My take down of Kenneth Whyte’s “The Sack of Detroit – General Motors and the End of American Enterprise” was only based on an interview in Bloomberg. That was more than enough for me to know that this author got it all wrong. But if you want to read a really good review, and one that examines the phenomena of Ralph Nader and the whole subject of government regulation, which are both quite different than commonly assumed, the New Yorker has just posted it online. It’s not just a review, but a thorough examination of the issues that inform (or not) the book. The historical facts and issues are very different than how not only Mr. Whyte represents them, but how most Americans understand the Nader era, which actually coincided with the greatest deregulation of industry in American history.
Ralph Nader is one of the more misunderstood personas, especially among automobile enthusiasts, as he’s so commonly seen as the killer of the Corvair and the instigator of draconian regulation. Not only is that not true (the Mustang essentially killed it), Nader’s whole approach and goals are typically misunderstood, and commonly framed in the stereotypical left-right, Democrat-Republican divide. That grossly misrepresents the complex issue of government regulation. Nader was actually an avid anti-regulation advocate, as were many liberals/Democrats in the ’60s and ’70s who wanted to get the government out of the many businesses it actually did regulate very intensely, such as airlines, railroads, trucking. utilities, radio, tv, banking, and others. And by regulation, this means actually controlling key aspects of those industries, by setting rates and fares, interest rates, routes, etc.. Jimmy Carter, also commonly misunderstood, was the biggest destroyer of government regulations ever.
Nader was about something different and new: consumer advocacy. That’s quite different than regulating industries. It means holding industries accountable for the direct consequences to the consumer, but in an essentially unregulated and competitive business atmosphere. Which makes Whyte’s premise that Nader and his movement killed GM and American Enterprise utterly absurd. Nader was all for an unregulated market, but he was for corporate responsibility for their products, and for safety standards, if that’s what it took. That’s something quite different.
If you want to a good primer on this subject, this is highly recommendable reading.
It would be nice if we could leave the Can-Am FMVSS/NHTSA/EPA island and join the worldwide harmonized automotive standards … Even the supposedly “closed” Japanese domestic market is part of that (as can be seen by the wide variety of forbidden fruits sighted by Mr. T87)
Sure
Lets put the UN in charge of it. I’m sure that’ll fix whatever problems you think we’re suffering from, right?
Having a different (but not better) set of standards just to be different and perhaps protectionist only results in added expense and decreased choice for Americans. The entire rest of the world is on a different standard and we are not the largest market, nor do we develop the most advanced technologies in regard to lighting and safety.
Lighting is one great example. We were stuck on sealed beam headlights until 1984. The rigid rules made zero sense. Why mandate “how” instead of “what?”
Even today, the NHTSA lighting standard is still clearly inferior …
Strict where it impedes innovation (outlawing pixel based laser lights, linear “animated rear turn signals, to name just two examples), while permitting dangerously outdated configurations such as single blub combo stop/turn red taillights (Imagine driving in a low visibility situation with the hazard lights on … that effectively disables both rear turn signals) Not to mention static non-blinking “side marker” lights instead of turn signal repeaters …
It’s also illegal to replace optical side view mirrors with much more aerodynamic and night-vision capable digital cameras
Worst most useless lights on trucks are found on American makes best are the European makes though DAF is a Paccar product and has excellent lights.
The ISO standards are worked out by the industries involved with respect to international law. There´s nothing freaky communist about it. It means that every follows rules they agreed to and can trade globally. If we look at a recent example of breaking away from an international organisation, Brexit, we see a country that has made trade *harder* and not easier. It´s a common misapprehnsion that free trade means unregulated trade. Unregulated trade would be like a road system with no rules at all (would you prefer to drive in Switzerland or New Delhi?).
Reporting here from the EU, the trade system works incredibly well as firms in Dublin, Rome, Copenhagen and Madrid compete on an equal footing just as firm in Michigan, California and NY do.
ISO standards aren’t the thing here; the ones in question are the UN Regulations.
And they’re devised and updated by working groups with participation of the world’s governments and the regulated parties (automakers, parts makers, motorcycle makers…) and other non-governmental organisations (researchers, insurors, advocacy groups…). For example, here is the working party for lighting and signalling.
The UN Regulations themselves are freely available in multiple languages and in their entirety, unlike the US and Canadian standards which refer to (and therefore require the purchase of) numerous expensive documents owned by SAE International, a private, for-profit company.
Er…well, VD, the UN Regulations for vehicles and components are imperfect, but they’re working well for the entire rest of the world aside from what Kita accurately calls the North American regulatory island. Compared to US standards, the UN Regs are much more aggressively revised on an ongoing basis (so they pose much less regulatory impediment to new technology) by eyes and minds from all over the world (so they’re the product of broad rather than narrow perspective).
Moreover, nobody has to “put the UN in charge of it”. There are numerous countries that apply the technical requirements of the UN Regulations without acceding to the 1958 Agreement with its requirement to honour other signatory countries’ type approvals. It would be perfectly possible for the US and Canadian Governments to allow compliance with the UN Regs while retaining the current self-certification systems, thus maintaining direct legal leverage over makers and importers of vehicles and components and avoiding any sovereignty issues. Australia does exactly this: their technical regs, called the Australian Design Rules, mirror the technical content of the UN Regulations, but makers and importers can’t just go “This car is type-approved to the UN Regs, so we’re bringing it into Australia”. It must still go through the Australian certification process. The UN type approval documentation can be used as proof of compliance, but if the Australian Government suspects there’s a safety or compliance problem, they can hold the maker/importer directly responsible; the maker/importer can’t just say “It’s type-approved; go talk to Italy’s type approval authority if you think there’s a problem” (or Germany’s, Japan’s, Sweden’s, etc).
There’s a downside to this approach, though: non-signatories to the 1958 Agreement can’t contribute to the development of the Regulations. Australia’s somewhere in the middle on this; they signed the 1958 Agreement, but they don’t apply the Regulations directly. Instead, they maintain their national Australian Design Rules. The content is identical, but this way they aren’t obliged to honour other countries’ homologations.
So either approach has its pluses and minuses, but overall we would very likely be better off by many measures if the North American regulations—which are different, but not effectively better, so they serve primarily as non-tariff trade barriers—were to move much closer, at least in technical content, to the international-consensus UN Regulations.
I’m professionally quite knowledgeable on this subject; I’ve researched and written extensively on it, and can probably answer whatever questions and correct whatever misunderstandings you might have. Did you really have a substantive objection to the UN Regulations on vehicles and components? Or were you just jerking your knee, there?
For those worried about One World Government and the Bigness Of Brother or what have you, Daniel’s example of Oz is illustrative of the safeguards in reality.
A country can sign a treaty, which indicates an intention to be bound by the agreed idea, but that is not the same as ratification: that is almost entirely a domestic process, subject to the processes and votes of an elected Parliament/Congress because domestic laws are changed. (The final step, lodging an international instrument of ratification, essentially just indicates the permanence of these changes to the community of nations). Without knowing the lighting ADR’s specifically here, it is entirely likely that Oz signed, and enacted domestic laws – in this instance, what’s called delegated legislation – largely in line with the 1958 agreement, but did not legally ratify (probably due to local car industry at the time). It is a common way for a sensible country to be half-pregnant.
So a country can be quite consistent with international standards without ceding anything of sovereignty, and there’s another potential path too: it’s called reservation, where a country can sign and even ratify but reserves certain bits it doesn’t agree with from the treaty/agreement, though this has other legal limitations.
It sometimes suits political opportunists (from left or right) to exploit the idea that the way in which international agreements are reached cedes everything to damned outsiders: it’s pretty useful, if low and dirty, old nationalistic tool to bring out, as history rather wearying continues to prove.
Thank you Daniel for that explanation.
What an ignorant statement. Harmonized regulations would mean lower prices and more importantly a greater variety of cars that manufacturers would send to the United States.
Greater variety of cars that makers could send to the United States, and that is one of the main reasons why North American regs are not aligned with rest-of-world regs: the automakers use the North American different regs as a means of controlling what vehicles do and don’t enter the country, and at what prices. Tariffs are mostly out of fashion (except when they’re not; viz the Chicken Tax), and safety and emissions regs offer very politically marketable leverage: just point to any provision of any US reg that’s theoretically stricter than the international reg! It doesn’t matter how much evidence there is that the difference is of no practical negative effect; nobody wants to be on record advocating a less stringent regulation just so big, greedy international companies can make more money (is how it gets spun).
Thanks for your feedback guys.
I don’t agree.
The charm of a worldwide harmonized automotive standard is that it is unattainable. Not going to happen. Certainly not going to “fix” whatever it is that needs to be fixed.
If you really want one standard – make it ours. Sound OK? If it doesn’t, why would any one standard be OK?
Just mentioning it has generated this much debate. LOL.
So you were trolling. Please (and thank you!) stop now; we don’t do that here.
IIRC the late, great Dorothy Parker called it writing without fear and without research.
Hah! That’s right on point.
