The Ford Pinto Case and the Development of Auto Safety Regulations, 1893-1978

In an influential 1977 article in Mother Jones magazine, journalist Ma•k Dowie accused Ford Motor Company executives of callously deciding to produce and continuing to market he Pinto (which he labeled a "firetrap") even after company crash tests showed that its gas tank would mptu•e in rea•end collisions at relatively low speeds [Dowie, 1977]. This reprehensible decision, according to Dowie's interpretation, derived from a cost/benefit analysis which purportedly demonstrated that settling the few inevitable lawsuits filed by burn victims or thek families would cost less than the eleven dollars per car needed to fix the defective tanks [Green, 1997, p. 130]. Dowie, along with well-known consumer advocate Ralph Nader, held a press conference in Washington, D.C. on August 10, 1977, to draw national attention to the case. One day later, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) began its own investigation of the Pinto gas tank [Cullen, Maakestad, and Carender, 1987]. Lee Strickland was the NHTSA engineer assigned the task of determimng if the Pinto gas tank met the criteria of a recallable safety defect [Stricldand, 1996]. The NHTSA investigation did not occur in a social vacuum. Strickland and his staff were cha•ged with evaluating the Pinto in the midst of national publicity that had already labeled its gas tank "defective" and accused the federal government (and NHTSA) of buckling to pressure from lobbyists for the auto industry [Dowie, 1977]. Consumers also wrote letters to NHTSA demanding that it take action against Ford after Dowie's article was published [NHTSA, 1978]. However, according to Strickland, NHTSA's evaluation revealed that the Pinto had a "fire threshold" (i.e. the speed at which a collision is likely to result in a fire) in rea•-end collisions ofbetween 30 and 35 miles per hour. Since the federal standard on fuel tank integrity (FMVSS 301, effective start•g with 1977 model year cars) required that cars withstand only a 30 mileper-hour ear impact, NHTSA would have to take extra-ordinary steps in order to force a recall of the Pinto [U.S. Department of Transportation, 1988].