Unsafe at Any Speed
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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. Michael Moore cites Nader as an influence.
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[edit] 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 an unusual rear-engine configuration, 37:63 front:rear weight distribution, significantly more unequal than contemporary European rear-engined cars[Quote from source requested on talk page to verify interpretation of source], 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.
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.
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, Education", subsequently expanded to four Es in the presidency of George H. W. Bush with the addition of "Emergency") 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 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][Quote from source requested on talk page to verify interpretation of source].
[edit] 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].
According to an account attributed to U.S. author Bob Helt[3], 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[4] conclusion thus:
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.
[edit] Further reading
- 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
[edit] Notes
- ^ Milton Bertin-Jones. "An Integrated, Market-based approach to vehicle safety in road transport". SAE Technical Paper Nº 2003-01-0104.
- ^ David E. Davis, Jr.. American Driver: The Late Ralph Nader. Automobile Magazine.
- ^ Corvair Handling and Stability. Corvair Corsa.
- ^ (July 1972). "PB 211-015: Evaluation of the 1960-1963 Corvair Handling and Stability". National Technical Information Service.