My grandfather used to say “You are entitled to an opinion. You are not entitled to an uninformed opinion.” By this, he meant that ignorance is not equivalent to expertise; a thoughtless, uninformed opinion is unworthy of respect and doesn’t merit serious consideration.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed similar sentiments: you are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
As with certain other things, it seems to actually be attainable in that far-off, mystical land called “The Rest of the World”.
Many countries over the years have aligned their national technical standards with the UN Regs. Impediments exist, but they are political and economic, not technical.
Hmm, our way or the highway as the best standards are our standards. Funny, i have heard Europeans talk about that being a problem with us from time to time.
“If you really want one standard – make it ours. Sound OK?”
Why do you automatically assume “our” standard would be the best?
I believe VanillaDude was trying to show the irony of trying to force another’s standards on others.
That irony appears to exist only if one takes a superficial, reflexive view and assumes no benefit or drawback either way. A more mature, thoughtful approach involves assessing the relative merits and drawbacks of maintaining the American different-but-not-better standards versus aligning or moving closer, one way or another, to the international-consensus standards. Neither option involves 100% benefits and 0% drawbacks, but aligning with the international consensus standards objectively offers more and bigger benefits to more people and parties.
I believe that finding one set of universal standards is unrealistically optimistic.
The concerns of a Chilean driver sharing a mountain switch-back road with a mule cart doesn’t have much in common with the needs of a US super truck honking across Nebraska Interstate.
You’re demonstrating that you are not familiar with the standards you’re trying to talk about. You’re guessing at their contents, scope, applicability, and structure, and you’re getting it all pretty significantly wrong. The discussion at hand has nothing to do with the different needs between rich and poor countries (or urban/rural, etc).
I’m familiar enough with both that I know that one-size-fits-all regulation ends up creating redundant or plain stupid rules.
IE lighting and anti-sail requirements for multi-unit vehicles which are never separated.
How does it make sense to require/install/maintain/inspect/ticket an inoperable/missing rear registration plate lamp, when there’s nothing to illuminate, because the tag area is not visible and the tag is mandated to be located on the front of the vehicle?
Makes a nice tool for those so inclined to browbeat under the guise of law.
It’s a pipe dream to adopt and enforce fits-all standards if any level of practicality is involved. Ask anyone familiar with similar building codes that don’t recognize regional uniqueness.
JD, the stuff you’re griping about has just about nothing to do with the UN Regulations and US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, nor is your building-code analogy valid.
Dan, when you say: “You’re demonstrating that you are not familiar with the standards you’re trying to talk about. You’re guessing at their contents, scope, applicability, and structure, and you’re getting it all pretty significantly wrong.
…the stuff you’re griping about has just about nothing to do with the UN Regulations and US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, nor is your building-code analogy valid.”
it almost sounds like a nasty smackdown. No problem, thick fiercely independent, skin here. LoL
Dan, no, I haven’t read every published rule, standard and law cover-to-cover and memorized same. Apparently you believe you have?
The building code reference was a quick comparable example so that some readers might grasp how regional differences make universal rules unworkable in building as in transportation. Examples available if you want to start another topic.
As to my lighting example it has EVERYTHING to do with FMVSS!!!
To wit FMVSS 108, which contrary to your assumption, I am in fact very familiar with. Maybe you missed it in your exhaustive all-inclusive studies? To be fair, I may have skipped the India ox cart rules and others that you seem to dream of having universally applied on US Interstates.
Feel free to re-read 108 and then report back.
Meanwhile, so I don’t seem too over the top, I’ll reflect back only your own words when I say that clearly it’s “YOU demonstrating that you are not familiar with the standards that you’re hoping to talk about.”
Everybody doesn’t require need/want a giant inefficient juggernaut of world nanny rule. I simply offered one simple example of why.
Anticipating your review of FMVSS 108
Oh, sorry! It actually sounds like exactly what it is: my pointing out that guesses, bluster, and reflexive political tape-loops are a poor substitute for expertise.
Damn near, yes, within reason—I don’t have it all committed to memory, but what I don’t keep in mind I keep on a RAID, in my bookmarks, and on the shelves and files that line my office walls. I am professionally closely involved with vehicle regulation in a variety of roles, and have been for years. I can give however long a lecture you might think you want—my opinions will be debatable, of course, but my factual assertions will not—on any of numerous aspects of the subject. Wanna hear about the relative merits and drawbacks of ambulatory and static references? Wanna know the basic philosophical difference between the US and UN regulations? Wanna know what’s considered the point of incompatibility between the UN 1958 Agreement and the US legal system, and the counterexamples suggesting the incompatibility is illusory? Wanna know about the interesting conundrum that would be set up if the US were to sign it anyway? Want to learn the way the US delegation sabotaged the effort toward a Global Technical Regulation on lighting under the 1998 Agreement (which the US signed)? Wanna learn about the experience of countries like Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, or South Africa aligning their national technical standards with the UN Regs? How about the difference between type-approval and self-certification regulatory regimes? Or would you rather have a detailed presentation about how the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are written using English words, but a plain-language reading will frequently result in misinterpretation?
I don’t really imagine you’re interested in any of that—very few people are. Point is, I’m extensively published and quoted on this subject, with regulatory analyses going back quite a few years. I have written parts of several countries’ regulations. I have attended regulatory working group sessions at the UN in Geneva, and I am a longtime active contributing member of several automotive technical standards-setting bodies. I’m also on retainer as a regulatory interpreter for some big-name companies. That doesn’t make me a better man than you, but it does mean I do rather know what I’m talking about; my ability to carry on buying groceries depends on it.
Are you? Cool, perhaps one day we can have ourselves a special game of Jeopardy, where all the questions are to do with FMVSS 108! The bonus round can include tricky questions about the differences between FMVSS 108 and CMVSS 108. 🙂
This silly notion is coming from your head, not mine. I’ll ask you to please refrain from putting words in my mouth until at least the second date, thanks.
Nobody is seriously claiming all the vehicles in Chile should have the same safety performance and equipment specifications as all the vehicles in Germany, nor is anybody seriously suggesting vehicles considered legal in Chile should be considered legal in the United States. These ideas of yours evince a complete misunderstanding of the question at hand.
Let’s try a different lens and see if you might see more clearly through it: all vehicles intended for sale in the United States, and all vehicles less than 25 years old imported into the United States, must meet all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. However, vehicles in service (i.e., after first sale) aren’t regulated by the federal standards, but rather by the registrar authority—that is, by the state in which the vehicle is registered.
If you look at the vehicle codes of all the states, you’ll find there’s a wide range of what’s required, allowed, and prohibited for whatever system of the vehicle—lighting, brakes, tires, and so on. Some states require compliance with the relevant FMVSS. Some states incorporate the text of the relevant FMVSS as of a particular date, in whole or in part. Some states make no mention of the FMVSS, nor any reference to it. Some states have very old text dating back to before there was anything such as an FMVSS. Some states exert minimal requirements, like “must have low and high beam headlamps producing white light”, with no technical specifications at all. Some state codes are silent on whatever matter you might be interested in.
There is a preemption provision in the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966: a state’s requirement for an aspect of vehicle design, construction, equipment, or performance is unenforceable to the degree it differs from the federal standard for that same aspect. This is to guarantee that a vehicle meeting all applicable federal requirements may legally be sold throughout the country, despite state vehicle code provisions that conflict with the federal standards (there are many). It means a state can’t require, say, green front turn signals, because the federal standard says they have to be amber. If Maryland were to pass a law requiring green front turn signals on all new cars, it would immediately be null, void, and unenforceable.
However—this is important—there’s nothing stopping a state allowing green turn signals. Nobody builds cars that way, but if the state code says front turn signals can be green, then no traffic cop is going to stop a car and no vehicle inspector is going to flunk a car for having them. So the practical effect of the preemption provision is that no state standard may be more restrictive than the federal standard covering the same topic, but state standards may be more permissive than the federal standard. Examples abound; let’s stick with turn signals: many states say front turn signals on all vehicles can emit white or amber light, even though federal standards have required only amber since 1968. Here’s another: side marker lights have been required since 1970, but New York statutes go out of their way to say they’re not required and their absence or failure to illuminate is not grounds for flunking a vehicle inspection.
So every state determines, on its own, what it considers an appropriate level of stringency in the regulation of vehicle safety equipment. Every state also determines for itself how to regulate the usage of motor vehicles: when the headlamps must be switched on, when high beam must be dimmed, how often the aim must be checked and what constitutes acceptable aim, when the turn signals must be used, and so on. Furthermore, every state (county, municipality, etc) determines on its own how strictly to enforce the requirements in the state code. Some states allow junkers that would’ve been declared unroadworthy in other states. So really, it’s the antithesis of the crushing uniformity imposed from above that you seem so afraid of.
The same is true elsewhere in the world. Each country has broad freedom to choose its own ways: whether to sign the 1958 Agreement and which of that agreement’s annexed UN Regulations to apply, whether to recognise the UN Regulations without directly applying them, whether to also allow vehicles and components that don’t meet the UN Regs, etc. Some countries sign up for the full boogie: all vehicles must meet all the latest versions of all the applicable UN Regs in order to be sold or imported into the country, and noncompliant vehicles will flunk periodic inspections. Other countries have signed the 1958 Agreement, but don’t directly apply any of the regulations—I’ve already described the case of Australia, and Korea is another example. Other countries have not signed the 1958 Agreement, but have brought their own national standards more or less into line with the UN Regulations; China is a big example.
