SUV Explosion Rocks Wall Street, No One Hurt Includling Stock Market
Summer has arrived in New York City. The thermometer crept north of 90 degrees this week, but the Knicks aren't the only thing on fire. A crossover SUV exploded near the Charging Bull statue on Tuesday. While the sight of people fleeing a smoke plume engulfing the streets of Lower Manhattan is always unsettling, there were no reported injuries. The cause of the gas-powered car's blaze and resulting blast is still under investigation. But more importantly for some people on Wall Street, the market is up today.
The first people on the scene, less than a quarter-mile from the New York Stock Exchange, were phone-wielding bystanders eager to record the burning vehicle. Eventually, the car burst into a fireball with a massive cloud of black smoke. According to WABC, the FDNY responded to the fire near the intersection of Broadway and Stone Street at 5:42 p.m. It took just over an hour for firefighters to extinguish the blaze. There wasn't much of a car left, but it appeared to be the charred remains of a fourth-generation Toyota RAV4.
Sometimes, but rarely, cars just burst into flames
While electric vehicles are notorious for the difficult-to-contain fires, combustion cars can also go up in flames on occasion. Despite the incidents that have gone viral on social media, it's fairly rare for any type of road vehicle to just catch fire. According to Car and Driver, there are roughly 117,400 car fires annually. With over 261,000,000 registered vehicles across the country, 0.04% of cars burst into flames each year.
Drivers should take comfort in the fact that vehicle fires have been on the decline. During the 1980s, there were over 450,000 vehicle fires per year. The decline has been attributed to more stringent safety standards and to their enforcement through recalls. It would be a shame if the federal government believed that cars could be made cheaper by loosening regulations for automakers. However, I highly doubt manufacturers would pass on savings to customers. They'll keep the difference as additional profit.