Exhibit featuring the book at Henry Ford Museum, Detroit

Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile by Ralph Nader, published in 1965, is a book detailing his claims of resistance by car manufacturers to the introduction of safety features, like seat belts, and their general reluctance to spend money on improving safety. It was a pioneering work of consumer advocacy, openly polemical but containing substantial references and material from industry insiders. It made Nader a household name and the style is much imitated. Exibit in Ford Museum, Detroit File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Exibit in Ford Museum, Detroit File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... A Ford Model T, used for giving tourist rides, is shown above at Greenfield Village. ... Motto: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes - this motto was adopted after the disastrous 1805 fire that devastated the city) Nickname: The Motor City and Motown Location in Wayne County, Michigan Founded Incorporated July 24, 1701 1815  County Wayne County Mayor... Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American attorney and political activist, who has promoted a wide range of issues, including consumer rights, feminism, humanitarianism, environmentalism and democratic government. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... The following automobile manufacturers produce or have produced automobiles. ... Warning signs, such as this one, can improve safety awareness. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

Excessive use of chrome and other bright or glossy automobile finishes

Much criticism was levied on this facet of auto design, as often instrument panels and dashboards were brightly finished with chrome and glossy enamels which often reflected sunlight or the light of oncoming motor vehicles into the driver's eyes. This problem, according to Nader, was well known by persons in the industry, but little was done to correct it. Usually, the excuse for not taking actions was that it would take away from the styling or appearance of the cars. Subsequently, bright and blinding finishes inside motor cars have been greatly reduced or eliminated completely.

Shift Patterns on Early Automatics

Ralph Nader

Apart from some of the examples given in the better known Corvair chapter, Nader said much about the shift quadrants on early automatic transmission equipped cars. Several examples were given of persons accidentally being run over, or cars that turned into runaways because the driver operating the vehicle at the time of the accident was not familiar with its shift pattern and would shift into reverse when intending to shift to park. Nader makes an appeal to the auto industry to standardize these shift patterns between makes and models as a safety issue. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1484x1422, 1683 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Ralph Nader User:DavidShankBone Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1484x1422, 1683 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Ralph Nader User:DavidShankBone Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner... The automatic gear selector in a Ford Five Hundred vehicle An automatic transmission is an automobile gearbox that can change gear ratios automatically as the vehicle moves, thus freeing the driver from having to shift gears manually (similar but larger devices are also used for railroad locomotives). ...

Early automatic transmissions, including GM's Hydra-Matic, Packard's Ultramatic, and Borg Warner's automatic used by a number of independent manufacturers (Rambler, Studebaker) used a pattern of "P N D L R" which put Reverse at the bottom of the quadrant, next to Low. Drivers still used to moving the shift lever all the way down for "first gear" on a manual shift, would accidentally select "R" and would unexpectedly move the car backwards. In addition, other manufacturers such as Chrysler, used a push-button selector, which was yet another diverse method of selecting gear ranges. Ford was the first to use the "P R N D L" pattern which separated Reverse from forward ranges by Neutral. Eventually this pattern became the standard for all automatic shift cars. Hydramatic (also known as Hydra-Matic) is an automatic transmission developed by General Motors Oldsmobile division in 1939/1940. ... Ultramatic was the trademarked name of Packard Motors Company automatic transmission introduced in 1950 and produced until 1956 at Packards Detroit, Michigan factory. ... BorgWarner is a U.S. automotive parts supplier, known for its automatic transmissions and turbo chargers. ... The Nash Rambler was an American automobile produced by the Nash Motors division of Nash Kelvinator Corporation between 1950 and 1957. ... Studebaker Corporation, or simply Studebaker, was a United States wagon and automobile manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana. ...

Chevrolet's Powerglide, at least as seen on the Corvair, used a "R N D L" pattern which separated the Reverse from the Drive gears by neutral in the ideal way, but which had no "P" selection, relying instead on a separate hand brake when parking.-1...

