Re: Unsafe At Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the Amer
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:57 pm
PART 1 OF 2
Chapter 8: The Coming Struggle for Safety
On a September day in 1899, Mr. H. H. Bliss stepped down from a trolley car in New York City and, while graciously assisting a lady passenger to alight, was fatally struck by a horseless carriage -- the first recorded death by automobile. Not until 1,125,000 more fatalities and tens of millions of injuries had occurred did a Congressional Committee open hearings on the conditions that cause this massive casualty count. On July 16, 1956, Congressman Kenneth Roberts, an Alabaman and a firm believer in minimum federal government, opened the first session of the new House subcommittee on traffic safety by proceeding immediately to the subject of automobile design hazards. It was a promising start but one that remained little fulfilled in hearing after hearing through 1963. Congressman Roberts was surrounded by apathy and opposition in Congress and with hostility from the automobile industry and its traffic safety establishment. Even taking a look at the problem was suspect.
In spite of these obstacles and the lack of a full time subcommittee stall', Roberts performed some important services for the cause of traffic safety. One was to provide the first public forum for presentations on the vehicle safety issue by industry representatives and by physicians, engineers, and other specialists in crash injury research. These presentations have a continuing significance. The automobile makers' testimony, for example, reveals how little their present attitude, performance, and excuses have changed from a decade ago. They offered the jaded themes of their supposed concern with safety; their past progress in matters such as sealed beam headlamps and windshield wipers; the necessity of high- horsepower engines; the industry's thorough methods of quality control; the reasons why safety devices must begin on an optional, extra-cost basis; and the usual tributes to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and the safety standards of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
The subcommittee members were taken on a tour of company proving grounds, were shown some barrier crashes, and were given lectures about National Safety Council figures showing that the vast majority of accidents and fatalities are caused by bad driving. General Motors' director of public relations, Anthony De Lorenzo, gave an extended account of General Motors' support of traffic safety councils throughout the country with funds and printed materials, and the involvement of company executives and personnel in helping to orient local safety activities of clubs, schools, and government agencies. "In this way," declared De Lorenzo, "General Motors has put its shoulder to the safety wheel in virtually every village, town, and metropolis in America."
Roberts also invited independent specialists to testify. The subcommittee heard from numerous physicians, such as Dr. Fletcher Woodward, Dr. Arnold Griswold, and Dr. Horace Campbell, who for so many years have observed at first hand the bloody consequences of interior vehicle design and have tried in vain to galvanize their profession into action for safer cars beyond the easy passage of medical association resolutions. The subcommittee also heard from engineers such as Professor James Ryan, William Stieglitz, Frank Crandell, Henry Wakeland, and Andrew White, a man who left the automobile industry to establish motor vehicle safety research facilities in rural New Hampshire. The subcommittee heard, as well, from representatives of the American Public Health Association, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Medical Association. All of those representatives underlined the ability of the automobile makers to make the inevitable accident safer. These dedicated physicians and engineers were far-sighted not because they perceived some hidden truths but because the society around them and the major decision-making bodies that could discipline the automobile manufacturers were so near-sighted.
What disturbed Roberts most was the response from the executive branch of the federal government. He found it very difficult to get information from federal agencies that dealt with highway safety matters; nor did his committee enjoy any of the other forms of cooperation that nourish good legislative policy-making. Very soon it became clear that the automobile was a taboo subject for most federal officials. What particularly incensed Roberts was the attitude of the Department of Commerce. In a rare flush of anger, he made known his displeasure during testimony on H.R. 2446 -- a bill providing that hydraulic brake fluid meet safety standards prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce. Roberts introduced the bill in 1961 after receiving evidence that many brands of brake fluid came to a boil at a dangerously low temperature. Such fluids are called "phantom killers" by automotive experts because under hard stopping conditions they vaporize, leading to total brake failure. By the time the damaged vehicle is investigated, the brakes have cooled, the vapor has returned to a fluid state, and the brakes are operable.
This had been a serious problem for many years before the first state law was passed by Minnesota in 1953. In 1961 only half the states had passed laws regulating brake fluid, and these mostly required conformity with the tolerant SAE minimum standards. All the laws were chiefly exhortatory in nature with nominal, if any, enforcement provisions.
Roberts thought federal legislation was needed. The official reaction from the Commerce Department was: "This Department is certainly sympathetic with the safety objectives contemplated by H.R. 2446. However, we would also emphasize that the several States have traditionally exercised regulatory authority over motor vehicle safety features; and it would seem that the entry of the Federal Government into the field of brake fluid standards regulation presents the basic question of the proper role of the Federal Government generally in the regulation of motor vehicle equipment." After thus lecturing the subcommittee about the bill's jurisdictional propriety in the light of "tradition," the department made this astonishing recommendation: "We would like to suggest that it might be helpful for the President's Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to give careful study to the basic question of the Federal Government's role in the regulation of motor vehicle equipment, before decision is made with respect to brake fluid standards." It might have been expected that the department would know its position on motor vehicle regulation, since it had finished in 1959 a $200,000 study entitled "The Federal Role in Highway Safety," which was ordered by Congress in 1956 specifically to "determine what action can be taken by the federal government to promote the public welfare by increasing highway safety." A draft version of this study was sent for review to the Automotive Safety Foundation and the National Safety Council, which may help to explain why by the time the study was published the government's role in vehicle safety was never defined.
