What is an electrical safety switch?

I have a 1989 Dodge Dynasty in the shop right now (it wouldn’t start).

They said the problem was the electrical safety switch. What are they talking about?

Probably the “Neutral Safety Switch.”
It prevents the car from starting unless the transmission is in Neutral or Park.

Never mind – answer edited

Thanks for the quick response.

I also had problems with the car stalling at stoplights. Would a bad neutral safety switch be the cause of this as well?

On some cars there is also an inertial fuel pump switch (cuts off fuel in case of an accident) but could be tripped after a hard bump.

http://www.coolcats.net/tech/troubleshooting/inertia.html

No.
The NSS is a starter interlock, but it doesn’t prevent the engine from running- if it did, the car would stall when you put it in Neutral or Park.

“Won’t start” covers a lot of ground. If the starter wouldn’t crank, it was probably a neutral safety switch. If it would crank but not catch and run, it could have been a fuel pump inertia switch.

Neither of these would cause stalling at stops (I assume it would restart immediately). That’s a separate issue.

The starter would crank a few times, but the engine wouldn’t start. (I’ve had problems where the engine starts but immediately dies unless I give it some gas, if that is relevant.) If it didn’t start within a few tries, it would stop cranking and turning the ignition would give absolutely no response.

If I had some sort of fuel line problem that was causing the stalling, I would be fine with it as long as I could just restart the car again, since I’m going to get a new car soon. However, when it does stall, I am much more likely to have difficulty starting it again.