Some countries’ choices might surprise you: Germany, you might think would require strict compliance with the UN Regs, but it’s actually one of the easier European countries in which to register a privately-imported car with US-spec lights and glass. France is much stricter; try to bring in a car without legitimate E-marks on the lights and you’ll quickly get grounded. Switzerland permits both UN- and US-spec vehicles on commercial and private imports alike; so does Iceland.
And within all that, some countries have robust, stringent vehicle inspection programs, others have none, and there’s a lot of real estate in between.
Brazil and Argentina recognise many of the UN Regs, which means most any vehicle that would be legal to sell in (say) France would also be legal to sell in Brazil or Argentina, but the opposite is not true. Brazil and Argentina, being countries nowhere near as rich as France, also permit vehicles not considered adequately safe in France. This is a point of analogy with that preemption provision in US law.
So perhaps you can see that the main function of uniform technical regulations isn’t to impose a draconian, wasteful, clumsy, ill-fitting, one-size-fits-all…er…how you say, “nanny rule” set of constraints on every participant. In fact it’s to facilitate trade, commerce, and travel; to facilitate the efficient development and commercialisation of steadily-improving vehicle safety performance; and to minimise wasteful and expensive duplicative development, tooling, construction, inventory, testing, and approvals or certifications for multiple different versions of vehicles and components.
The US is the one country in the world that doesn’t at all recognise the UN Regulations on vehicles and equipment. The 54 countries signatory to the 1958 Agreement are broadly diverse in their wealth and infrastructure and climate and culture and just about everything else. Add in the rest of the world’s non-signatory countries which recognise the UN Regulations onehow or another, and the diversity grows even broader. Some of them have better and some have worse road traffic safety stats than the United States, even when looking only at countries closely comparable to the US in geography, GDP, infrastructure, climate, and however many other factors you want to filter for. Some countries have, over the years, shifted from US-type standards to the UN Regulations—and their safety stats have at least not worsened, and in many cases have improved.
The different-but-not-better US standards serve as a non-tariff trade barrier (this is the only cogent argument in their favour, and it benefits only certain specific parties). They shunt R&D and production budget money away from innovation and toward duplication, increasingly deprive Americans of the benefits of new technology and technique permitted everywhere else, and deprive the rest of the world of enormous amounts of American expertise and experience which cannot be applied toward the betterment of the technical rules—all without any shred of evidence that the US standards result in superior safety.
I’ve just explained how this imaginary “world nanny rule” of yours doesn’t really exist. You want to talk about efficiency? Okeh, let’s: the UN Regulations are updated much more constantly and efficiently than the US standards. It can take months for a technical innovation to make it from GR proposal to UN Regulation. It can take not just years but decades for that same technical innovation to make it into the US standards, and very often the efforts just wither and die of old age. That is one of the reasons why the US is not at the top of the list of countries with the best road traffic safety.
H’mm. Perhaps you’re right. 🙂
Dan, I can make it a lot shorter and sweeter than that.
I feel that essentially said that I was full of crap and didn’t know what I was talking about.
I presented specifics about my point, you’ve apparently confirmed that and now you want to ignore deflect and back peddle instead of simply acknowledging it. All settled, we can move on now. Feel free to throw a few more darts if you must.
Please don’t think that I didn’t read and consider your reply, or that I’ve been beat down and strangled by rules and now am unable to respond. Not so, but it’s just too much enchilada to bite into for this sidebar.
To show that I considered even the details of your reply and because you seem to appreciate rules and specificity, I’ll just mention that the correct time for side-marker lamps first becoming mandated was not 1970 as you state but just after midnight of New Year’s Eve, 1967. An amendment refining the rule became effective 1970.
I get it. Some love rules, need and love ruling and being ruled. To them procedure and process can become more important than the practical reality of the outcome. Others not so much, they have a more pragmatic take on things. They can perfectly well navigate life and the world without a doting leash-yanking master, thank you.
Agree to disagree so that the entire pack can be moved forward, just don’t try to clip a lead on that one dog. lol
Now I’ll step out of our sidebar and instead maybe -with Paul’s blessing- present some real-world verifiable vehicle related examples of just how unplugged from reality and common sense rule obsessed bureaucracies can get. Figuratively driving off of the cliff drunk with rule-loving madness. Actually, in one case, quite literally.
Well, yeah, pretty much. I gave you the benefit of every doubt, but you built your fate with silly straw men and goalposts on wheels, then sealed it good ‘n’ airtight when you argued “no statistics needed” and attempted to substitute your opinions and observations. It’s easy to bluff, bluster, and blather one’s way through a conversation with easily-cowed knownothings, but that’s not the crowd here, and you have made it very plainly obvious that you’re well out of your league.
No, sir. I put that in there deliberately to see if you’d trip over it, and you did. The requirement that took effect from 1/1/68 was for side marker lights and/or reflectors. Since 1/1/70, the requirement has been for lights and reflectors. So in reality that cannot be handwaved away by your mention of “refinements”, side marker lights were not required until 1/1/70. Most 1969-model Chrysler-built vehicles had no side marker lights, only reflectors. Various Fords had lights at one end of the car and reflectors at the other. Other examples abound.
I’m sure that feels very real to you.
You know, I think that would be best.
Edit – I meant to write “Figuratively driving vehicles off of the cliff”
Daniel, I found all of the above and elsewhere over the last couple of days quite, uh, illuminating. Thank you.
I have no idea if you have any interest or how to structure it (a series of topics?), but I know I for one would be very interested in learning more about the basic philosophical differences between US and UN regulations, the points of incompatibility between the 1958 UN and US legal system, the conundrums, experiences of other countries and everything else in that first longer paragraph timestamped 8:59pm above this. It sounds fascinating and deserves to be shared. That is, if you ever find yourself short of writing about other subjects that interest you, of course, and if endlessly repeating this stuff doesn’t just bore you to tears already. But you clearly know your craft.
Obviously there is a ton of misinformation out there as well as people looking to obfuscate or troll everything (as with much today) or just for whatever reasons remain blind to the larger world out there (I have my own theories on why that is so), but this was quite interesting, dare I say riveting, so far. Thanks.
I’ve thought about just such an article (or series). The trick will be in putting it together in a manner that doesn’t put readers to sleep, and I wasn’t sure if anyone was interested. Your yes-vote moves these onto the pending articles list!
It seems that anyone who purports to have read Unsafe at Any Speed never read past the first chapter if they read it at all. As a Corvair owner, I can personally attest that the only thing anyone seems to know about Corvairs is Nader. But trying to disabuse them of what they think they know is also a pretty damn useless battle.
One of the scariest bits of footage I´ve seen is the Corvair on the handling track; and there´s one showing it driving down a ramp and turning.
This is another rear-engined car and a rather entertaining view, if you have time:
To be fair, I have a second generation Corvair, which has none of the handling problems of the first generation. Now the fact that it’s a car from the 60s (and a convertible to boot!) means that it’s still inherently dangerous.
In a way, Naderesque safety standards could have actually been an advantage for Detroit. Their larger cars could have more easily accommodated the safety-related features, both from a space and a weight point of view, versus the smaller, lighter imports. While comprehensive safety requires re-engineering of hard points and crush zones, and how they work together in various impacts throughout the car, we are speaking here of basic things such as collapsible steering columns, strong head rests, shoulder belts firmly mounted, and getting rid of sharp edges in the interior.
Large cars could more easily standardize such things as steering columns, as the space and weight constraints were so much less in large cars.
In the end, as is pointed out all the time in these parts, do not build cars that fall into the deadly sin category, and things go better over time. Mandated safety features are a side issue, and had effect only to the extent they took the car manufacturers’ eyes off the ball, the one that demands good all-around product (though safety should be a critical element of building an all-around good car).
I don’t see how that’s true in theory, and I never saw any evidence of it over three decades’ poring through factory parts cattledogs and trawling wrecking yards. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you; I also don’t know what you have in mind when you say “Naderesque safety standards”.
Perfect timing for me to comment on this topic because I’m deep into a steering columns.
There was tremendous standardization on mandated safety equipment.
The parts books may not reflect it because of minor tweaks that cause for a proliferation of numbers. The reality for production is that there’s mostly not a dime’s worth of difference in many of the components.
IE air bags, a tremendous physical interchange exists. Again, not saying there aren’t minor tweaks between applications but each difference certainly is not another clean-sheet design.
Steering columns – in the early collapsible column days there were only about four different columns, for EVERYTHING.
There was:
1. The “Chinese Lantern” perforated type.
2. The “expanded metal” mesh type.
3. The “captured BB” type. 4. The rubber sleeve type.
All were built of not just similar, but identical interchangeable components.
That was then, this is now.
As I wrote, perfect timing, because lately in my search for a custom steering column to swap into an old car, I have compared hundreds (literally) of the steering columns that are in today’s pool of available donors.