Roberts told the department's spokesman, Charles Prisk, a cautious veteran of the Bureau of Public Roads and the principal author of the 1959 report: "Mr. Prisk, you know I have had a good deal of experience with departmental reports. This is not the first time that I have been confronted with the reluctance of the Commerce Department to go along with safety regulations."
Roberts also said: "I am getting tired of introducing bills and holding hearings on safety matters. This is certainly not a far- reaching bill. But it is a bill that can save a lot of lives. And when the Department continually comes up here and recommends against a very small step in the direction of the safety of our people on the highways, roads, and streets of this country, it seems to me that certainly we ought to investigate and find out what is wrong with the Department of Commerce.... They constantly opposed every effort the Congress made for safety in that field. I am not going to be satisfied until we find out what is happening at the Department level."
Roberts never carried through on what would have been a significant inquiry. But he did modify H.R. 1341, authorizing the federal government to establish safety standards for the motor vehicles it purchases, so that the General Services Administration got the job, instead of the Department of Commerce, which did not want the responsibility. In view of the odds against the success of Roberts' efforts, H.R. 1341 was a stroke of legislative genius. It was difficult for the automobile lobby to oppose a law restricted to government procurement of some 36,000 vehicles a year. Nevertheless, the lobby did oppose it. Although the bill passed the House in 1959 and 1962 by large majorities, the automobile industry managed to block it in Senator Smathers' subcommittee on surface transportation. The Automobile Manufacturers Association testimony against the bill argued that "nationally recognized performance standards already are available," and only duplication and expense would result from passage. The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators echoed the AMA, declaring that the bill •would probably result in serious injury to the economy of this Nation ... and would create stagnation among automotive engineers and designers." The Automobile Manufacturers Association made clear that when it referred to "nationally recognized performance standards" it meant those of the American Standards Association and the Society of Automotive Engineers.
In the summer of 1964, with Senator Smathers no longer chairman of the subcommittee on surface transportation, Roberts spoke with Senator Warren Magnuson, chairman of the parent Senate commerce committee, and secured his endorsement of the bill in return for Roberts' support of a Magnuson bill providing medical care for commercial fishermen. After that the bill sailed through the Senate and was signed by President Johnson at his Texas ranch on August 30, 1964.
The clear legislative intent behind the law, now Public Law 88-515, was for the General Services Administration to emphasize vehicle safety in its purchase standards so as to exert pressure on the industry and get it moving faster in the engineering of all its vehicles for accident and injury prevention. GSA's administration of Public Law 88-515 during the first year of its enactment failed to carry out this mission.
The task of developing- the standards fell initially to Willis MacLeod of GSA's standardization division, and to his deputy, John Scott. Congress did not make their job any easier. No special appropriations were made available with Public Law 88-515 to facilitate the hiring of specialists and services of expert consultants by GSA.
However, the Roberts law was written in a very permissive manner. It did not limit GSA to prescribing only those standards whose features it could obtain and pay for in the next procurement year. The agency was perfectly free to establish standards that could point the way to future adoption and thus not only give the automobile makers advance notice but also provide a basis for stimulating greater competition in bidding for government business. GSA chose not to avail itself of this flexibility.
MacLeod and Scott did begin their work with sincerity and showed a determination to explore available knowledge from a variety of sources-industry, government, universities, independent specialists,. and physicians. Two advisory committees were created, one consisting of representatives from other federal departments and the other composed of the automobile companies, standards groups, and trade associations. The first standards had to be published by the summer of 1965 for application to 1967 model vehicles.
The Automobile Manufacturers Association invited the General Services Administration officials and members of the government advisory committee to a three-day tour of company facilities and consultations with company engineers. Soon after this early November meeting, General Services Administration officials held a formal specification- development conference attended largely by government and industry people. The synchronized performance of the four automobile companies, the Automobile Manufacturers Association, and the Society of Automotive Engineers almost appeared as if it had been preceded by a dress rehearsal. Their strategy was to point out what they could not do to insure greater safety, never to offer suggestions about what they could do. No data were volunteered to back up their restrictive assertions, nor was any information released about their work on safety, such as what they had done on steering wheel assemblies. They advised the General Service Administration to adhere to the "proven" safety features available as optional equipment and cautioned that within a few months the 1967 models would be "in the pan" except for minor alterations. To emphasize that the industry was not being overly parochial, the redoubtable satellites -- SAE, ASA, AAMVA, and NSC -- either rose in active support or implied concurrence by staying silent.
GSA published seventeen preliminary safety standards in January 1965 [1] and invited comments. Some GSA personnel believed that these standards would be substantially toughened by the June 30th deadline for the issuing of the final standards. Just the opposite occurred.
In February and March numerous detailed commentaries were received. The industry comments expressed approval of the standards that adhered to SAE or ASA standards or simply detailed optional equipment (without any performance requirements) that they were currently selling, or pressed recommendations for lowering or altogether dismissing other standards. Comments from independent specialists and government agencies recommend that many of the proposed standards be strengthened.
