a societal gain.

I would have never considered that larger vehicles colliding with smaller cars would be safer, overall, than smaller cars colliding with smaller cars.  But when you consider the added crush space, it makes sense.

The article doesn't address SUVs specifically, but being as an SUV is a larger vehicle, it is certainly a better choice, from a safety viewpoint, than a smaller, more fuel efficient car.