Guess what? After all that time it’s the same old story. There’s only about a half dozen different basic designs to choose from. Lots of different fluff, but inside basically all the same stuff. LoL
My above comment needed a bit of tweaking but I was locked out during the edit. Apologies for the difficult read.
Well, yes, there’s a finite number of practicable ways to engineer any given thing within the constraints and at feasible cost. No debate there.
And there’s at least one other type of energy-absorbing steering column that was used (a type with components that moved non-coaxially), but I’m still not seeing how large cars could more easily standardize such things as steering columns as Dutch 1960 asserted.
Their larger cars could have more easily accommodated the safety-related features, both from a space and a weight point of view, versus the smaller, lighter imports.
Perhaps this video might clear up the air…
Nader drew enough votes away from Al Gore that GW Bush became president. That is Nader crowning achievement.
Oh dear, that’s a bit political, but I can’t help giving it a slightly bitter thumbs-up.
I guess he’s not the first from left or right who’s soured their own legacy because of hubris.
That is one of the many small quirks that added to Bush Jr not losing, that and those hangin´ chads.
If you´re very interested in climate change politics, you could be very distressed that Ralph Nader´s good intentions led to 8 years of inaction under the Bush administration. I wonder if Ralph Nader thinks that his run for office was worth that.
Last time I checked on that was quite some years ago; at that time Nader flatly rejected the notion he was in any part responsible for Bush Jr not losing.
Of course Nader claims he had no part in Gore losing. But the vote count tells a different story. Nader is a very focused person that rarely lets consequences sway his actions.
I agree with you, and I think mostly what Nader prefers to focus on is himself.
Thank you Ralph!
It’s difficult to find anything from the GW Bush years to be thankful of. The cost to the US in blood, treasure and reputation is immeasurable.
I enjoyed reading the New Yorker article, Paul—-thanks!
I expected its writer to talk more about Mr. Whyte’s book, and to be tougher on it (i.e., more like what I think you’d write), and that got me thinking: is the review negative enough that Mr. Whyte would wish it would go away, or is the publicity gained via a New Yorker review worth it, on balance?
Presumably it’s like everything political in the US now – people who read the New Yorker never would have bought it and people who are considering buying it will see the New Yorker’s derision as a stamp of approval.
A very informative and considered article, unlike, it seems, Whyte’s book.
As stated here in CC land GM’s deadly sins were far more responsible for their demise. They built crap and people went somewhere else.
Nader and PIRG were creatures of the plaintiffs bar. I imagine lawyers were in favor of some deregulation because it would give them more business. Makes it harder and less lucrative to sue about something if it’s within all nit-picky government regulations. Plus, you can then fundraise, agitate, and lobby for new regulations of your choice.
Richard Nixon, also commonly misunderstood, was the biggest creator of government regulations since FDR. We can thank (or denigrate) Nixon for the EPA and OSHA, among other massive new federal agencies. In many respects he was the last New Deal president.
I’ll pass on that. He was not going to stare down the public approval and Congress’ bipartisan (back when that meant something) work on these things. They were too popular and (before Watergate came out and he had a future) it would have been a dumb political move.
I’m not sure what you’re passing on. LBJ tried for a year and failed to get occupational health legislation through Congress, legislation that would have put the Dept. of Labor in charge of enforcing it. Nixon got OSHA through by creating a new independent agency keeping rule-making and most enforcement out of the hands of the heavily politicized DOL, a compromise which both big unions and big business could live with. He orchestrated similar political machinations when he created the EPA
Much like LBJ, Nixon was a canny politician. Both were products of the big-government, New Deal Era. As Paul points out, Carter changed that with his substantial deregulation efforts, continued by Reagan and then Clinton, who famously proclaimed The era of big government is over.
You’re sure devoting a lot of time to taking down a book you haven’t read. Why don’t you ask me some questions.
The interview in Bloomberg was more than enough for me to know without a doubt that your understanding of the history of GM and Detroit is profoundly flawed or purposely misrepresented for your political goals.
The only question that I have (and it’s totally obvious) if Ralph Nader and the safety regulations he helped to bring about brought down GM (and Detroit) why were the much smaller imports able to meet them all (and thrive), as they were certainly not exempt?
There was no “safety crisis”, which you identify as the biggest reason GM and Detroit fell. There were other crises, like the energy crises, emissions crisis, fuel economy crisis (CAFE), quality crisis, image crisis, demographic crisis, performance crisis, styling crisis, unfunded pension/health care crisis, high labor cost crisis, and a few others.
In all my years of following the industry, I never never once had anyone identify a “safety crisis”. Sure, Detroit (and the imports) weren’t exactly thrilled about meeting them, and spent a fair amount of money lobbying against them, as they did with emission and fuel economy regulations. Yet they managed to meet them all.
You identify the ’60s and ’70s as the crisis time that killed GM and Detroit. GM was still very successful and profitable, and still had a mammoth 42% market share in 1978. GM’s decline did not start until after 1980, due to their release of one new car after another that had serious quality, performance, styling and image deficits. By that time, most of the safety issues had long been resolved.
This one statement alone is reason enough to not spend my money on your book: That cars were adequately safe in 1964, and any further improvements in safety features were excessive/unnecessary. That statement is utterly absurd, and socially irresponsible.
And btw, no, Ralph Nader did not kill the Corvair. By the time his book came out, the Mustang had already effectively killed it. That right there is more than enough reason to not buy your book.
I’ll answer the one question I noticed above. “Is the review negative enough that Mr. Whyte would wish it would go away, or is the publicity gained via a New Yorker review worth it, on balance?”
I’ve had three books reviewed in the New Yorker. I good, i not so good (this one), and one indifferent. None have moved the dial on sales. Incidentally, all three reviews have been by the same guy, who doesn’t seem to like my politics (which is fine).
Let’s start with the Mustang theory. I looked closely at the notion
that the Mustang killed the Corvair because it seemed plausible to me, too. The Mustang comes out in 1964, sells 125,000 units, and then explodes to 560,000 in 1965, and 600,000 in 1966. Those sales must have come from somewhere, right?
But the Corvair sold in the 230,000 to 310,000 range from 1960-1963, dropped to 200,000 in 1964, the Mustang’s first year, and actually increased to 230,000 in 1965 when the Mustang sales went through the roof. That was the first clue that the Mustang wasn’t killing the Corvair. GM actually announced at the end of 1965 that it was going to expand the Willow Run plant to increase Corvair and Chevy II production.
Corvair sales did not run into trouble until a particular moment in time. They fell off a cliff right at the start of 1966. Detroit area Chevrolet dealers, for instance, sold 503 Corvairs in the first two months of 1966 compared to 1,128 in 1965. They were offering huge discounts (10%) and still couldn’t move the Corvair. GM slashed production of then car to 32,000 units in the first quarter of 1966 compared to 65,000 in the first quarter of 1965.
So what was happening right at this time? Nader released his book in November 1965 describing the Corvair as a one-car accident. He followed up in late 1965 and early 1966 with national television appearances and national newspaper coverage repeating his charges, claiming that the hundred-odd tort suits against the Corvair were “proof” of its unsound design, and that riding in a Detroit-built car was like sitting “in a roomful of knives.” Nader also made a highly-publicized appearance before Abraham Ribicoff’s auto safety hearings where he made all the same arguments. Harry Philo, a Detroit area tort lawyer with whom Nader was associated, appeared before the Michigan legislature in this same period to demand the Corvair be outlawed on Michigan highways. And Nader, the American Trial Lawyers Association (the tort industry), Ribicoff, and LBJ all backed highly-publicized “stop murder by motor” campaign in early February 1966 in which GM was accused of producing automobiles with “lethal” designs. The Corvair, again, was exhibit A for Detroit’s critics.
If you won’t take it from me, take it from Fred Olmsted, the legendary Free Press auto writer, who discussed on May 6 1966 why GM, instead of expanding Willow Run, was now cutting shifts: “The demand for the rear-engine Corvair has fallen sharply, admittedly due in part to the furor over the safety of the car. Ralph Nader, a vigorous campaigner for auto safety, renewed Thursday his criticism of the Corvair. He told the House Commerce Committee that the Corvairs built between 1960 and 1964 were the least safe cars on the road.” By this time, Corvair sales were pacing at a third of their 1965 rate, and they would continue at that pace the rest of 1966.
Still not convinced that the safety issue was the culprit? The Mustang’s sales increased maybe 10% in 1966 over 1965 (less than 50,000 cars) while the Corvair’s sales fell by 70% in 1966 (about 130,000 cars). Even if you believe that Mustangs and Corvairs were locked in a zero-sum sales contest, which is highly unlikely, you’re still only accounting for a small proportion of the Corvair’s loss that year.
Furthermore, if you believe the Mustang was the only (or the leading) factor in destroying the Corvair, you would think that the collapse in Mustang sales from 1966 to 1968 (600,000 to just over 300,000) would have allowed the Corvair to rebound, but it sold less than 25,000 units in 1967 and about 12,000 in 1968.
The Mustang wasn’t the culprit.
