Mr. Godfrey, let me begin, if I could. Others will possibly join in after.
I think we have to remember here that sales and market share are being fiercely competed for as we speak. Every vehicle manufacturer has a full slate of fuel-saving technologies that are more fuel efficient. There are different perspectives on what the historical scene has been, both in terms of why things happened or didn't happen in terms of fuel efficiency, or the fact that the auto industry has resisted regulations. That's not true. In fact, the auto industry has actually been responsible for the development of things like catalytic converters and what not. It was the development by one company sharing them with other companies that actually got us to catalytic converters on vehicles, which resulted in huge-step reductions in emissions.
Now, of course, we have a different scene. We have a different circumstance out there. We have people now who are clamouring for more fuel-efficient vehicles. Why? Certainly some of the references to climate change and IPCC reports, for instance, obviously have put a different perspective out there, and a fairly persuasive one. But they're also responding to fuel pricing in the marketplace, which is something they've had in Europe and other jurisdictions. There they have always had a smaller, more fuel-efficient fleet because they've had proper high fuel pricing signals in the market. We've never had that in North America, and we still don't have it in North America, quite frankly.
It's very difficult to bring forward and sell vehicles that are more fuel efficient when you have fuel prices that are relatively low. It's very constraining on us to sell these vehicles, which is why we're saying that we need this full suite of supporting policies. It's clearly stated and clearly documented by various studies that fuel pricing is probably the most effective means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. That's well documented. But we don't have that, and nobody seems to have the political will to do that.
We're saying that if we can move forward, recognizing the integrated nature of the North American market, the integration of our industry, the fact that we are looking at a more stringent fuel economy standard in the United States.... And we're not kidding when we say that it's a challenge. There are always reports, as I say, that we are overestimating the costs. Well, all of our studies I know have been done by independent research and consulting firms. The fact of the matter is we don't have high fuel prices, so we have to look to this other slate of supportive policies. Clearly the economic impact and the fact that we can bring forward these technologies on an integrated basis at less cost to Canadians means that we can ultimately make it more affordable for them. Being more affordable means that they can buy more of them, which is why we have a higher percentage of smaller vehicles in our fleet.
We have to consider all these things and provide these vehicles in a way that people can afford them and turn over the fleet as fast as we can, which takes us to the point about the higher-polluting vehicles. We also have to look at the co-benefits here. If we're turning over the fleet, we get real safety benefits. All of the reductions in fatalities and serious injuries to date have been primarily due to the technology we put on our vehicles. If we could turn over the fleet now, you would see a 50% reduction in those fatalities. That's tremendous.