Read the nhtsa reports online. Theyre gruesome. Underrides of trailers by convertibles, insufficient this or that.
All (unforseen?) cause & effect.
My first car was a 1972 Pinto Runabout. My parents bought it new and it was handed down to me in 1980 after all of the recall maintenance had been done. I eventually rolled it on the freeway in the middle of the night doing 80 mph. I walked away without a scratch. I don’t think I would have had the same luck with my second car; a 1969 VW Beetle (not that it was capable of doing 80)
I think that’s the issue, and it was proved.
It’s not quite that. It’s that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (an agency of the federal government) had a number—probably too low—for the mean statistical value of a human life. Ford did the math, and determined that the increase in costs (though small) would cost more than the equivalent monetary value in human life (which, again, while really terrible sounding, was all according to the federal governments usual practice for evaluating safety, even according to the federal government’s own value).
In short, they applied a number accepted by the federal government as the equivalent monetary value of a human life, estimated how many human lives would be saved by the upgrade, and then compared that to the cost of the upgrade. The likely cost of lawsuits had nothing to do with it. In fact, according to some theories of liability for negligence and product safety, they might have imagined they were legally in the clear precisely because the math was on their side.
Anyway, what they didn’t count on was how a jury composed of actual non-attorney humans would react to such a cold calculus. Not well, as it turned out.
The memo that Ford relied on to show their analysis, if it hasn’t already been shared, is actually available online. I read it as part of a paper I wrote in law school (for a course on the economic analysis of law).
What struck me most of all, when I read it, was that it never actually came up out and said, directly “a human life is worth this much.” Rather, if I recall, it used some language along the lines of “the unit cost of a fatal vehicle accident is…” The “unit cost” was the equivalent monetary loss, including the loss of human life, of a fatal accident.
$200,000, by the way, as @Dr.Strangelove noted. That’s what they—not Ford, but the NHTSA, a federal agency—calculated as the cost of a human life (oh, and if memory serves, this included the indirect costs of things like the cost of a funeral, the cost of repairing highway infrastructure, the cost of the involved vehicle(s), etc). If memory serves, I read the memo that the NHTSA put out to calculate that value (of a human life, plus the miscellaneous expenses), Societal Costs of Motor Vehicle Accidents (1972), as well. It’s cited as an endnote in Ford’s Pinto Memo.
ETA: Here’s a link to the 1975 version of that same report from the NTHSA, for those who have a morbid curiosity at how the NTHSA arrived at its numbers:
By 1975 the total cost of a fatal accident—not just the value of the human life lost, but all the other societal impacts—was deemed a whopping $287,175. They even factored in the estimated costs of things like traffic delays caused by a fatal accident!
Good post, I did not know they quantified those results?
Oh, they very much did. And do. Though, if memory serves, they have altered their approach to estimating the “mean statistical value of a human life” (or the “value of a statistical life?”) in part, I think, due to the outrage over the Pinto Memo and the government’s role in coming up with the underlying “unit cost” that Ford used in its analysis.
Perhaps I’ll upload an excerpt of my paper, if I can find it.
I think you’ve proved the original points of the post
FWIW, my conclusion (in the paper) wasn’t “and therefore, the whole thing with the Pinto was overblown because it wasn’t any worse than any other car and applied the same methods of safety analysis as any other car” but rather “the whole system is fucked and we’ve really got to do something to fix it.”
“Overblown” is subjective
It seems the NHTSA placed the number at $275,000 (around $2.15 million in today’s numbers).
This was low since other federal agencies placed the number at $350,000/person ($2.73 million in today’s numbers).
Ford low-balled that number by excluding some bibs and bobs.
Additionally, Ford received flak for their low value of the human life. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) suggested that Ford use $275,000, a relatively low estimate considering that most other federal agencies at the time had set the value of human life at $350,000. Ford, however, ignored both of these estimates and chose a much lower value of human life: $200,000.[13] By choosing such a low valuation of a human life, Ford consciously cut the apparent benefits of fixing the car, eliminating the burden of implementing changes to the fuel tank. - SOURCE
My comments about regulations protecting detroit stand
That’s what the wiki page says but not what their cite says. The link is again dead, but archive.org has a backup:
Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Ford Pinto Example | SafetyXChange
When Ford Motor Company performed a cost-benefit analysis to determine the benefits and cost relating to the fuel leakage associated with static rollover tests portion of the FMVSS 208 (Ford “Pinto”), it failed to make conservative accounting estimates of the worst-case scenario. In 1970, Ford used $200,000 as the cost of a life (provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)); the value was based almost entirely on deferred future earnings (DFE).
At the time this decision was made, there were at least three different DFE-based figures ranging from $200,000 to $350,000 being used by as many different Federal agencies. Willingness to pay (WTP) has since replaced DFE as the preferred method of assessing the value of life. Further, research has shown that various WTP studies have revealed a higher median value than the one used by Ford. On the basis of this research, the value of a life is greater than future earnings.
Whether that cite is itself credible I couldn’t say, but it’s what the wiki page itself cites.
It should be noted again that the memo wasn’t about the Pinto specifically.
See below:
So not only was this a problem with potentially lethal consequences, or extremely painful and debilitating injuries, it was known, documented, and REPEATABLE in their own crash tests. When the failure rate of crash tests is 100% for something that can and will cause a VEHICLE FIRE, especially in a relatively common type of collision, then I don’t consider the danger to be overblown.
Then why is this thread in FACTUAL QUESTIONS? Facts aren’t subjective.
It’s public opinion. I think you can’t “overblow” egregious practices, especially when facts proving are presented.
E.g “Is global warming overblown?” No. “Are weather warnings overblown?”
Sorry for the red herring
For me, it wasn’t so much that (though rust was a problem). It’s not fun to have to raise the hood and connect two terminals with a screwdriver to start the car in winter (the Vega had starter problems requiring this workaround, which affected among others, humorist Dave Barry).
Just thought I’d mention a gag in the movie “Top Secret” where a chase scene had a carload of characters screeching brakes and sliding towards a stalled car. The camera zoomed in on the stalled car, revealing the leaping horse logo of a Ford Pinto. The skidding car grinds to a halt, avoiding a crash, but making the teeniest little ping of contact on the Pinto bumper. It triggers a massive explosion, ending the chase.
So the Pinto controversy was mainstream enough back then to inspire this movie gag, which assumes the majority of the audience would get the joke.
The actual risk of driving a Ford Pinto may have been overblown. But it is always good to expose corporate greed when it endangers the public. So I’m glad it happened.
I dedicate this post to the memory of Val Kilmer.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I raced a Pinto in the SCCA B sedan class in 1975. Paul Newman was the national champion in those years driving a Datsun 510. The Pinto was a basically good handling, solid, wide sedan that was well suited to racing with the usual modifications. It couldn’t match the Datsun’s horsepower, though. It did have a ballistic nylon fuel cell, but they were required of any race car. Many a pun was made about racing a Pinto.
Not only that, but that film (1984) was released six or seven years after the Pinto’s flaw became widely known to the public. So, not only was it known, but it had endured in public consciousness.
I went to a meet at Irwindale around 2000 and one race class featured about ten Pintos and a handful of Renaults. As a former owner I was thrilled.