Happy to discuss further if you like. Or to discuss any other element of the book. I’m hardly infallible but I do know my shit. I spent four years on this book and I have a lot of material no one has seen before (including private GM memos discussing how much damage the safety crusade had done to the company).
If anyone would like a signed copy of the book, I have three available. Just email me at ken@sutherlandhousebooks.com
Let’s take a closer look at the Corvair. To start with, the Corvair was a flawed concept, on a number of levels. It was not successful as a mainline compact when it arrived in 1960, and the Ford Falcon outsold it almost 2:1. GM realized that the Corvair would never compete effectively against the Falcon, which is why they approved the creation of the very conventional Chevy II in November of 1959, just 2-3 months after the Corvair and Falcon first appeared.
The Corvair’s heavy rear engine and swing axle suspension were a bad idea by 1960, especially since GM left off a $4 sway bar, and didn’t make more of an effort to mitigate the tricky handling at the limit by using a more sophisticated rear suspension or at least adding a camber compensating spring, as they finally did in 1964, well before Nader’s book.
The reality is that GM shot itself in the foot by introducing a design that handled very different than all the other American cars. There were numerous press reports and articles in enthusiast car magazines that acknowledged the Corvair’s tricky handling and tendency to violent oversteer.
I wrote a fairly comprehensive article on all that here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-1960-1963chevrolet-corvair-gms-deadliest-sin/
Please note that my first car was a 1963 Corvair. I appreciated aspects of the Corvair’s sporty demeanor but was also well aware of its vices. And I am able to discern the difference. In the hands of a competent driver that understands that, it could be a fun car. In the hands of the typical American driver, it was seriously flawed in its responses to certain situations and inputs. And GM is 100% responsible for that, both in its design and in blatant cost-cutting by not mitigating its vices. Which it did, starting in 1964, and fully so in 1965.
The Corvair would have utterly failed on the market as a compact were it not for the fact that GM showed a one-off customized ’60 Corvair coupe at car shows which was dressed up and had bucket seats. Attendees were so enamored of it, that GM rushed it into production. This was the Monza, the first overtly compact sporty car.
Although the Monza essentially saved the Corvair and represented the bulk of its sales, and brought in new types of buyers including former import owners, Corvair sales were still relatively modest. They peaked in 1962 at 292k, at the height of Monza enthusiasm. In 1963, Corvair sales had already started their decline, down 13%. And in 1964, they fell 25%, down to 192k.
Yes, 1965 Corvair sales enjoyed a bump in 1965, thanks the superb new styling and the vastly improved fully-independent rear suspension. But despite that, 1965 sales were still only 236k, well below all of the years 1960-1963.
Why? The Mustang, which appeared in April 1964, was even that much more appealing to Americans as a compact sporty car. its long hood, short deck proportions were the classic proportions of sporty cars, and it offered conventional water-cooled engines in a wide range of power outputs, including V8s up to 271 hp.
It’s important to note that Mustang sales for the 17-month long 1965 Model Year were production constrained, as Ford did not anticipate such a huge demand. 1965 MY sales averaged 40k units per month. With the addition of more assembly plant capacity, 1966 MY Mustang sales averaged 51k units per month, a 28% increase.
In 1965, the newly styled Corvair could still garner some interest from die-hard Corvair enthusiasts. But that limited market was satiated by 1966, and non-Corvair enthusiast sales all went to the Mustang.
GM approved the Camaro as Chevy’s Mustang fighter in October of 1964, because just like in 1959 when they approved the Chevy II, they knew by the summer of 1964 that the Corvair would never be competitive against the Mustang. By approving the Camaro, they sealed the Corvair’s death sentence.
In fact, there’s very little doubt that the only reason GM kept the Corvair in production after the Camaro arrived for the 1967 MY was to show that they were not buckling under to the anti-Corvair sentiment from Nader’s book. There was zero reason to keep the Corvair in production after 1966.
Obviously “Unsafe At Any Speed” had some impact on the Corvair’s sales and image, and rightfully so, although the new 1965 model did not have the earlier version’s handling issues. But it’s all-too obvious that the Mustang was by far the main reason it failed: the Mustang was a much more compelling package and did not have the handling vices of the Corvair, which were common knowledge well before Nader’s book came out.
There was no way the Corvair’s sales were going to rebound after the Mustang and the arrival of the Camaro, as well as the Firebird, Barracuda, Cougar and other “pony cars”. The Corvair was an obsolete concept that had a limited appeal as a sporty compact before all of those others arrived. After 1965, the Corvair was an anachronism, with a very small but enthusiastic fan base.
The whole pony car sector started to decline after 1967 because it was largely a fad, and many Americans who bought them realized they were too small to be a comfortable family car. Meanwhile import sales started to increase in the late ’60s, which also ate very substantially into pony car sales. The market was fragmenting, and the pony car fad was doomed to become just another modest sliced slice of the market.
And the Corvair was essentially doomed in 1960, but got a temporary reprieve because the Monza created interest in a class of car that did not exist yet among the domestic manufacturers. But that was inevitably a temporary phenomena.
And thanks for this question, Paul: “if Ralph Nader and the safety regulations he helped to bring about brought down GM (and Detroit) why were the much smaller imports able to meet them all (and thrive), as they were certainly not exempt?”
It’s important to note that the safety crusade and the 1966 safety regulations are two distinct (although related) things. The crusade, which I’ve sketched in the answer above, did enormous damage to the Corvair and GM brands. I have internal GM brand surveys demonstrating the damage: customers and the public thought the world of GM products through 1965 and by the end of 1966 were angry at the company and disparaging its vehicles, although the vehicles were essentially unchanged.
The 1966 regulations were one outcome of the crusade. The regulations did damage of their own. They began a low-grade regulatory war between Detroit and Washington which escalated into the 1970s and by the late seventies was costing GM $8 billion a year in compliance costs and consuming a lot of its time and attention when it needed to be concentrating on the threat posed by the imports. That was unfortunate but may have been manageable if not for the brand damage on top of it. The brand damage was the major contributor to GM’s profits declining 70% between 1966 and 1970 and its share price declining 40% in that same window (it would not recover for four decades), was the bigger problem.
The safety crusade, which taught America that Detroit was killing them in droves with unsafe automobile designs, was a boon to the imports. Detroit had done a first-rate job of sweeping foreign competitors from its domestic market in the early 1960s by launching its own small cars, the Corvair, the Falcon and the Valiant. In 1966, when the safety crusade was in full swing, the imports begin creeping back into America. After filling just 5.5% of the domestic market from 1961 to 1965, they jump to 12.5 in 1966. In 1968 they’re 16%, and in 1970 they are 24% of the market. That’s before Japanese cars improved significantly in quality, and before the oil crisis. That’s what happens when Washington tells Americans that Detroit automobiles are lethal products that are killing people in droves. Detroit’s cars were hardly perfect (no vehicle should require the length of a football field to brake from cruising speed), but they were by and large the safest in the world at that time.
I’m not going to spend more time on rebutting this, but it’s not supported by the facts. Import sales increased (for a second time) starting in the late ’60s because the boomers were entering the car market for the first time, and many did not see the Big Three making cars that they wanted. By 1968, all the compacts had grown substantially. They wanted genuine small cars, like the VW and Toyota and Datsun. Detroit had nothing for them, until 1971, when the Vega and Pinto arrived. And as you undoubtedly know, the Vega was of course a profoundly flawed car that hurt GM in the eyes of the young boomer generation more than anything else during this time.
It wasn’t safety that hurt GM’s image; it was crap cars like the Vega.
The imports were building reliable, efficient cars with the features that a new generation of buyers wanted. This was the start of the long decline of GM.
And when GM was able to attract many of these same import buyers back in 1980 with its X-Cars, they screwed themselves again, even more royally, with the most recalled cars ever, and which gave GM a colossal black eye. And starting with the X-Cars in 1980, GM’s market share began its fee-fall in the 1980s, as other new car lines were introduced that failed. GM even ruined its sales with older buyers when they made disastrous mistakes with its luxury lines in 1985 1986, and self-destructing engines like the Olds diesel.
Blaming it on an imaginary “safety crisis” is silly.
I certainly hope your four years of research included uncovering the fact that GM sales and profits hit all time records in 1978, well above the peaks of the early ’60s. GM’s problems didn’t really started until 1980. If you’re going to write a book about the decline of GM, that’s where it really should start. And it was all self-inflicted after that point. They could have easily continued to be successful except for a string of duds from that point forward.
If you haven’t yet, you might want to peruse my many GM deadly Sins here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/on-the-purpose-and-nature-of-gms-deadly-sins/
“Detroit had done a first-rate job of sweeping foreign competitors from its domestic market in the early 1960s by launching its own small cars, the Corvair, the Falcon and the Valiant. In 1966, when the safety crusade was in full swing, the imports begin creeping back into America. After filling just 5.5% of the domestic market from 1961 to 1965, they jump to 12.5 in [1967]. In 1968 they’re 16%, and in 1970 they are 24% of the market.”
A minor point in the context of the overall discussion in this thread, but one I think is worth making: the above figures for import market penetration percentage include cars imported into the United States from Canada, which I think is misleading. We’ve discussed those figures before on this site. The increase in import market share during this period was impressive, but not quite as impressive as the above numbers make it look.