During this period a shift to the industry's viewpoints began. MacLeod's superiors, H. A. Abersfeller, Commissioner of the Federal Supply Service, and his assistants, George Ritter and Walter Roberts, began to take over more of the details and the communication with the industry. A final specification-development conference was held on May 19 and 20, 1965. A revised list of preliminary standards was presented by GSA for consideration. There was little indication then that the final standards which came out on June 30 would be even weaker than the draft standards. For example, the standards for padded instrument panels were reduced to the point of uselessness. A GSA proposed standard regarding the decelerative force of the head upon impact was reduced from a required 44 feet per second and 40 gs in 40 milliseconds in May to a required 22 feet per second and 80 gs in 60 milliseconds in June. This standard was such that out of a group of sixteen automobile makes built between 1953 and 1959 that were tested by John Swearingen of the Federal Aviation Agency, nine would have met or exceeded the present GSA requirement without padding. Swearingen considers all sixteen makes he tested as excessively dangerous. Another illustration of how the standards were watered down relates to the instrument panel control devices, which, according to the preliminary standard, were to be designed so as to be Hush with the panel surface or be detached by a force not exceeding forty pounds; this was weakened to ninety pounds in June. The steering column standard had provided for a permissible rearward displacement not exceeding five inches during a barrier collision test at thirty miles per hour; despite much data and expert judgment to the' contrary it was changed to five inches at twenty miles per hour on the basis of some uncritically evaluated cases presented by an anatomist, Dr. Donald Huelke, a protege of GM's Kenneth Stonex and consultant to General Motors and Ford. The glare-reduction standards were weaker than their January levels, to the extent that many 1964 and 1965 glare-ridden models meet the GSA requirements. What makes the GSA standards even more accommodating to the industry is that they assume the occupant is belted to the seat. This assumption means, for example, that the standards do not take knee contact areas into consideration.
Nothing particularly new happened between May 20 and the deadline for the final standards on June 30. Civil servants tend to shape their jobs along paths that avoid strong adverse reaction and great controversy. Reaction and controversy mean more work. The industry and its satellites are most capable of having a strong reaction and creating controversy. The consumer is not.
The General Services Administration says that it did not have the data on which to base standards stronger than the ones it established the first year. This "lack of data" argument seems largely specious. It does not take any more data, for instance, to have more stringent glare-reduction standards, more complete tests for door latches and hinges, and a stipulation of the area adequately wiped by the windshield wiper. The General Services Administration, in a landmark study by John Swearingen on instrument panel design hazards, had data that it ignored completely.
The fact that during the month preceding the June 30 deadline the General Services Administration did not inform other federal agency representatives on the government advisory committee of its decision to weaken the standards was entirely inexcusable. GSA was far more solicitous of the industry than of the government. It permitted company engineers to see and comment on the final draft of the standards, right up to the lime when the draft had to be sent to the printers. The final standards in general represented quite a triumph for the automobile makers. They obtained a government endorsement of existing optional safety devices and approval, by and large, of existing levels of safety. GSA was directed toward the "gadget" approach to safety and away from the much more fundamental structural approach. After extensive interviewing of automobile company engineers, Automotive News reported that "most automotive people are quite receptive to the General Services Administration approach because they have representatives on the General Services Administration committee permitting them to influence the selection of reasonable features."
Comments by two top industry executives illustrate the extent to which the General Services Administration officials fulfilled the law's intent to exert Influence on the manufacturers to engineer higher safety levels for their 1967 models than contemporary vehicles offered. Arjay Miller, president of the Ford Motor Company, said in May 1965, "Although some reports may lead the public to believe that the GSA standards will be new, in most instances they are similar to or stem from our current engineering practice." In July 1965, Mr. Miller said, "Our newest [door] latches exceed ... General Services Administration requirements. The safety features we have added to our cars over the years include almost all the requirements recently announced by the General Services Administration for vehicles purchased by the government starting with 1967 models." In the same month, July 1965, James Roche, the president of General Motors, made note of six GSA standards that covered optional equipment long offered by GM. Then he added, "With respect to other GSA specifications, I would like to point out that General Motors cars already have a standard gear quadrant, safety glass, standard height bumpers, as well as door latches, hinges and anchorages for seats and seat belts -- all of which meet or exceed the standards established. Our current steering wheels more than satisfy these GSA requirements." In a statement submitted to the Ribicoff subcommittee, General Motors even claimed that its door hinges, which the Cornell study showed to have failed in collisions at a rate many times higher than competing vehicle hinges, "for all of these years from 1959 through 1965 more than satisfy the 1967 GSA requirements."
It is understandable why, in view of such a dismal performance, GSA officials did not present any technical justification for their standards, either on a formal basis or when requested by non-industry sources to do so. Instead, inquirers were given useless generalities which only confirmed the shallowness of the specifications. GSA's administration of Public Law 88-515 during 1964 and 1965 does not provide much ground for optimism over standards the agency is committed to develop in succeeding years.
