Wall Street History

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Wall Street History

03/12/2004

Ralph Nader, Part II

There are a couple of reasons why I’m running a second piece on
Ralph Nader in three weeks. First, the following article from
1959 was a preview of Nader’s 1965 groundbreaking book,
“Unsafe at Any Speed.” Second, this is part of our nation’s
corporate history. Third, I’m traveling and very grateful to The
Nation magazine for allowing me to reprint it, thus saving your
editor quite a bit of time. This is in no way an endorsement of
Ralph Nader’s candidacy for president. It merely acknowledges,
however, his role as consumer advocate and the important work
he did decades ago to help make our lives a little safer. At the
same time I, like many of you, have problems with his style.
You’re either with him, he believes, or a corrupt tool.

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April 11, 1959

“The Safe Car You Can’t Buy”

The Cornell Aeronautical laboratory has developed an exhibition
automobile embodying over sixty new safety concepts which
would enable an occupant to withstand a head-on collision at 50
mph with at most only minor scratches. In its design, six basic
principles of crash protections were followed.

1. The car body was strengthened to prevent most external blows
from distorting it against the passengers.

2. Doors were secured so that crash impacts could not open them,
thereby saving passengers from ejection and maintaining the
structural strength of the side of the car body.

3. Occupants were secured to prevent them from striking objects
inside the car.

4. Interior knobs, projections, sharp edges and hard surfaces have
been removed and the ceiling shaped to produce only glancing
blows to the head (the most vulnerable part of the body during a
crash).

5. The driver’s environment was improved to reduce accident
risk by increasing visibility, simplifying controls and
instruments, and lowering the carbon monoxide of his breathing
atmosphere.

6. For pedestrian safety, dangerous objects like hood ornaments
were removed from the exterior.

This experimental car, developed with funds representing only a
tiny fraction of the annual advertising budget of, say, Buick, is
packed with applications of simple yet effective safety factors.
In the wrap-around bumper system, for instance, plastic foam
material between the front and rear bumpers and the back-up
plates absorbs some of the shock energy; the bumpers are
smoothly shaped to convert an increased proportion of blows
from direct to glancing ones; the side bumpers are firmly
attached to the frame, which has been extended and reinforced to
provide support. Another feature is the installment of two roll-
over bars into the top of the car body as added support.

It is clear that Detroit today is designing automobiles for style,
cost, performance and calculated obsolescence, but not – despite
the 5,000,000 reported accidents, nearly 40,000 fatalities,
110,000 permanent disabilities and 1,500,000 injuries yearly –
for safety.

Almost no feature of the interior design of our current cars
provides safeguards against injury in the event of collision.
Doors that fly open on impact, inadequately secured seats, the
sharp-edged rear-view mirror, pointed knobs on instrument
panels and doors, flying glass, the overhead structure – all
illustrate the lethal potential of poor design. A sudden
deceleration turns a collapsed steering wheel or a sharp-edged
dashboard into a bone- and chest-crushing agent. Penetration of
the shatterproof windshield can chisel one’s head into fractions.
A flying seat cushion can cause a fatal injury. The apparently
harmless glove-compartment door has been known to unlatch
under impact and guillotine a child. Roof-supporting structure
has deteriorated to a point where it provides scarcely more
protection to the occupants, in common roll-over accidents, than
an open convertible. This is especially true of the so-called
“hardtops.” Nor is the automobile designed as an efficient force
moderator. For example, the bumper does not contribute
significantly to reduction of the crash deceleration forces that are
transmitted to the motorist; its function has been more to reflect
style than absorb shock.

These weaknesses of modern automobile construction have been
established by the investigation of several groups, including the
Automotive Crash Injury Research of the Cornell University
Medical College, the Institute of Transportation and Traffic
Engineering of the University of California and the Motor
Vehicle Research of Lee, New Hampshire.

The remarkable advances in crash-protection knowledge
achieved by these research organizations at a cost of some $6
million stands in marked contrast to the glacier-like movements
of car manufacturers, who spend that much to enrich the sound
of a door slam. This is not due to any dearth of skill – the
industry possesses many able, frustrated safety engineers whose
suggestions over the years invariably have taken a back seat to
those of the stylist. In 1938, an expert had this to say in ‘Safety
Engineering:’

The motor industry must face the fact that accidents occur. It is
their duty, therefore, to so design the interiors of automobiles
that when the passenger is tossed around, he will get an even
break and not suffer a preventable injury in accidents that are
today taking a heavy toll.

