Every once in a while I hear a ‘clang’ when reading a NY Time editorial, where the thinking is so obviously out if sync with my perceptions that it hurst.

In this piece, I align with the NY Times sentiments regarding the benefits of getting Detroit to build greener cars, but the lack of understanding about marketing is baffling:

[via Editorial - Mind Over Muscle - NYTimes.com]

“America’s automakers have long claimed that it will take major technological breakthroughs to meet the stringent fuel efficiency standards needed to slash carbon emissions and cope with rising energy prices. But Detroit’s new display of muscle cars suggests fuel efficiency is, at this stage, more of a problem of taste and will.

More efficient vehicles are within Detroit’s technological reach. Carmakers must decide to make them and consumers must be convinced to buy them.

The latest hot rod to hit showrooms is the new Chevy Camaro. Chrysler recently introduced a new Dodge Challenger. Ford had a hit with the new Mustang. The three cars might help carmakers’ bottom lines, but they are unlikely to reduce the United States’ carbon footprint. A car that could have — Chevy’s hybrid Malibu sedan — was killed in June because of lackluster sales.”

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So, people didn’t like the Malibu hybrid, and muscle cars still seem to be big. Saying that more fuel efficient cars are good for us — “Carmakers must decide to make them and consumers must be convinced to buy them.” — is like tring to make children eat spinach.

This is a failure NOT of marketing by car makers, but of the government. If more fuel efficient cars are a social good, we should raise gar taxes and directly subsidize fuel efficient cars. Otherwise, the draw of the muscle cars will win. And all the finger wagging in the world won’t help.

Police Get Out Of Their Cruisers And Citizens Walking Beats

One positive side effect of the increase in US gas prices is that police are geeting out of their cars, and pounding a beat:

[from As Gas Prices Rise, Police Departments Turn to Foot Patrols - NYTimes.com]

[…] one of the most popular fuel conservation measures has been the simplest: walking. Or as Chief Frank Hooper of Gainesville, Ga., put it in a memorandum, “walk and talk.”

The old-fashioned foot patrol has gone in and out of vogue. But in the last decade or so, the use of ever more refined mapping to pinpoint criminal hotspots has lent itself to the practice. Many departments at least pay lip service to the idea of community policing, in which officers get to know residents, develop contacts and tackle problems that fall outside the traditional realm of police work. Police chiefs who are particularly devoted to the community policing model say gasoline prices are helping to push their officers in that direction.

“I’ve always had a theory that one of the greatest inventions was police cars, because it made us more mobile,” Chief Hooper said. “And one of the worst inventions was air-conditioning, because we rolled our windows up.”

Chief Hooper said he had always encouraged his officers to get out and talk to residents. But under the threat of losing the privilege of taking home patrol cars because of high gas prices, Gainesville officers cut their gas consumption by 10 percent last month compared with June 2007. They have walked the town square, the malls and, at night, abandoned buildings.

Officer Adam Crenshaw said he did not mind escaping his car or even sitting in one place to monitor traffic. “Being stationary, you see a lot more,” he said. “I’m able to see a lot more child restraint violations.”

In Suwanee, Officer Stewart said that walking and talking suited his natural inclinations and helped him work cases. Restaurant workers, he said, “have intel on all kinds of stuff. They know who’s doing what. They know about drugs coming into the city.”

He said building relationships can help save on gasoline costs, too. He passes out his cellphone number and e-mail address and can handle business in ways that do not involve getting into his car.

But not all officers have been so easily lured out of their cars.

“The average officer thinks that if they’re constantly on the move, they’re doing a better job of preventing an incident from occurring,” said Chief Ric Moss of Woodstock, Ga. “Candidly some of them have said, ‘Well, gee, you know, it’s hot out there.’ Well, if you go in that store, you’ll cool off, you’ll get to know the manager and you’ll get your presence known. We’ve had to educate them as to the benefits.”

One officer on a bicycle has already caught a thief in the act of stripping copper from an abandoned building, Chief Moss said. “How you measure how much crime you prevented, that’s always a question,” he said. “But if we’re getting into areas that we’re not getting into with a motor vehicle, I’m satisfied.”

Departments that have limited car patrols say that they have seen no effect on crime or citations or that it is too soon to tell. They say that the public has been apprehensive when changes have been announced, but that the reaction to more accessible police officers has been positive.

At Taco Mac, a restaurant in Suwanee where Officer Stewart was greeted with hugs and a Diet Coke, the manager, Steve Helms, said he would rather have an officer in his bar than cruising the streets in a marked car.

“We stay open the latest in the entire city,” Mr. Helms said. “It’s a deterrent.”

Still, some jurisdictions have resisted any notion of restricting patrols. “I have one beat alone in the northeastern division that is larger than the city of San Francisco,” said Detective Gary Hassen of the San Diego Police Department. “To say, ‘Gee, are you going to walk that?’ — it would be impossible.”

Like many other social concerns, police remaining locally grounded definitely improves crime fighting and community involvement. What’s totally strange is that it is widely known to work better — independently of the gas crisis — but it is only now that police departments are mobilizing to the degree that they are.

This is another example of ‘management using techniques that don’t work, instead of those they don’t understand,’ as Eric Bonabeau once quipped. Police know that walking or bicycling on the beats works better, but it requires more police to cover the ground. But instead of retiring cruisers — and the direct and indirect costs associated with them — and paying for more police on the ground, they persist in old patterns.

Of course it is unthinkable that a cop would ride the bus or train to his beat, walk or rdie a bike around all day, and then use public transportation to get home, right?

Likewise, forward looking municipalities are getting people involved in foot patrols, like Portland Oregon:

[from Portland Office of Neighborhood Involvement - Commmunity Foot Patrols]

A Foot Patrol is a trained group of volunteers organized to increase the safety and livability of their neighborhood. They walk their neighborhood streets, parks, or schools to deter crime and report incidents and problems, rather than sit back and hope that someone else will take care of any crime or livability problems.

Another unthinkable: people becoming actively involved in ‘policing’ their own streets. Video cell phone software integrated with GPS is going to be a great ‘sousveillance’ tool.