Less than two weeks after the GSA standards were published, the United States Senate broke a sixty-year silence on the vehicle safety issue and, through Senator Abraham Ribicoff's subcommittee on executive reorganization, opened its first hearings. Each of the four domestic manufacturers was invited to testify. General Motors led off with its chief executives, Chairman Frederic Donner and President James Roche. From their testimony and attitude, it appears that Donner and Roche walked into that crowded hearing room on July 13 thinking that it would be just like 1956 and the Roberts subcommittee all over again, with perhaps a bone or two thrown in to pacify some headline-hunting Senators. Both presented statements whicl1 once again repeated the routine that has characterized all of General Motors' statements on safety through the years. Roche spoke about the progress of the past, beginning with the 1910 models. It was just after that date, he reminded his audience, that "all driver compartments were equipped with doors to keep the occupants from falling out." After devoting a quarter of his testimony to cataloguing past advances, he went on to discuss the company proving grounds, the rigorous company testing, the need for better vehicle maintenance by car owners, the support General Motors gives to driver education, and other financial support the company gives to the private safety movement. Then Roche told the Senators that the proper role for the federal government was to encourage and assist the states and local communities," whose traffic safety responsibilities include the vehicle itself, since these communities "are obviously most familiar with their own conditions with respect to the safe operation of automobiles."
Donner's testimony reaffirmed the optional approach to safety which goes back to the days when headlamps and bumpers were options. "Some things must be built into the motor car because they are essential to its operation. Examples are brakes, steering, and lights. Other items must be sold to the customer on their merits." He cited directional signals -- first introduced by General Motors on an optional basis in 1939 -- as a self-evident safety device and deplored the lack of prompt customer acceptance, which Impeded General Motors from standardizing this device on all its cars. Donner said that the "decision to offer an item as optional equipment recognizes what I believe is the basic freedom of the customer to pay the cost of tailoring a car to his own specifications or rejecting whatever he may not want." He neglected to explain why costly styling features were non-optionally imposed on the consumer, or whether General Motors ever clearly informs the car buyer about the safety purposes of particular options. He ignored the obligation of a manufacturer to make such features standard and not leave the decision to endanger innocent third parties, in other cars or on foot, up to the customer's acceptance of an inflated-price option. Rather, Donner was insistent that this optional policy "must be the approach" until there is high general acceptance or "there are other compelling reasons for standard installation."
Since he was speaking of attachable safety features, "safety" (without legislation) was not such a compelling reason. He re-emphasized his point: "I come back again to the climate of public acceptance. If we were to force on people things they are not prepared to buy, we would face a customer revolt; and departing from his prepared text, Donner added, "and we want to stay in business." [2]
At the time Donner was speaking, an advertisement about the Skylark Gran Sport run by his company's Buick division was circulating the country under the title "Son of Gun." The advertisement asked: "Ever prodded a throttle with 445- pound-feet of torque coiled tightly at the end of it? Do that with one of these and you can start billing yourself as The Human Cannonball." It is obvious that automobile company management is taking little responsibility for the climate of public acceptance which its tor rent of advertisements are helping to nurture throughout the country. As American Motors' Roy Abernethy once stated: "The influence of advertising on consumer attitudes is widely accepted as a substantial one."
What prompts automobile makers to refer in testimony or speeches to safety devices or other distinct, observable features instead of the far more important structural advances in safety engineering is the ease with which devices can help shift attention to the area of consumer acceptance and extra-cost options instead of the manufacturers' responsibility.
Donner did have an olive branch for Ribicoff's subcommittee. Just the week before the hearings it had happened that General Motors had arranged to give the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a $1,000,000 grant to be spread over the next four years for a "long-range, in-depth, quantitative analysis of all facets of the safety problem-the car, the road, the driver, and their various interactions." This grant breaks down to $250,000 a year, less than a third of Donner's annual earnings from General Motors. Though no Senator inquired how much "in-depth" analysis of anything such a modest sum would buy, given the majestic sweep of the grant's subject matter, General Motors' testimony did not satisfy either Senator Ribicoff or Senator Robert Kennedy. The question-and-answer period left them even less satisfied.
Donner and Roche refused to tell the subcommittee how much their company spends on collision safety research, claiming it was impossible to segregate it from their other engineering and development programs. When asked about the Cornell report on the exceptional fragility of General Motors' door hinges, GM's engineering vice president, Harry Barr, first said he was "not familiar with such data." After Ribicoff and Kennedy persisted with their questions, Barr suddenly recalled enough of the report to attempt to explain it away.
After one berating by Ribicoff, Donner and Barr inadvertently burst forth defensively with replies that indicated how remote General Motors' top management has been from the subject of vehicle safety and how few resources were being allocated to it. Donner said, "We got very concerned as we dug into this and found that we had nowhere to go." That is why "we wanted to see if we could get an institution like MIT to make a really in-depth study." Barr said that Dr. Huelke's investigations of one hundred and fourteen fatal accidents (financed by a grant of $15,000 from the U.S. Public Health Service) had given General Motors more useful information on second collision passenger impacts in General Motors' cars than the company had accumulated in the preceding ten years.
Senator Kennedy pressed to find out how much was spent for research such as that conducted by Dr. Huelke and whether General Motors had similar investigative arrangements elsewhere in the country. Donner and Barr declined to answer the first question, for obvious reasons. As for the second, Barr said, "We have not found another dedicated doctor that is doing this type of work." Kennedy asked whether he had tried to find people in other areas to do this kind of research. After much evasiveness, Barr simply stated: "No, I have not." Kennedy was visibly nettled by what he properly grasped to be the very low priority given crash safety research by General Motors. What followed was a rapid exchange of such electric intensity that the hearing room was hushed into total stillness.
