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Trump Is a Half-Wit When It Comes to Cars, and Here’s Why

Donald Trump likes to talk out of his butt. Regardless of your political color, you can’t possibly deny that, every once in a while, the 45th POTUS makes statements he can’t back up or that are generally impossible to verify because they have no grounds in reality.
Donald Trump doesn't know much about cars but that's not stopping him from talking about them 6 photos
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The 45th President of the United States, Donald TrumpThe 45th President of the United States, Donald TrumpThe 45th President of the United States, Donald TrumpThe 45th President of the United States, Donald TrumpThe 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump
That’s not to say that Trump’s a liar, because that would somehow imply him being aware that he’s not speaking the truth and Trump lacks this kind of self-awareness. In a world of fake news, Trump is reinventing the truth with every statement he makes. George Orwell would be so proud.

Along the years, Trump has made plenty of bold claims, many of which have been proven unsubstantiated – not that it’s stopping him from standing by them. He’s also talked about cars on occasion, whether to complain about the auto industry and their trying to sell greener vehicles and autonomous cars, or to start trade wars that could later complain about. He’s also approached related topics, in the same casual and uninformed manner.

Should anyone else be this misinformed and misleading, it would still be excusable, somehow. But this is the “leader of the free world” we’re talking about, a man whose words mean something regardless of whether he’s done any research or put any consideration behind them. This is a man others look up to and believe, so his ignorance is criminal.

“That woman was driving on the wrong side of the road. It happens.” 

In August 2019, the wife of a U.S. diplomat station in the U.K. hit and killed a teen on his motorcycle. The woman, Anne Sacoolas, was driving with her kids on the wrong side of the road near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, a military base used by the US Air Force, where her husband was stationed.

The biker, 19-year-old Harry Dunn, came from up a hill and she crashed into him. He was still alive when she got out of his car and called for assistance, and drove off home because she had been granted diplomatic immunity. 

The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump
Photo: pixabay.com
He died in the hospital and, 3 weeks later, Sacoolas boarded a passenger plane and, because she still had diplomatic immunity, she flew back to the U.S. Her immunity has been lifted since, but not thanks to Trump who, after speaking with PM Boris Johnson about the possibility of having her prosecuted in the U.K., told the media that – put in layman’s terms – s**t happens. Especially when you have to drive on the other side of the road.

“The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road. That can happen,” Trump said. “Those are the opposite side of the road. I won’t say it ever happened to me, but it did. When you get used to driving on our system and then you’re all of a sudden on the other system where you’re driving it happens. It happens. You have to be careful.”

A family lost their teenage son and Trump’s unsolicited explanation for it is that “it happens.” How very scientific. While any other person in a public office would have crafted a reasonable, considerate response to the issue of having the female driver prosecuted in the U.K., Trump outright defends it with the silliest, most childish excuse: oh, the Brits are so weird for driving on the other side of the road, what did they expect would happen when someone else visited their country?

Human traffickers have “unbelievable vehicles,” better than anything ICE and Border Patrol have

Donald Trump wants his wall at the border with Mexico and he will bend the truth if that means convincing his voters that it’s a necessity. He’s been campaigning for the wall since before he got elected and he continued to do so throughout his time in office.

Sometime in January 2019, Trump added a new anecdote to his repertory, one meant to show his constituents just how badly a wall was needed. It tackled the issue of human trafficking but, as several immigration agencies and nonprofits told The Washington Post, from a totally fictitious perspective: women being tied up and gagged in the back of cars that were many times better than what U.S. authorities had in their fleet.

“They're driving in and they're not coming through checkpoints, because you can't have three or four people in the back with tape over your mouths and your hands tied and drive past someone who is checking out your van...The fact is if we don't have barriers, walls, call them what you will, very strong barriers where people can not any longer drive right across,” Trump said during a press meeting that month.

“They have unbelievable vehicles. They make a lot of money. They have the best vehicles you can buy. They have stronger, bigger and faster vehicles than our police have and that ICE have and that Border Patrol have. They're pretty good at that. They have areas they go to. It's like a highway,” he added.

The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump
Photo: pixabay.com
In building human traffickers across the border into the Goliath to America’s David, Trump was hoping to earn more support for the wall. That doesn’t make his hyperbole any more true: human trafficking is an issue, but his description of it is not substantiated by any actual, real pattern. It’s divorced from reality, as is his claim of the impressive fleet of vehicles that cross the border on the regular, with up to 4 people tied up in the backseat.

Today’s greener cars are not safe because they’re “made out of papier- mâché”

In the summer of 2019, Donald Trump froze CAFE standards proposed by the Obama administration, arguing that the move would save billions for the government. In one of his rallies at around the time, the President argued that today’s greener cars are less safe because of the “junk” that’s thrown on them to save gas. They’re also more expensive and lighter, which is what makes them so terribly unsafe.

Trump promised new regulations that would save car owners $3,500 from the selling price of a vehicle, but without compromising their efficiency in terms of being “environmentally terrific.” He also promised to make cars heavier and, thus, safer.

The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump
Photo: pixabay.com
“Makes sense, right?” he said. “They could be a little bit heavier. I mean, they make them now like papier-mâché. Somebody touches them and the entire car collapses. When somebody hits me, I want to be in as close to an army tank as possible. No, they’re made out of papier-mâché. They weigh about three pounds and if you get hit by a bus, it’s over. They say, ‘What happened to that car?’”

It’s true that cars have become more expensive, and the technology in them contributes to that, but there is absolutely nothing to support Trump’s claim that today’s vehicles are less safe. If anything, the opposite is true: a 2018 study by the NHTSA revealed that 55% of the occupants of a car involved in a crash in 1984 or earlier were killed, whereas that percentage was down to 26 for the year 2013. And no, weight has nothing to do with what happens to a car in a crash, that’s still down to engineering and technology.

NHTSA Deputy Administrator Heidi King told Congress in June 2019 that, “The fundamental principles remain: Newer cars are safer and cleaner than older cars. Consumers are more likely to upgrade to newer, cleaner, safer cars if costly regulations don’t raise the price beyond consumers’ means.” It’s called progress.



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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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