Most cars imported from Canada in this time period were indistinguishable from domestic cars. The people buying them were not doing so to avoid domestic cars, because for all intents and purposes they were domestic cars. People buying these cars did not think of them as imports; many Americans who in this era who bought cars built in Canada were probably actually unaware that their car was built there. These cars were also imported into the U.S. as part of larger scheme to supply the North American market from factories on both sides of the border, and were likely partially offset by exports moving in the opposite direction.
Before the Auto Pact agreement between Canada and the U.S. in 1965, Canada was not a significant source of U.S. imports. The Auto Pact changed that. By the early ‘70s, several hundred thousand cars a year were crossing the border from Canada to the U.S., typically accounting for more than 30% of U.S. imports, and seven to nine percent of overall U.S. car sales.
If you take Canada out of the equation, import market penetration was about 8% in 1967, about 11% in 1968, and about 16% in 1970. It then plateaued for the next several years, as the introduction of American subcompacts like the Pinto and Vega placed a light brake on further growth, Japanese gains were offset by losses by European manufacturers like Volkswagen and British Leyland, and the imports were hit hard by the 1974-75 recession. Import market penetration would not reach 20% until 1978 (technically ’79, but probably really ’78 if you classify the VW Rabbits that started to be built in the U.S. that year as imports), and would not be at or above 24% until 1980.
One last technical point, in the interests of full disclosure: these numbers come from a U.S. International Trade Commission report which appears to use the number of cars sold in a given year for domestics (not the number of cars built), but the number of cars imported into the U.S. in a given year for imports (not the number of cars sold). It seems to me that this isn’t quite a direct comparison; it would be better to compare the number of domestics built against the number of imports imported, or the number of domestics sold against the number of imports sold. Production/imports and sales usually track each other pretty closely, however, so even if you did that, the numbers likely wouldn’t change much.
“The brand damage was the major contributor to GM’s profits declining 70% between 1966 and 1970 and its share price declining 40% in that same window (it would not recover for four decades), was the bigger problem.”
Why would profits and share price be a better metric than market share to measure GM’s popularity / brand equity? GM’s market share is directly correlated to what the public is willing to buy, and so to GM’s image, and that really fell only in the 1980s. Guess that doesn’t fit your argument too well…
One other thing Paul. You say that I say that “cars were adequately safe in 1964, and any further improvements in safety features were excessive/unnecessary. That statement is utterly absurd, and socially irresponsible.”
I didn’t say that. I said in the Bloomberg interview that by 1966 Detroit had implemented all of the safety improvements requested by the American Medical Association and other expert parties. That’s a recognized fact. They had made those improvements even though engineers at Cornell (the leading independent auto safety researchers at the time) acknowledged that the life-saving benefits of the improvements were as yet unproven.
When I say cars were safe enough, I’m saying they were safe enough at that moment to answer all the legitimate concerns that had been raised by responsible outside critics of Detroit automobile design. I’m not saying they were unimprovable. That would indeed by absurd. We’ve come a long way since 1966.
This is a very complex topic with so many unknowns in what-if variables.
As to Mr Whyte’s observation:
“The rate of progress in improving auto safety declined after Nader’s intervention. Putting the focus on the car, rather than the driver, and blaming Detroit rather than the people behind the wheel was counterproductive to the cause of auto safety.”
To that I wholeheartedly agree!
It’s a bit off topic for here, but ditto on addictions, relationships, etc.
Somehow, and I don’t recall any particular instruction or scolding on it, but somehow we (meaning peers) knew that in everything from jalopy operation to life choices there were consequences to all of our decisions. For most the simple “life skill” of using common sense out of fear-of-consequences panned out well.
Today taking personal responsibility has become so passé.
Hopefully the worm turns again soon.
As to Mr Whyte’s observation:
“The rate of progress in improving auto safety declined after Nader’s intervention. Putting the focus on the car, rather than the driver, and blaming Detroit rather than the people behind the wheel was counterproductive to the cause of auto safety.”
That statement is false. The rate of motor vehicle deaths per million miles driven dropped from 5.3 per million miles in 1965 to 1.1 in 2010, a whopping 80% reduction (see chart below). This started right about the time of “Nader’s intervention”. Spewing such total falsehoods is not going to help his cause or yours.
The same rate dropped by 70% from 1925 to 1965, a time period that saw drastic improvements in roads as well as obvious improvements in things like braking (4 wheel brakes) and other factors. The easy gains were mostly finished by 1955, which explains why the rate was largely flat from 1955 to 1969 or so, when safety regulations began to have their effect, along with the continued expansion of better highways and interstates.
Even if the rate of improvement slowed somewhat, it was still very unacceptably high in the 1950s and 1960s, and it came down drastically as a direct result of safety improvements. Are you suggesting we should have just accepted such a high death rate, and blamed the dead for their lack of personal responsibility?
The whole “personal responsibility thing” is total crap. If a drunk crosses the center line and hits you head on, would you rather be in a 1964 Corvair or 2010 Camry?
It’s great that you took “personal responsibility”. Good luck teaching it to others. And the reality is that drivers took a lot less personal responsibility back than, as drunk driving numbers have come down. Is that not a sign of personal responsibility? And I don’t see nearly as much street racing as I did many decades ago. Do you?
Paul, you may have missed the point. You’re referencing statistics for something that wasn’t mentioned, namely deaths. That’s confusing the issue. Just because nobody died doesn’t mean everything is honky-dory.
I’m not sure about Primrose Lane, but beyond there it’s total highway mayhem with almost a complete disregard for the old fashioned common sense driving rules.
No statistics needed, a little observation will do. Anybody else look around to notice the high number of “texting” drivers? Yah, there used to be the occasional guy shaving on his way to work, but at least he was looking up. …and kept the straight razor in a sheath. lol
Wild police chases galore. Little respect for signage and lane markings. Wrong-way drivers. Miles of traffic at freeway speeds without a “cushion space” in sight; resulting in the now-common pile-ups involving hundreds. Etc., etc.
Factor in that many people have decided that there’s no benefit to having police or insurance companies involved in their lives so they don’t bother to voluntarily report many incidents. Guess what that does to data collection and accuracy?
I believe that the above short list and much more underscores Mr Whyte’s point that the improvements to vehicles which have made them so “crash friendly” have had the unintended negative effect of fostering (let’s be frank) stupid driving.
As to your: “The whole “personal responsibility thing” is total crap. If a drunk crosses the center line…”
With a knock on wood and all due respect to pride before the fall, I must completely disagree.
That “total crap personal responsibility thing” is a whole different mindset.
It’s been benefiting those who practice it since before the biggest traffic danger was getting kicked by a horse!
OshKosh log truck or Corvair, Mr Personal Responsibility strongly believes that avoiding an incident to begin with is way better than a hundred Camry airbags being deployed to save him. Obviously not always, but yes, he might even recognize that hypothetical approaching drunk early and be able to react. That’s his M.O. He’s always on alert and preparing to “think for the other guy” a hundred ways.
Taking personal responsibility is part of how some drivers go decades and millions of miles without so much as a fender bender. Nothing to scoff at.
Yes, I believe it can be taught, to a point, but that’s a topic for another day. Did you ever notice how climbing on the hot wood-stove never became a juvenile epidemic?
How is citing traffic-related fatality stats unrelated to a discussion about vehicle safety? And all you have to counter those stats are your very own “little observations”? How compelling. Faced with decades of hard stats, you reply “gut feeling” and “old fashioned common sense traffic rules.”
Nowadays people do have phones and will do stupid things with those, but I respectfully call BS on your “old fashioned common sense.” Because that included folks drinking and driving, smoking and driving, not using turn signals, not using rearview mirrors, not putting on their seat belts, having their kids crawling all over the cabin…
Not to mention cars that could only brake once (drum brakes were still the overwhelming majority in late ‘60s American cars), had no crumple zones, no ABS, no headrests, etc.
The number of lives and limbs saved by improved vehicle safety is demonstrable. The number of lives and limbs saved by common sense? Well, I too have a gut feeling, but then you know what guts are usually full of.
And speaking of common sense, it kind of fails you when you write: ”the improvements to vehicles which have made them so “crash friendly” have had the unintended negative effect of fostering (let’s be frank) stupid driving.”
People carelessly crash their cars because they’re too damn safe, in other words. Flawless logic. In your world, cars are also freely available, easy and cheap to repair, insurance premiums never go up and crashes are always predictably void of any consequences, I assume? Because otherwise, your statement is somewhat disingenuous.
Your “personally responsible” self is not immune to having his high horse run into by another driver. So vehicles should be less safe for both of them? That’ll teach Mr Responsible a lesson, to be sure: No good deed goes unpunished.
Fewer fatalities proves that vehicle safety works, doubly so if your anecdotal and highly subjective “observations” about the way people drive nowadays is far more dangerous than it used to be. “Personal responsibility” will not move the needle on road safety very much, if at all. It may appeal to your world view, but alas the facts and data do not bear this out.
