Death on Wheels
Page, Joseph A.
Death on Wheels Unsafe at Any Speed: The De-signed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, by Ralph Nader. Grossman. 365 pp. $5.95. Safety Last: An Indictment of the Auto Industry, by Jeffrey...
...Drivers, passengers, and pedestrians who are constantly exposed to the risk of design injury now find themselves in a position to pronounce some judgment of consequence on the style standards applied to that most lethal of weapons, the American automobile...
...But in point of fact, the implications of Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed, suggest that GM has a considerable interest in discrediting its most persistent and effective critic...
...But it is a convincing reinforcement of Nader's book...
...Critics of the industry have for years pointed to engineering studies which relate car design to highway accidents and injuries, but their efforts were drowned in the gush of industry blandishments reaching a far wider audience...
...Furthest removed from popular control, yet playing the most crucial role, will be the appointed government officials with broad, discretionary power to administer the legislation...
...HARRIS DIENSTFREY is a free lance writer...
...JOSEPH A. PAGE is an assistant professor at the University of Denver Law Center...
...4.95...
...226 pp...
...The crusade for safer cars adds to this list a more amorphous group, concerned potential victims of automobile accidents...
...those who see the automobile industry as creating a "one-crop" economy in the United States, the artless antics of General Motors earlier this year must be quite dismaying...
...Without the clumsy harassment of Nader, the "crusader from Connecticut" would never have attained the publicity which has made him a national figure...
...WILLIAM Mc-CANN edited the paperback, "Ambrose Bierce's America...
...If Nader is right about the 1960-1963 Corvair, GM stands to lose more than the 105 pending lawsuits which allege that the defective styling of the car caused highway accidents...
...GILBERT OSOFSKY is an assistant professor of history at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus, who specializes in American urban and Negro history...
...The allocation and exercise of decision-making power in a free society are in the process of searching re-examination...
...JOSEPH E. ILLICK is an historian on the faculty of San Francisco State College...
...Participants in this reappraisal include such diverse groups as the students at Berkeley, the teachers at St...
...The fiasco also underscores the key role which GM has unwittingly played in the auto safety campaign...
...At stake is the bodily security of millions...
...He wrote the recently published book, "Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto...
...The auto industry has jealously guarded its exclusive control over the styling of its products, which is said to reflect consumer demand...
...The most direct exercise of this function will be enjoyed by jurors who must decide personal injury lawsuits against the auto manufacturers...
...It is on this front that the final struggle will be waged...
...Written in a less technical vein, Safety Last adds to the case against the auto industry some deftly framed touches, such as the obvious thrust of car names and advertising...
...The next level of influence will vest in the THE REVIEWERS GAYLORD NELSON, U.S...
...The latter charge fades before a close reading of both books and the utter dearth of persuasive evidence in rebuttal...
...The auto makers object to government "dictates" over car design...
...The investigation and harassment of Ralph Nader might have been the automatic response of an overzealous underling at GM...
...Yet the wants of the public are conditioned by the aphrodisiac of mass advertising, which has created what is called the "love affair between the American people and the automobile...
...The critics have achieved a hearing, and have apparently carried the proposition that Federal action is necessary...
...LUCY JOHNSON reviews fiction regularly in these pages and in The Milwaukee Journal...
...Unsafe at Any Speed and Safety Last mark the culmination of what may be deemed the first phase of the safety design battle...
...Random House...
...They apparently see no inconsistency between their familiar slogan that they have only been giving the public what the public demands, and their present argument that styling should remain outside the ambit of public regulation...
...Reviewed by Joseph A. Page...
...His book has been somewhat lost in the commotion over Unsafe at Any Speed and in his misfortune in not being harassed by GM...
...In the wake of Unsafe at Any Speed and Safety Last, the critics have caught up with Detroit's public relations men...
...Senator from Wisconsin and former governor, is a national leader in the movement for conservation and development of natural resources...
...Safety Last: An Indictment of the Auto Industry, by Jeffrey O'Connell and Arthur Myers...
...Jeffery O'Connell, co-author of Safety Last, is one of the few law professors devoted to the problem of accident prevention through safety design...
...And the potential stigma of corporate irresponsibility that may attach to the Corvair will make the Edsel seem like a bright idea by comparison...
...The point has been made that auto accidents and injuries are not all attributable to "the nut behind the wheel," but are often causally connected to the design of the vehicle...
...But the issues raised by Nader, and by Jeffrey O'Connell and Arthur Myers in their subsequent treatment of the subject, Safety Last, have an even deeper significance...
...GM's surveillance of Nader resulted in a pathetic backfire, but left unanswered the question whether effective criticism of the industry has up to now been stifled by the techniques unsuccessfully used against Nader...
...Now the issue is whether pressures from Detroit will command the passage of nugatory legislation ("no-law laws," as Nader terms it), or will blunt aggressive administration of any laws which are passed...
...state and/or Federal legislators who consider the passage of laws regulating auto design...
...The industry's response to these pressures and possibilities include a reluctance to debate on the merits of the criticism of Detroit, and the charge that Unsafe at Any Speed and Safety Last are emotional overstatements...
...Without the Corvair and the dramatic hazard posed by its alleged instability, sufficient popular indignation over unsafe auto design might never have been mobilized...
...Any owner of a 1960-1963 Corvair—several hundred thousands are now on the road —may be able to return the vehicle and compel GM to correct the defect...
...John's, and even the intended beneficiaries of the War on Poverty...
Vol. 36 • June 1966 • No. 6
