Guest guest Posted May 22, 2008 Report Share Posted May 22, 2008 Pinto Madness (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html) _http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html_ (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html) News: A Mother Jones Classic: For seven years the Ford Motor Company sold cars in which it knew hundreds of people would needlessly burn to death. By Mark Dowie One evening in the mid-1960s, Arjay Miller was driving home from his office in Dearborn, Michigan, in the four-door Lincoln Continental that went with his job as president of the Ford Motor Company. On a crowded highway, another car struck his from the rear. The Continental spun around and burst into flames. Because he was wearing a shoulder-strap seat belt, Miller was unharmed by the crash, and because his doors didn't jam he escaped the gasoline-drenched, flaming wreck. But the accident made a vivid impression on him. Several months later, on July 15, 1965, he recounted it to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that was hearing testimony on auto safety legislation. " I still have burning in my mind the image of that gas tank on fire, " Miller said. He went on to express an almost passionate interest in controlling fuel-fed fires in cars that crash or roll over. He spoke with excitement about the fabric gas tank Ford was testing at that very moment. " If it proves out, " he promised the senators, it will be a feature you will see in our standard cars. " Almost seven years after Miller's testimony, a woman, whom for legal reasons we will call Sandra Gillespie, pulled onto a Minneapolis highway in her new Ford Pinto. Riding with her was a young boy, whom we'll call Robbie Carlton. As she entered a merge lane, Sandra Gillespie's car stalled. Another car rear-ended hers at an impact speed of 28 miles per hour. The Pinto's gas tank ruptured. Vapors from it mixed quickly with the air in the passenger compartment. A spark ignited the mixture and the car exploded in a ball of fire. Sandra died in agony a few hours later in an emergency hospital. Her passenger, 13-year-old Robbie Carlton, is still alive; he has just come home from another futile operation aimed at grafting a new ear and nose from skin on the few unscarred portions of his badly burned body. (This accident is real; the details are from police reports.) Why did Sandra Gillespie's Ford Pinto catch fire so easily, seven years after Ford's Arjay Miller made his apparently sincere pronouncements—the same seven years that brought more safety improvements to cars than any other period in automotive history? An extensive investigation by Mother Jones over the past six months has found these answers: Fighting strong competition from Volkswagen for the lucrative small-car market, the Ford Motor Company rushed the Pinto into production in much less than the usual time. Ford engineers discovered in pre-production crash tests that rear-end collisions would rupture the Pinto's fuel system extremely easily. Because assembly-line machinery was already tooled when engineers found this defect, top Ford officials decided to manufacture the car anyway—exploding gas tank and all—even though Ford owned the patent on a much safer gas tank. For more than eight years afterwards, Ford successfully lobbied, with extraordinary vigor and some blatant lies, against a key government safety standard that would have forced the company to change the Pinto's fire-prone gas tank. By conservative estimates Pinto crashes have caused 500 burn deaths to people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into flames. The figure could be as high as 900. Burning Pintos have become such an embarrassment to Ford that its advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, dropped a line from the end of a radio spot that read " Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling. " Ford knows the Pinto is a firetrap, yet it has paid out millions to settle damage suits out of court, and it is prepared to spend millions more lobbying against safety standards. With a half million cars rolling off the assembly lines each year, Pinto is the biggest-selling subcompact in America, and the company's operating profit on the car is fantastic. Finally, in 1977, new Pinto models have incorporated a few minor alterations necessary to meet that federal standard Ford managed to hold off for eight years. Why did the company delay so long in making these minimal, inexpensive improvements? Ford waited eight years because its internal " cost-benefit analysis, " which places a dollar value on human life, said it wasn't profitable to make the changes sooner. Before we get to the question of how much Ford thinks your life is worth, let's trace the history of the death trap itself. Although this particular story is about the Pinto, the way in which Ford made its decision is typical of the U.S. auto industry generally. There are plenty of similar stories about other cars made by other companies. But this case is the worst of them all. The next time you drive behind a Pinto (with over two million of them on the road, you shouldn't have much trouble finding one), take a look at the rear end. That long silvery object hanging down under the bumper is the gas tank. The tank begins about six inches forward of the bumper. In late models the bumper is designed to withstand a collision of only about five miles per hour. Earlier bumpers may as well not have been on the car for all the protection they offered the gas tank. Mother Jones has studied hundreds of reports and documents on rear-end collisions involving Pintos. These reports conclusively reveal that if you ran into that Pinto you were following at over 30 miles per hour, the rear end of the car would buckle like an accordion, right up to the back seat. The tube leading to the gas-tank cap would be ripped away from the tank itself, and gas would immediately begin sloshing onto the road around the car. The buckled gas tank would be jammed up against the differential housing (that big bulge in the middle of your rear axle), which contains four sharp, protruding bolts likely to gash holes in the tank and spill still more gas. Now all you need is a spark from a cigarette, ignition, or scraping metal, and both cars would be engulfed in flames. If you gave that Pinto a really good whack—say, at 40 mph —chances are excellent that its doors would jam and you would have to stand by and watch its trapped passengers burn to death. 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Guest guest Posted May 25, 2008 Report Share Posted May 25, 2008 Interesting article. I don't understand why the President of Ford did not do anything about this since he had the same experience with the car. As President, he would have the power to have the engineers change the gas tank. Did he retire or something? GB , bestsurprise2002 wrote: > > Pinto Madness (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/ dowie.html) > _http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html_ > (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html) > > News: A Mother Jones Classic: For seven years the Ford Motor Company sold > cars in which it knew hundreds of people would needlessly burn to death. > By Mark Dowie > > One evening in the mid-1960s, Arjay Miller was driving home from his office > in Dearborn, Michigan, in the four-door Lincoln Continental that went with > his job as president of the Ford Motor Company. On a crowded highway, another > car struck his from the rear. The Continental spun around and burst into > flames. Because he was wearing a shoulder-strap seat belt, Miller was unharmed by > the crash, and because his doors didn't jam he escaped the gasoline- drenched, > flaming wreck. But the accident made a vivid impression on him. Several > months later, on July 15, 1965, he recounted it to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that > was hearing testimony on auto safety legislation. " I still have burning in > my mind the image of that gas tank on fire, " Miller said. He went on to > express an almost passionate interest in controlling fuel-fed fires in cars that > crash or roll over. He spoke with excitement about the fabric gas tank Ford was > testing at that very moment. " If it proves out, " he promised the senators, > it will be a feature you w > (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/compress.mov) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 26, 2008 Report Share Posted May 26, 2008 In many businesses, especially large ones with stockholders, etc, the president cannot do as he/she likes. There are often boards, etc that they have to get support/approval from. They also are accountable to the stockholders. Ford is a large company. blessings Shan Re: OT: Pinto Madness Posted by: " Guru K " greatyoga greatyoga Sun May 25, 2008 9:02 am (PDT) Interesting article. I don't understand why the President of Ford did not do anything about this since he had the same experience with the car. As President, he would have the power to have the engineers change the gas tank. Did he retire or something? GB Alternative- Medicine- Forum@ s.com, bestsurprise2002@ ... wrote: > > Pinto Madness (http://www.motherjo nes.com/news/ feature/1977/ 09/ dowie.html) > _http://www.motherjo nes.com/news/ feature/1977/ 09/dowie. html_ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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