I admire your stamina Paul, and I enjoy your vitriol, but I wish you’d look at my actual work before dismissing it out of hand. Every question you raise is answered in the book, with data and sources. I at least am extending you the courtesy of reading your arguments (I quite like this site, btw, although there is not enough to read about International Scouts).
I will address your last point, which you falsely claim is false. Yes, if you cherry-pick your data points, you can make it look like the post-1966 results were better than the pre-1966 results. If you use identical time frames, which is the only valid way of approaching it, the fifty years before 1966 and the fifty years after, the rate of improvement slowed (see data in my book, and Leonard Evans work on this subject).
Also, the in-car safety improvements that you want to credit for all the gains after 1966 were mostly enacted in 1964, before Nader came along. They can’t be credited to his crusade or the 1966 legislation, and even then, they had an important but relatively minor impact on the overall number of traffic fatalities.
The slower rate of improvement in the range of 1955 to 1969 has many causes, which are also outlined in detail in the book with research from the National Safety Council among many other sources.
As I describe at length in the book, the overwhelming cause of improvement in auto safety fatality rates post-1966 by the NHTSA’s own data was legislation aimed at human factors, not car design. Drunk driving legislation. Mandatory seatbelt legislation. Nader and company fought both because they wanted to blame Detroit for those 50,000 highway deaths per year.
At least we agree on the fact that the fatality rate was unacceptably high (still is, in my opinion). I agree it was high, and despite what the New Yorker guy says, I am actually a supporter of safety regulation. I entirely support the 1964 moves by GSA which introduced almost all of the in-car improvements that Nader, the American Medical Association, and the NHSTA later took credit for. And I fully support drunk driving and mandatory seat-belt legislation–which is nothing if not regulation.
I say repeatedly in the book that you stubbornly refuse to read that regulation was necessary to address traffic safety. Regulators step in when markets fail. And in the 1960s, Detroit was reluctant to put more safety into cars largely because of the demonstrated reluctance of car buyers to pay for more safety. Ten of thousands of people were dying. That was a market failure, and it provided an opportunity for regulators to step in, as they did quite effectively in 1964. The 1966 safety crusade had very little to do with enhancing safety and because of it’s single-minded focus on blaming Detroit for every death that occurred, it actually set the cause of safety back for a generation.
The wrong-headed focus on crashworthy cars to the exclusion of driver behavior is what knocked the USA out of its world-leading position in safe roads. Other nations (Canada, UK, Australia, etc) that continued to focus primarily on driver behavior (without neglecting the automobile) left the US in the dust on the rate of safety improvement.
Any other pet theories that are standing in the way of your reading The Sack of Detroit? I’ll send you a free copy if you like…
There are many variables that influence the rate of improvement in vehicle deaths per million miles. It’s way beyond our scope to try to enumerate them and assign relative value to each one.
The point is totally clear: safety standards continued to be tightened after the initial ones. This is of course due to the creation of NHITSA and other legislation. And this was of course precipitated by Nader and his movement.
So the bottom line is that Ralph Nader instigated a process that continues to this day, and has clearly and unarguably been instrumental in the very strong improvement of deaths since 1965 or so.
I note that you haven’t made any effort to respond to my comments about the Corvair and the real reason for GM’s decline. The reason I refuse to read your book is because it is a political screed against certain types of legislation and for tort reform, manipulating and mangling some select pieces of history to support your cause. The result is just that, but it’s certainly not “history”. That’s what I’m interested in, and given your highly inaccurate takes on the Corvair and GM alone, I wouldn’t to read it, even if you send me a copy.
That statement is not false Paul. It can look false if you cherry-pick your time periods, but the only responsible way to do it is equivalent time periods on either side of 1966. I use 50 years before vs 50 years after because the NHTSA and Nader and others all claimed victory on the 50th anniversary of the 1966 legislation. The rate of improvement is slower post-1966 than pre-1966.
At least we agree that the fatality rate was too high in 1966. It still is, in my opinion.
I’ve never said there was no cause for regulatory intervention and that things should be left to individual responsibility. Quite the contrary.
I say repeatedly in the book (which you stubbornly refuse to read) that safety regulation was necessary. I applaud the GSA’s intervention in 1964, which introduced almost all of the changes that Nader and the NHTSA would later take credit for.
The NHTSA’s own data (it’s in the book) shows that post-1966 in-car safety improvements had little effect on the fatality rate. Doesn’t mean that the improvements weren’t worth doing, just that they weren’t terribly effective.
What was effective was drunk-driving and mandatory seat-belt regulation, which Nader and Co. opposed because they were determined to beat up Detroit and they believed drivers were incorrigible, that they’d never buckle up and drive sober. I fully support mandatory seat-belts and drunk driving laws, which are, incidentally, regulations. But I wouldn’t credit Nader et al with those gains.
The focus on beating up Detroit set back American auto safety immeasurably. The US went from first in the world to about 18th, because of the direction in which Nader and Co. pushed the American safety debate. They’re chiefly responsible for that policy failure.
Again, I’m not against regulation. I support regulation. I don’t support counter-productive regulations.
Again, I’ll send you a copy of the book if you like. Maybe we won’t find ourselves arguing so much over positions you wrongly imagine I’ve taken, or think are unsupportably when, in fact, I have plenty of support.
Have it your way, Paul, but the NHTSA itself has acknowledged that drunk-driving legislation and mandatory seat-belts have done more than any in-vehicle safety measure to save lives.
So, yes, Nader has “clearly and unarguably been instrumental in the very strong improvement of deaths since 1965,” but instrumental in a negative way, for opposing the most important measures and setting back the cause of traffic safety in the US.
You wanted my response to your comments on the Corvair. I disagree with you that it was a flawed concept. It’s important to remember that all of the companies had resisted compacts, with their lower sticker prices and smaller profit margins, because they were worried that they would simply cannibalize sales for more expensive and more profitable standard-size cars.
Yes, the Falcon outsold it two to one in 1960. The Falcon moved an impressive 450,000 units in its first year of production. However, those gains came at the expense of the more profitable standard Fords, which the Falcon closely resembled in everything but size and price. The company’s total sales dropped, and its share price fell 5 percent on the news. Ford’s financials at year’s end were disappointing: its market share had fallen by a point and a half to 27 percent; revenue was down from $5.4 billion to $5.2 billion, and profits from $451 million to $428 million.
The rear-engine Corvair, a radical departure from everything else in the Chevrolet line-up, racked up a respectable 230,000 sales in its inaugural year. But the true measure of its success was that standard Chevrolets had managed a strong year even with fresh competition in the showroom. G.M.’s strategy had been to target a new kind of buyer with something unconventional in both styl¬ing and technology, and it proved sound. GM increased its market share by a point and a half to 44 percent and registered sales of $12.7 billion with earnings of $959 million, up from of $11.2 billion and $873 million in 1959. “Falcon is running far ahead . . . in compact car sales,” wrote The New York Times, “but G.M. is running away with the cash.”
So the Corvair was a successful concept, and the Falcon was a flawed concept.
You’re correct, of course, that the Corvair handled differently than other cars in the Chevrolet lineup. Yes, there were a couple of reviews that said it could oversteer (although the overwhelming tone of reviews was positive, and it was Motor Trend’s Car of the Year). As for it being seriously flawed in its design, you may think so, but this was litigated in a fifteen-week trial (the Drummond case) with 41-expert witnesses addressing every perceived problem with the Corvair design and in his seventy-page decision Judge Jefferson of the Los Angeles Superior Court wrote:
“It is the Court’s conclusion that the Corvair automobile of the 1960 through 1963 variety is not defectively designed nor a defective product; that no negligence was involved in the manufacturer’s adoption of the Corvair design; that the Corvair matches a standard of safety which does not create any reasonable risk of harm to an average driver.”
Cornell’s Auto¬motive Crash Injury Research Project released in December 1968 an enormous study of crashes in thirty states dating back to 1956. It found that the major cause of traffic fatalities and serious injuries for all cars was ejections, usually caused by rollovers. It offered a rare brand-by-brand look at collision outcomes, something Nader had long been demanding. In crashes in which rollovers were the principal cause of injury or death, occupants were ejected from Volkswagens at a rate of 31.1 percent, from foreign sports cars at 42.9 percent, and from the Corvair at 13.9 percent. The range for other American-built cars was 17.7 to 40.0 percent. In non-rollover crashes resulting in deaths, Corvairs performed on par with other North American- and European-built cars. That is some of the best empirical data available on the Corvair’s safety relative to other cars.
Finally, at Nader’s insistence, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration organized a thorough, independent test of the Cor¬vair to determine, once and for all, whether the vehicle was unsafe relative to other cars on the road. The panel spent two years on the project, including four months of road tests at College Station, Texas. The panel’s findings were that “the handling and stability performance of the 1960–63 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic.”
The Corvair was not a perfect car, and it did handle differently than other cars, but it did its job, which was to introduce compacts to the GM lineup without cannibalizing standard car sales. I agree that the Monza model helped its sales. I don’t consider that a demerit.
