WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Way back in the Dark Ages (the 1970s), the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission (NHTSC), alarmed at the accident rate for motorcycles, set out to invent a "safe" motorcycle. I would say, "Stop me if you've heard this one," but it is not a joke - this really happened. At considerable expense, the NHTSC came up with a radical design, by which the motorcycle would be steered by the rear wheel instead of the front. It was much more stable - at speeds over 30 miles per hour. At speeds under 30 miles an hour, the prototype fell over, crushing the rider's leg. No problem: the Commission just added two training wheels to the machine, thus proving that the safest motorcycle is a car.

Is there anyone who has known the joy of riding a genuine Hog that would buy such a ridiculous contraption? Of course not, which is why neither Harley-Davidson nor anyone else would ever make such a stupid thing.

This episode was brought back to mind with last week's news about a "breakthrough" in auto fuel cell technology that promises very low emitting cars - just in time, it was tacitly suggested, to help out with the need to reduce emissions drastically to combat global warming. It is surely not a coincidence, as the Marxists used to say, that this "breakthrough" came during the run-up to the Kyoto global warming conference in December.

But a few details about these new miracle cars have been under-emphasized. The indispensable Access to Energy newsletter points out several inconvenient facts, such as that one of these cars at present would cost $150,000 to make, and would hold only one person. The car would require huge amounts of nitrogen, and would travel only 15 miles at 20 miles per hour on 48 gallons of liquid nitrogen. At current prices the nitrogen "fuel" would cost about $125, and even if the price fell by half, it would cost four dollars per mile, or approximately 150 times the conventional fuel cost of a new car of comparable weight. To drive 1,000 miles the car would require 11 tons of liquid nitrogen, about the capacity of a tractor-trailer fuel truck. It's enough to make the government's training-wheel equipped motorcycle look good by comparison.

There is a larger point, however, to this Holy Grail-like fixation with alternative fuels and clean vehicles. Remember that Al Gore thinks the internal combustion engine should be abolished. (Remember, too, that he wrote in Earth in the Balance that cars are a greater threat to American civilization than all of the armies we have faced in war.) This is only the tip of the iceberg, to use an ironic metaphor. As the global warming debate unfolds, remember that it is not about science; it is about fixing our "dysfunctional civilization" (Gore again), which means, among other things, getting us out of our cars. Time to run these jokers off the road with some healthy road rage.

--By Steven Hayward