This tug of war sent the Ford and Chrysler representatives in the audience rushing back to their typewriters to make revisions and additions to their prepared statements. Both companies were more specific than General Motors in the role they visualized for the federal government The industry, of course, would take care of the vehicle. Chrysler urged the establishment of a federally-financed center to look into accident causation, to study the "sociological and psychological factors" involved in operating automobiles, and to educate consumers to buy and use proven safety devices offered by the industry. Ford recommended a similar long-range program, sponsored by the Department of Commerce and contracted to private industry and universities, to study the driver, the highway, and law-enforcement -- those weaker links of the chain linking the elements needed for safer highway travel. The Ford president, Arjay Miller, stated that at present "industry facilities for vehicle design and testing are the strongest links" in this chain.
During the two-hour hearing, Miller put on a long presentation which left little time for questioning. Learning of the no- nonsense treatment accorded General Motors, he prepared a three-page addendum outlining ten areas of increased activity by Ford in fulfilling "our responsibilities in the safety field." Ribicoff was intrigued by the way the automobile companies suddenly began pledging more attention to safety because of a brief public exposure at a Congressional hearing. But the pledges were vague, unenforceable, and designed to fend off any move for regulation. Safety remained solidly in the corporate embrace of the "trade-off."
Having helped focus Congressional attention on vehicle safety, the question now is how far the Ribicoff subcommittee will go to get at the roots of the problem and propose genuine solutions to it. An idea of the difficulties that any such effort will be likely to encounter can be imagined from knowing the continuing struggle to establish the first public tire safety standards in this country. In 1959 The Wall Street Journal published a front-page article entitled "Tire Troubles," which told of the tire industry's concern about the hazards of over-loaded original-equipment tires and the inadequate recommended air pressures for the growing weight of the new cars. The article quoted an Akron tire engineer as saying, "Tire overloading has been a problem for the thirty years I've been in the business, but it started to become acute in the 1950's." The tire industry, it continued, had been trying to get the motor companies to buy larger tires to avoid this overloading. The Wall Street Journal described why it was bad to overload tires. "The constant Hexing builds up terrific heat in the tire for the new cars. And heat is the worst enemy of a tire. It weakens the fabrics embedded in the rubber and saps the strength of the adhesive which holds together the various layers of fabric and rubber of which a tire is made." This leads to shorter tire life and blowouts long before the tread wears down.
Two years later, Karl Richards of the Automobile Manufacturers Association told the Roberts subcommittee that "tire problems today are mainly concerned with improper use, maintenance, and replacement." Again it was the motorist's responsibility. Again there was no problem with the tires as they were received on the original vehicle.
About this time, New York State Senator Edward Speno began to receive letters from around his state complaining in some detail of new tires on new cars that mysteriously blew out after a few hundred or few thousand miles. The more Speno looked into the matter the more he learned of the inability of the tire buyer to know what he is buying. There were no reliable purchasing guides or any law anywhere dealing with tire safety standards. Any quality of tire could be sold, even those advertised for $7.95 as "perfect for in-city driving." Speno's legislative committee visited Akron, Ohio, home of four of the big five tire companies, on September 23 and 240 1963. At a dinner given in the committee's honor by tire company leaders, Speno proposed the establishment of minimum safety performance standards for new automobile tires. Stunned silence greeted the end of his speech. One dinner guest spilled both his coffee and his after-dinner liqueur onto the man seated on his left. Speno had not only said something no one had ever said before, but it sounded as if he meant it.
The tire industry decided to cooperate with Speno in order to have a voice in negotiating the contents of the tire bill that was to be drafted. After several meetings with Speno and his technical consultants, tire company representatives, headed by those from Goodyear, prevailed upon Speno to limit the bill to standards for blow-out resistance and overloading. The sections on skidding and cornering standards were dropped. Late in 1963, the automobile industry told the tire companies crisply that there was to be complete and total opposition to any tire legislation. There followed what veteran observers at Albany called some of the most intensive and improper lobbying ever seen on those legislative battlegrounds.
Speno told the American Trial Lawyers Association in August 1964 how the tire industry began applying pressure. "In January," he said, "I received at my home a call from Akron from the president of one of the big companies, a very friendly call. It had to do with finances for my next election campaign and national public relations expenses. 'You're not serious about this legislation, Senator: he said. I'm not categorizing the nature of the phone call. I'm just telling you it happened."
Another meeting was held between Speno and leading tire company representatives in Albany on February 19, 1964. Speno agreed to numerous modifications requested by the companies, including deletion of the overloading section which the automobile industry so violently opposed. They then surprised him by saying they would support the bill at the March 4th hearings. At that hearing, Speno was surprised again. The Rubber Manufacturers Association, the Goodyear representative, the Automobile Manufacturers Association, and automobile company spokesman all stood up and totally opposed the bill. The Senate passed it, but the lobbying paid off in the Assembly where the bill was never brought to a floor vote.