The Corvair

One of the examples of the book, and the article for which it is probably most widely known although it forms only one chapter, was General Motors' Chevrolet Corvair. The 1960–63 Corvairs had a rear-engine, and a suspension design which was prone to "tuck under" in certain circumstances and which required drivers to maintain proper tire pressures which were outside of the tire manufacturer's recommended tolerances for the tire and with an unusually high front:rear differential (15psi front, 26psi rear, when cold; 18 psi and 30psi hot). The pressures were more critical than for most contemporaneous designs, but this was not made explicitly clear to salespeople or owners. The pressures also rendered the tires overloaded, according to the standards laid down by the Tire and Rim Association, the relevant industry body, with two or more passengers on board. An unadvertised at-cost option #696 included uprated springs and dampers, front anti-roll bars and rear axle rebound straps to prevent tuck-under. Aftermarket kits were also available, such as the EMPI Camber Compensator, for the knowledgeable owner. The suspension design was modified for the 1964 model year, just far enough ahead of publication to allow its inclusion in the book; most significantly a second, outboard constant velocity joint was added to maintain a constant camber angle at the wheels. Corvairs from 1965 on were of this type and did not suffer the characteristic tuck-under crashes. General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM), also known as GM, is an American automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Vauxhall. ... Corvair convertible The Chevrolet Corvair was an automobile produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors from 1960 to 1969. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A swing axle suspension is a simple type of independent suspension used in automobiles. ... Tires or tyres (see American and British English spelling differences) are pneumatic enclosures used to protect and enhance the effect of wheels. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... Cross-section through a typical outer CV joint (Saab 96) Constant Velocity Joints or CV joints allow a rotating shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or play. ... Camber may refer to: Camber, East Sussex, a seaside resort in England, near to Camber Sands. ...

GM responded by both trying to silence Nader with a private investigation and by improving the Corvair's suspension. On March 22, 1966, GM President James Roche was forced to appear before a United States Senate subcommittee, and to apologize to Nader for the company's campaign of harassment and intimidation. GM was later successfully sued by Nader. is the 81st day of the year (82nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Chief Justice Associate Justices Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Politics Portal      The United States Senate is one of the two chambers of the bicameral United States Congress, the... Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. ... Intimidation is generally used in the meaning of criminal threatening. ...

The Corvair's image was permanently tarnished and Unsafe is still often characterized as the book "about the Corvair", but this is only one of eight chapters, the theme of tire pressures chosen for comfort not safety is recurrent, and the main theme throughout is the way in which the motor industry evades even well-founded and technically informed criticism.

The book also claims that the road safety mantra called the "three E's" ("Engineering, Enforcement and Education") was created to distract attention from the real problems of vehicle safety, such as the fact that some were sold with tires that could not bear the weight of a fully-loaded vehicle. The field of road safety is concerned with reducing the numbers or the consequences of vehicle crashes, by developing and implementing management systems ideally based in a multidisciplinary and holistic approach, with interrelated activities in a number of fields. ...

The book still has some relevance today: it addressed what Nader perceived as the political meddling of the car industry to oppose new safety features, and parallels the debates in the 1990's over the mandatory fitting of air bags, in the United States, and industry efforts by the ACEA to delay the introduction of crash tests to assess vehicle front pedestrian protection in the European Union^{[1][Quotation from source requested on talk page to verify interpretation of source]}. The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. ... An airbag is a flexible membrane or envelope, inflatable to contain air or some other gas. ... The Association des Constructeurs Européens dAutomobiles (European Automobile Manufacturers Association), or ACEA, is the main lobbying group of the car industry in the European Union. ...

Criticism

Nader's thesis blames not the swing-axle design per se but the combination of weight distribution, swing axle with a single, inboard, constant velocity joint, and unusually critical tire pressures. The idea that the Corvair is inherently unsafe is neither universally accepted nor applicable to all model years.

