Car Safety Wars

Car Safety Wars is a gripping history of the hundred-year struggle to improve the safety of American automobiles and save lives on the highways. Described as the "equivalent of war" by the Supreme Court, the battle involved the automobile industry, unsung and long-forgotten safety heroes, at least six US Presidents, a reluctant Congress, new auto technologies, and, most of all, the mindset of the American public: would they demand and be willing to pay for safer cars? The "Car Safety Wars" were at first won by consumers and safety advocates. The major victory was the enactment in 1966 of a ground breaking federal safety law. The safety act was pushed through Congress over the bitter objections of car manufacturers by a major scandal involving General Motors, its private detectives, Ralph Nader, and a gutty cigar-chomping old politician. The act is a success story for government safety regulation. It has cut highway death and injury rates by over seventy percent in the years since its enactment, saving more than two million lives and billions of taxpayer dollars.
But the car safety wars have never ended. GM has recently been charged with covering up deadly defects resulting in multiple ignition switch shut offs. Toyota has been fined for not reporting fatal unintended acceleration in many models. Honda and other companies have-for years-sold cars incorporating defective air bags. These current events, suggesting a failure of safety regulation, may serve to warn us that safety laws and agencies created with good intentions can be corrupted and strangled over time.
This book suggests ways to avoid this result, but shows that safer cars and highways are a hard road to travel. We are only part of the way home.

Michael R. Lemov served as general counsel of the National Commission on Product Safety and Chief Counsel of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the House of Representatives Commerce Committee. He is also the author of Peoples Warrior: John Moss and the Fight for Freedom of Information and Consumer Rights (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011).

Dedication List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Prologue 1. Love and Death on the Open Road 2. Voices in the Wilderness 3. Just a Congressman from a Small State 4. Safety Doesn't Sell 5. General Motors Meets Ralph Nader 6. A Federal Law 7. Dr. Haddon, Detroit and the New Safety Agency 8. Dragon Lady 9. The Birth and Near Death of the Air Bag 10. Elizabeth Dole, State Farm and How America Got the Air Bag 11. Rough Road for Recalls: Ford Pinto Gas Tanks to GM Ignition Switches 12. Forcing Technology: Safety Standards in the New Century Epilogue: A Hard Road to Travel Appendixes A. Summary of Major Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards B. How to Buy a Safer Car: Sources, Web sites, Publications List of Interviews Notes Bibliography About the Author Index