I’m not going to say anything further about Corvair vs. Mustang. I’ve addressed that and there is nothing in your post above that contradicts my findings (which, incidentally, are consistent with contemporaneous press accounts and GM’s internal communications, which I present in the book that you won’t read). Corvair’s sales tanked in the first months of 1966 as a result of the safety crusade and the false characterization of the car as a one-car accident.
You also maintain that I haven’t responded to your comments about “the real reason for GM’s decline.” I have, in fact, responded to those comments. The response is called “The Sack of Detroit,” published by the Alfred A. Knopf, 432 pages, which the Wall Street Journal, among other outlets, favorably reviewed: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-sack-of-detroit-review-americas-car-crash-11622153338
I find it puzzling that you seem, on the one hand, to care about getting history right, but refuse to read any history that doesn’t with your pre-conceived notions of it. Keeping an open mind and challenging what we think we know is the first responsibility of historians, amateur or professional.
Congratulations on Curbside Classics. It’s a great site, and I’ve enjoyed discussing these issues with you on it, but it’s time to move on. All best wishes, Ken Whyte
The Monza didn’t just help the Corvair’s sales, it ‘was’ its sales by 1965. The Corvair started life as Chevrolet’s compact alternative to the standard size cars and was offered in every body configuration of a conventional standard family car was, yet two years later Chevrolet released the Chevy II/Nova. Why?
Two cars killed the Corvair before Nader, and the Chevy II came from Chevrolet themselves, a virtual Falcon clone with junior 62 Impala styling. Corvair sedan sales evaporated from a total of 189,228 in 1960 to 57,385 in 1965, and that plummet happened very quickly after 1960 in the wake of the Monza, the Corvair quickly went from being a compact family car to a compact specialty coupe where it lopsided to 154,359 coupes(2/3rds of which were Monzas) and 104,481 sedans for 1961 and every year to follow sedan sales dropped precipitously where Monza and coupe sales became more dominant… until Mustang fever consumed them all.
Nader dinged the reputation of the Corvair, nobody’s arguing that including Paul but do you honestly believe there would have been a new 1970 Corvair if not for the book Unsafe At Any Speed? Sorry but Nader beat a dead horse picking on the Corvair in it. The writing was on the wall for it the day the Mustang debuted and the Camaro hit showrooms within a year the book was published, far too little time to develop a new car in the wake of a controversy and when you look at the bodystyle/model breakdown of the Corvairs that were selling in 65-66 they were clearly what the Camaro was intended to replace. It’s a wonder Chevrolet bothered producing the Corvair at all afterwards, but it wouldn’t be the only time GM kept a platform in production along side its replacement(80s RWD G and B/C bodies).
I know I have some replies past due in this thread, mainly regarding my audacity in suggesting that drivers can play a significant role in crash prevention.
I’m getting to those replies. Meanwhile I thought I’d quickly share a sad news blurb that was dropped on me this morning:
“Traffic deaths in the United States increased in 2020 to their highest level in 13 years, despite a 13.2% decline in total miles driven, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
No doubt we can presume that as usual the new data represents
ever safer vehicles and roads and hopefully better informed drivers.
Roughly, what the fresh numbers show is that with a significant decrease in miles (Pandemic) crash deaths are up significantly.
What changed?
To simplistic me, it’s obviously driver behavior.
Driver behavior managed to “swing the needle” (as it’s been called here) the wrong way 7.2 % in what should’ve been the most favorable driving conditions in decades. Imagine that!
To simplistic me again, that shows obviously that driver behavior can indeed “swing the needle” and so should be able to swing it the other way 7.2% or more.
I no longer feel like tiptoeing around facts to defend my position that it’s mostly on the driver. In the name of civility I’m now backing away from this subject.
I offer sincere condolences to all who suffered tragic unnecessary loss.
Are you serious? Almost all (over 90%) crashes/deaths/injuries are the result of driver behavior. And have been from day one. Are you going to tell us next that the sun comes up in the East? Just how stupid do you think we are?
The whole highly obvious point you’ve been missing is that it’s profoundly difficult to change driver behavior. Always has been; always will be. Do the research on that subject.
The reason some European countries have lower crash/death rates is for a number of reasons, but one of them is the high barrier to getting a license, which costs over $2,000 in Germany. That’s because driving is seen more as a luxury than a basic right/necessity. That’s always been a big difference in Europe, and explains why high gas taxes are used not just for road building and maintenance, but also in the general fund. Driving is a luxury that can be taxed to subsidize mass transit and other social causes, because realistically, it’s simply not necessary for European city dwellers (the overwhelming majority) to drive. And that’s why many don’t. it’s much more expensive.
Also, the Europeans have much more draconian consequences for driving drunk. They just hardly ever do that anymore.
This reality has a very real impact in driving and crash rates in some European countries.
So are you going to suggest telling Americans that driving should be an expensive luxury, and charge over $2,000 for a license, and increase gas taxes by a factor of ten to subsidize transit and other social benefits? Is that what you’re advocating for? Because it sounds like it, based on your repeated pointing to other countries that have lower crash rates. There’s a real reason for that; it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. The world is a bit more complex than you seem to think.
Americans have always seen driving as a right, not a luxury. This explains why it’s so easy and cheap to get a license, buy an old beater car, and buy cheap gas. Good luck taking that away from them. But that approach invariably means that there’s going to be relatively more marginal folks out there on the road. It is inevitable. And good luck “educating” them, and inculcating “personal responsibility” in them.
Studies have shown that extensive driver’s ed does not make a meaningful difference in outcomes. What are you going to teach them? How to control a spin on a wet road? That’s utterly irrelevant. It always mostly was, but with modern stability control, it’s totally so.
Are you going to teach them to be always attentive, not distracted, and sober? Good luck with that. The Jim Dandy School of attentiveness and personal responsibility.
Even if you’re just tumbling to the fact that over 90% of crashes are the result of driver behavior, the safety lobby has known that forever. Which is precisely why they have advocated (successfully) for much greater passive safety, so when that person comes across the the middle line at you or runs a red light, or rear ends you at great speed (and you can’t evade them, despite your superior skill) you’re going to be glad you’re in a modern car and not a 1964 model.
This is the reality of car crashes and deaths. Hopefully you’ll tumble to that one of these days.
And this is why ever-advanced active safety systems in cars will likely reduce car crashes, as they intervene in drivers’ inevitable poor decisions, inattentiveness, and incapacitation. Bring them on! I’m tired of reading about innocent folks getting killed here locally by drivers crossing the median on our local non-divided highways. Were they texting, eating, falling asleep, jacking off, or drunk? I don’t know, but I’d like systems in place to keep it from happening. it’s much easier to teach a car to stay in its lane than to change human behavior, unless you’ve got some miraculous new method at The Jim Dandy School of attentiveness and personal responsibility.
“Are you serious? Almost all (over 90%) crashes/deaths/injuries are the result of driver behavior. And have been from day one. Are you going to tell us next that the sun comes up in the East? Just how stupid do you think we are?”
Paul!
I sure get misunderstood.
I’ve been in here for days essentially pounding the desk with my shoe saying “it’s the driver, stupid!”
We’re on the same page!
I was thinking about something today… I watch the ribbon-cutting of a divided freeway approximately 50 years ago. For decades everything was mostly fine and “Dandy” lol.
But… Once in awhile there’d be a wrong-way driver and probably a crash.
Traffic flow has not change significantly.
Surface streets, on-ramps, same old thing.
However, now there’s lots more signage warning of wrong-way entry.
And guess what?
Oh, you already did.
So now there’s an all-out effort to try to figure out what to do about it.
No, I don’t know the answer. I have a hunch that NHTSA types don’t either,
because they’ve recently decided that it’s a fantastic idea to mix bicycle traffic with the most inattentive vehicle drivers in history. The old common sense riding pattern is illegal now. I don’t even want to talk about how that’s going.
You probably make the best point with raising the bar for holding an ops.
When driving, I consider that my top duty is to protect my passengers and myself and of course to do no harm to others. To effectively execute that duty I must deal with the reality of the actual situations I must interact with while driving. (With another loud knock on wood, so far, so good)
To say derisive things like calling my actual driving realty “your own world view” and say things like (summed up) “Personal responsibility will not move the needle on road safety very much, if at all… facts and data bear this out” is laughable.
What, instead I should think: “No, facts and data say that the dangerous situation I’m actually encountering is statistically not a significant threat” don’t worry about it?”
Guess what?!? I’m not trying to move any needle in Washington D.C. Yes, while driving, “my own little world” that I must navigate through is the one I’m most concerned with. When making spot decisions I don’t factor in things like data, percentages, statistics. I simply take personal responsibility to make decisions that will hopefully net the best outcome possible.
With folks who think otherwise on the road, no wonder the mayhem.
In closing I don’t understand why the concept of taking personal responsibility is so scoffed by many. I’m going to add that to the long list of things that I can’t grasp. However I’ll continue on with. Y’all are free to cast your lots however you chose. I haven’t slammed anybody for their philosophical choices, please back off of mine.
Considering some of the submissions here my narrow world view is starting to broaden and a hunch is that Mr Whyte has a lot more right than some want to acknowledge.