On July 1, 1964, the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) announced voluntary agreement among the tire companies to adhere to minimum tire standards promulgated by the RMA. The objective of this move was to take the steam out of any further legislative drives. The RMA standards were so obviously incomplete, weak, and unenforceable that both tire and automobile industries turned to another of their controlled agencies, the Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission (VESC) to write slightly more stringent standards that would have an official facade.
In September, the managing director of the Automobile Manufacturers Association, Harry Williams, recommended to the Speno committee in a letter and press release that it refer its tire legislation and all other automotive safety bills to the VESC which, Williams implied, was far more qualified to deal with such technical problems. The notorious background, purpose, and structure of the VESC as a tool of the automotive industry and as a palpable undermining of state legislative initiative is fully documented by the minutes of its meetings and its performance to date. Speno, who initially approved the bill making New York state the first to adhere to the compact creating the Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission in 1962, is so repulsed by its subversive effect on the integrity of the governmental process that he is considering a move to have the state withdraw from the compact.
Interest in tire hazards began in Washington after Senator Gaylord Nelson med a bill in the Senate to establish tire safety standards. Complaints from motorists, automobile clubs, and tire dealers poured into Nelsons office. They applauded his statement of the need to assure motorists that the tires they are buying are safe. One California tire dealer wired: "You are right -- many motorists are riding on a time bomb." The insidious aspect of this problem is that when the "bomb" explodes it is the driver who takes the responsibility.
Similar complaints were coming into the Federal Trade Commission, which finally decided to hold hearings in January 1965 on tire safety, size, grade, and quality. These hearings brought forth testimony from specialists in industry and government that visibly shocked some of the FTC commissioners. FTC chairman Paul Rand Dixon told the Senate Commerce Committee (which began its hearings in May) what the record had produced: "Our hearing contains substantial testimony as to the inadequacy of these Rubber Manufacturers Association standards.... The specific safety problems which were developed at greatest length during Our hearing relate principally to the matters of tire size and the so-called practice of overloading, which are interrelated. Overload is the situation which exists when the curb weight of a vehicle plus the designed load capacity in terms of passengers and luggage exceeds the load carrying capacity of the tires with which the vehicle is equipped. The matter of tire size is directly related to the overload problem in that, all other things being equal, the size of the air chamber and the amount of inflation pressure therein determines the amount of load the tire can bear.
"Our record contains a number of statements to the effect that many original equipment tires mounted on new cars are inadequate to safely carry the passenger and baggage load the vehicle is designed to carry. One tire manufacturer stated that 'over the years, vehicle manufacturers, in an attempt to cut costs, have cut down the amount of tire they are designing on to their vehicles, and that some vehicles are overloaded when they are empty of passengers or baggage.'"
Repeatedly the problem of overload was traced back to the automobile manufacturers, who chose not to present themselves before the Federal Trade Commission. After it became obvious to the commissioners that cost-cutting and the car makers' obsession with the soft ride were the key reasons for the motorist getting an undersized tire, Commissioner Philip Elman wondered aloud whether the absence of the automobile companies hadn't turned the hearing into a performance comparable to Hamlet without the Danish prince.
A Goodrich executive explained how the automobile industry chooses tires for new cars. "For example, with a six passenger sedan, the weight of three passengers is added to the curb weight of the vehicle to determine the load that is to be used to select the tires." All the major tire companies and the Rubber Manufacturers Association refused to be drawn into any criticism of the automobile industry -- their biggest customer -- though some of the assistants to the spokesmen in the room were heard quietly cursing the automobile makers for forcing them into this predicament of trying to defend the indefensible.
Chairman Dixon later told the Senate Commerce Committee that the replacement tire market provided a great deal of consumer confusion and deception. "We believe confusion and deception are the results inherent in the existing situation where the approximately 950 different tire names currently marketed represent the products of approximately 120 private label marketers and 14 tire manufacturers; where tires may be designated as to quality, i.e., 'premium,' 'first line,' 'second line,' etc., regardless of the lire's inherent quality or safety; where the price of the tire has no discernible relation to its quality or safety level; and where many of the descriptive terms employed, such as 'ply rating,' '100 level,' and other grade designations, have no real meaning or definitive value in the absence of uniform standards. Testimony adduced at the hearing reflects that one manufacturer's 'first line' tire may be inferior to another manufacturer's 'third line' tire; and a manufacturer may supply a tire represented by him as a 'third line' tire to a private label marketer who is free to designate it as his 'premium' tire."
The commissioners listened incredulously as they heard John Floberg, secretary and general counsel of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, offer this steely assurance at the end of the hearings: "I submit that the best standard, the time- tested and proved standard and the appropriate free enterprise standard of quality should be the one that has in the case of tires, as in the case of other consumer products, worked most satisfactorily; namely, the discriminating and sophisticated taste of the American consumer." A leading National Bureau of Standards tire expert has said that he could not compare tires reliably for his own private purchase from the information available on the marketplace. Yet Mr. Floberg would impute such discernment to the average consumer.