In 1954, nearly 600,000 fatalities later, a U.C.L.A. engineer
could conclude that “There has been no significant automotive-
engineering contribution to the safety of motorists since about
the beginning of World War II ” In its 1955 annual report, the
Cornell crash-research group came to a similar conclusion,
adding that “the newer model automobiles (1950-54) are
increasing the rate of fatalities in injury-producing accidents.”

In 1956, Ford introduced the double-grip safety-door latch, the
“dished” steering wheel, and instrument panel-padding; the rest
of the industry followed with something less than enthusiasm.
Even in these changes, style remained the dominant
consideration, and their effectiveness is in doubt. Tests have
failed to establish, for example, an advantage for the “deep-dish”
steering wheel compared with the conventional wheel; the
motorist will still collapse the rim to the hub.

This year, these small concessions to safety design have virtually
been discontinued. “A square foot of chrome sells ten times
more cars than the best safety-door latch,” declared one industry
representative

Prevailing analyses of vehicular accidents circulated for popular
consumption tend to impede constructive thinking by adherence
to some monistic theory of causation. Take one of the more
publicized ogres – speed. Cornell’s findings, based on data
covering 3,203 cars in injury-producing accidents, indicate that
74 percent of the cars were going at a traveling speed under 60
mph and about 88 percent involved impact speeds under 60 mph.
The average impact speed on urban roads was 27 mph; on rural
roads, 41 mph. Dangerous or fatal injuries observed in accidents
when the traveling speed was less than 60 mph are influenced far
more by the shape and structure of interior car components with
which the body came into contact than by the speed at which the
cars were moving

In brief, automobiles are so designed as to be dangerous at any
speed.

Our preoccupation has been almost entirely with the cause of
accidents seen primarily in terms of the driver and not with the
instruments that produce the injuries. Erratic driving will always
be characteristic, to some degree, of the traffic scene; exhortation
and stricter law enforcement have at best a limited effect. Much
more significant for saving life is the application of engineering
remedies to minimize the lethal effects of human error by
designing the automobile so as to afford maximum protection to
occupants in the event of a collision. In a word, the job, in part,
is to make accidents safe.

The task of publicizing the relation between automotive design
and highway casualties is fraught with difficulties. The press,
radio and television are not likely to undertake this task in terms
of industry responsibility when millions in advertising dollars are
being poured into their coffers. Private researchers are reluctant
to stray from their scholarly and experimental pursuits, especially
when cordial relations with the industry are necessary for the
continuation of their projects with the maximum of success. Car
manufacturers have thought it best to cooperate with some of
these programs and, in one case, when findings became
embarrassing, have given financial support. The industry’s
policy is bearing fruit; most investigators discreetly keep their
private disgust with the industry’s immobility from seeping into
the limelight

By all relevant criteria, a problem so national in scope and
technical in nature can best be handled by the legislative process,
on the federal level, with delegation to an appropriate
administrative body. It requires uniformity in treatment and
central administration, for as an interstate matter, the job cannot
be left to the states with their dissimilar laws setting low
requirements that are not strictly enforced and that do not strike
at the heart of the malady – the blueprint on the Detroit drawing
board. The thirty-three-year record of the attempt to introduce
state uniformity in establishing the most basic equipment
standards for automobiles has been disappointing.

Perhaps the best summation of the whole issue lies in a
physician’s comment on the car manufacturer’s design policy:
“Translated into medicine,” he writes, “it would be comparable
to withholding known methods of life-saving value.”

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Congress passed the Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of
1966 overwhelmingly. Federal rules regarding seat belts, air
bags, manufacturers’ recalls, crash tests, and other safety factors
can be traced to that act.

*Reprinted with permission from the April 11, 1959 issue of The
Nation magazine. For subscription information, call 1-800-333-
8536. Portions of each week’s Nation magazine can be accessed
at http://www.thenation.com.

Thanks to H.A. for helping me out with this.

Wall Street History returns March 19.

Brian Trumbore

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