Award-winning U.S. motoring journalist David E. Davis, in an article in Automobile Magazine, draws attention to the fact that although Nader claimed that the use of a swing-axle rear suspension was dangerous, that Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen all used similar swing-axle concepts during that era.^[2] However, vehicles from these manufacturers also received criticism for their poor handling. ^[3][4][5] David E. Davis, Jr. ...

According to an account attributed to U.S. author Bob Helt,^[6] the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ran a series of comparative tests, in 1971, studying the handling of the 1963 Corvair against four contemporary cars, a Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant, Volkswagen Beetle, Renault Dauphine and also a later 1967 Corvair (with a revised suspension design) was included for comparison. The account goes on to describe some of the test details, which included a review of national accident data, and a review of GM internal files and documents, and quotes parts of the original NHTSA report^[7] conclusion thus: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, often pronounced nit-suh) is an agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, part of the Department of Transportation. ... This article is about the North American version of the Falcon. ... The Plymouth Valiant was an automobile manufactured by the Plymouth division of Chrysler Corporation in the United States from 1960 to 1976. ... This article is about the original Volkswagen Beetle. ... The Renault Dauphine was an automobile produced by the French manufacturer Renault from 1956 to 1962. ...

The 1960-63 Corvair compares favorably with contemporary vehicles used in the tests,

The handling and stability performance of the 1960-63 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover, and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic.

Peltzman Effect

The impact of the safety regulations that spawned because of the book became the basis of a paper by economist Sam Peltzman. The conclusions of this paper—that the regulations actually caused additional deaths—became known as the Peltzman Effect. Peltzman argued that because regulation made cars safer, getting into an accident became cheaper (it was less risky) and so it happened more. Driver and passenger deaths changed little after the regulations were in place, but pedestrian deaths increased, probably because there was no improvement to car safety with respect to those outside the vehicle. Alan Greenspan, former chairman, United States Federal Reserve. ... The Peltzman Effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation. ... The Peltzman Effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation. ...

Peltzman also argued that car safety was already improving, though at a slow rate, since the invention of the car. These improvements tended to be minor but had a huge impact in improving safety (such as a rearview mirror mounted on the outside of the car and automatically canceling turn signals). The rear-view mirror of a Mazda 626. ... Turn signals (US English) or indicators (British English) are a set of lights on a vehicle (be it a car, truck/lorry, tractor, motorcycle, etc. ...

Further reading

• Unsafe at Any Speed The Designed-In Dangers of The American Automobile (1965 ) Grossman Publishers, New York LC # 65-16856
• Interview With Dr. Jorg Beckmann of the ETSC. "Safety experts and the motor car lobby meet head on in Brussels." TEC, Traffic Engineering and Control, Vol 44 N°7 July/August 2003 Hemming Group ISSN 0041 0683

Notes

1. ^ Milton Bertin-Jones. "An Integrated, Market-based approach to vehicle safety in road transport". SAE Technical Paper Nº 2003-01-0104.
2. ^ David E. Davis, Jr.. American Driver: The Late Ralph Nader. Automobile Magazine.
3. ^ http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/suspension/tech_suspension2.htm
4. ^ http://www.1-18scalecars.com/0Mercedes-Benz_300SL_Gullwing.htm
5. ^ http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/classic/112_0411_gullwing/index3.html
6. ^ Corvair Handling and Stability. Corvair Corsa.
7. ^ (July 1972). "PB 211-015: Evaluation of the 1960-1963 Corvair Handling and Stability". National Technical Information Service.

External Links

Podcast discussing the unintended consequences of the safety regulations Sam Peltzman on EconTalk discusses the Peltzman Effect, the roots of which lay in car safety regulation. The Peltzman Effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation. ... EconTalk is a weekly podcast hosted by professor Russell Roberts at George Mason University. ... The Peltzman Effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation. ...