There was only one candid statement submitted by a tire manufacturer. This came from Harry McCreary, Jr., chairman of the McCreary Tire and Rubber Company, longtime producers of replacement tires. McCreary argued for the need to inform the car driver, by a visible decal, of the net number of pounds of people and/or baggage which can be put into the vehicle before any tire becomes overloaded. "Then," he said, "if the driver insisted on piling in more people and/or baggage, he would at least know that he was skirting the danger area. As things stand now, the average driver simply doesn't give any thought to the matter-because no one has ever told him that he was placing himself, his passengers and every oncoming driver in a potentially dangerous situation."
McCreary told of the hold which the automobile makers have on the tire companies by virtue of their great purchasing power. "When Detroit snaps its fingers, Akron jumps through the hoop -- backwards, if necessary.... [The1decision as to what kind of a tire will go on those new cars is made in Detroit."
Chapter 8: The Coming Struggle for Safety
On a September day in 1899, Mr. H. H. Bliss stepped down from a trolley car in New York City and, while graciously assisting a lady passenger to alight, was fatally struck by a horseless carriage -- the first recorded death by automobile. Not until 1,125,000 more fatalities and tens of millions of injuries had occurred did a Congressional Committee open hearings on the conditions that cause this massive casualty count. On July 16, 1956, Congressman Kenneth Roberts, an Alabaman and a firm believer in minimum federal government, opened the first session of the new House subcommittee on traffic safety by proceeding immediately to the subject of automobile design hazards. It was a promising start but one that remained little fulfilled in hearing after hearing through 1963. Congressman Roberts was surrounded by apathy and opposition in Congress and with hostility from the automobile industry and its traffic safety establishment. Even taking a look at the problem was suspect.
In spite of these obstacles and the lack of a full time subcommittee stall', Roberts performed some important services for the cause of traffic safety. One was to provide the first public forum for presentations on the vehicle safety issue by industry representatives and by physicians, engineers, and other specialists in crash injury research. These presentations have a continuing significance. The automobile makers' testimony, for example, reveals how little their present attitude, performance, and excuses have changed from a decade ago. They offered the jaded themes of their supposed concern with safety; their past progress in matters such as sealed beam headlamps and windshield wipers; the necessity of high- horsepower engines; the industry's thorough methods of quality control; the reasons why safety devices must begin on an optional, extra-cost basis; and the usual tributes to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and the safety standards of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
The subcommittee members were taken on a tour of company proving grounds, were shown some barrier crashes, and were given lectures about National Safety Council figures showing that the vast majority of accidents and fatalities are caused by bad driving. General Motors' director of public relations, Anthony De Lorenzo, gave an extended account of General Motors' support of traffic safety councils throughout the country with funds and printed materials, and the involvement of company executives and personnel in helping to orient local safety activities of clubs, schools, and government agencies. "In this way," declared De Lorenzo, "General Motors has put its shoulder to the safety wheel in virtually every village, town, and metropolis in America."
Roberts also invited independent specialists to testify. The subcommittee heard from numerous physicians, such as Dr. Fletcher Woodward, Dr. Arnold Griswold, and Dr. Horace Campbell, who for so many years have observed at first hand the bloody consequences of interior vehicle design and have tried in vain to galvanize their profession into action for safer cars beyond the easy passage of medical association resolutions. The subcommittee also heard from engineers such as Professor James Ryan, William Stieglitz, Frank Crandell, Henry Wakeland, and Andrew White, a man who left the automobile industry to establish motor vehicle safety research facilities in rural New Hampshire. The subcommittee heard, as well, from representatives of the American Public Health Association, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Medical Association. All of those representatives underlined the ability of the automobile makers to make the inevitable accident safer. These dedicated physicians and engineers were far-sighted not because they perceived some hidden truths but because the society around them and the major decision-making bodies that could discipline the automobile manufacturers were so near-sighted.
What disturbed Roberts most was the response from the executive branch of the federal government. He found it very difficult to get information from federal agencies that dealt with highway safety matters; nor did his committee enjoy any of the other forms of cooperation that nourish good legislative policy-making. Very soon it became clear that the automobile was a taboo subject for most federal officials. What particularly incensed Roberts was the attitude of the Department of Commerce. In a rare flush of anger, he made known his displeasure during testimony on H.R. 2446 -- a bill providing that hydraulic brake fluid meet safety standards prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce. Roberts introduced the bill in 1961 after receiving evidence that many brands of brake fluid came to a boil at a dangerously low temperature. Such fluids are called "phantom killers" by automotive experts because under hard stopping conditions they vaporize, leading to total brake failure. By the time the damaged vehicle is investigated, the brakes have cooled, the vapor has returned to a fluid state, and the brakes are operable.
This had been a serious problem for many years before the first state law was passed by Minnesota in 1953. In 1961 only half the states had passed laws regulating brake fluid, and these mostly required conformity with the tolerant SAE minimum standards. All the laws were chiefly exhortatory in nature with nominal, if any, enforcement provisions.
