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. One of the examples of the book was General Motors' Chevrolet Corvair, although the criticisms against the Corvair were out of date by the time the book was published. The 1960–63 Corvairs did indeed have a suspension design which required drivers to maintain proper tire pressure to within some tolerance, which some considered to be unreasonably fine. However, the suspension design was modified for the 1964 model year in order to address this issue.
GM responded by both trying to silence Nader 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 book also claims that the road safety mantra called the "three Es" ("Engineering, Enforcement, Education", subsequently expanded to four Es in the George W. Bush first presidency 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.
Some claim that the book still has relevance today: It denounced what Nader perceived as the political meddling of the car industry to oppose new safety features. Some see parallels in contemporary debates 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.
Another book, Unsafe at Any Height by John Godson, modified the well-known Nader title and tackles air safety.
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