Roberts thought federal legislation was needed. The official reaction from the Commerce Department was: "This Department is certainly sympathetic with the safety objectives contemplated by H.R. 2446. However, we would also emphasize that the several States have traditionally exercised regulatory authority over motor vehicle safety features; and it would seem that the entry of the Federal Government into the field of brake fluid standards regulation presents the basic question of the proper role of the Federal Government generally in the regulation of motor vehicle equipment." After thus lecturing the subcommittee about the bill's jurisdictional propriety in the light of "tradition," the department made this astonishing recommendation: "We would like to suggest that it might be helpful for the President's Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to give careful study to the basic question of the Federal Government's role in the regulation of motor vehicle equipment, before decision is made with respect to brake fluid standards." It might have been expected that the department would know its position on motor vehicle regulation, since it had finished in 1959 a $200,000 study entitled "The Federal Role in Highway Safety," which was ordered by Congress in 1956 specifically to "determine what action can be taken by the federal government to promote the public welfare by increasing highway safety." A draft version of this study was sent for review to the Automotive Safety Foundation and the National Safety Council, which may help to explain why by the time the study was published the government's role in vehicle safety was never defined.
Roberts told the department's spokesman, Charles Prisk, a cautious veteran of the Bureau of Public Roads and the principal author of the 1959 report: "Mr. Prisk, you know I have had a good deal of experience with departmental reports. This is not the first time that I have been confronted with the reluctance of the Commerce Department to go along with safety regulations."
Roberts also said: "I am getting tired of introducing bills and holding hearings on safety matters. This is certainly not a far- reaching bill. But it is a bill that can save a lot of lives. And when the Department continually comes up here and recommends against a very small step in the direction of the safety of our people on the highways, roads, and streets of this country, it seems to me that certainly we ought to investigate and find out what is wrong with the Department of Commerce.... They constantly opposed every effort the Congress made for safety in that field. I am not going to be satisfied until we find out what is happening at the Department level."
Roberts never carried through on what would have been a significant inquiry. But he did modify H.R. 1341, authorizing the federal government to establish safety standards for the motor vehicles it purchases, so that the General Services Administration got the job, instead of the Department of Commerce, which did not want the responsibility. In view of the odds against the success of Roberts' efforts, H.R. 1341 was a stroke of legislative genius. It was difficult for the automobile lobby to oppose a law restricted to government procurement of some 36,000 vehicles a year. Nevertheless, the lobby did oppose it. Although the bill passed the House in 1959 and 1962 by large majorities, the automobile industry managed to block it in Senator Smathers' subcommittee on surface transportation. The Automobile Manufacturers Association testimony against the bill argued that "nationally recognized performance standards already are available," and only duplication and expense would result from passage. The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators echoed the AMA, declaring that the bill •would probably result in serious injury to the economy of this Nation ... and would create stagnation among automotive engineers and designers." The Automobile Manufacturers Association made clear that when it referred to "nationally recognized performance standards" it meant those of the American Standards Association and the Society of Automotive Engineers.
In the summer of 1964, with Senator Smathers no longer chairman of the subcommittee on surface transportation, Roberts spoke with Senator Warren Magnuson, chairman of the parent Senate commerce committee, and secured his endorsement of the bill in return for Roberts' support of a Magnuson bill providing medical care for commercial fishermen. After that the bill sailed through the Senate and was signed by President Johnson at his Texas ranch on August 30, 1964.
The clear legislative intent behind the law, now Public Law 88-515, was for the General Services Administration to emphasize vehicle safety in its purchase standards so as to exert pressure on the industry and get it moving faster in the engineering of all its vehicles for accident and injury prevention. GSA's administration of Public Law 88-515 during the first year of its enactment failed to carry out this mission.
The task of developing- the standards fell initially to Willis MacLeod of GSA's standardization division, and to his deputy, John Scott. Congress did not make their job any easier. No special appropriations were made available with Public Law 88-515 to facilitate the hiring of specialists and services of expert consultants by GSA.
However, the Roberts law was written in a very permissive manner. It did not limit GSA to prescribing only those standards whose features it could obtain and pay for in the next procurement year. The agency was perfectly free to establish standards that could point the way to future adoption and thus not only give the automobile makers advance notice but also provide a basis for stimulating greater competition in bidding for government business. GSA chose not to avail itself of this flexibility.
MacLeod and Scott did begin their work with sincerity and showed a determination to explore available knowledge from a variety of sources-industry, government, universities, independent specialists,. and physicians. Two advisory committees were created, one consisting of representatives from other federal departments and the other composed of the automobile companies, standards groups, and trade associations. The first standards had to be published by the summer of 1965 for application to 1967 model vehicles.
The Automobile Manufacturers Association invited the General Services Administration officials and members of the government advisory committee to a three-day tour of company facilities and consultations with company engineers. Soon after this early November meeting, General Services Administration officials held a formal specification- development conference attended largely by government and industry people. The synchronized performance of the four automobile companies, the Automobile Manufacturers Association, and the Society of Automotive Engineers almost appeared as if it had been preceded by a dress rehearsal. Their strategy was to point out what they could not do to insure greater safety, never to offer suggestions about what they could do. No data were volunteered to back up their restrictive assertions, nor was any information released about their work on safety, such as what they had done on steering wheel assemblies. They advised the General Service Administration to adhere to the "proven" safety features available as optional equipment and cautioned that within a few months the 1967 models would be "in the pan" except for minor alterations. To emphasize that the industry was not being overly parochial, the redoubtable satellites -- SAE, ASA, AAMVA, and NSC -- either rose in active support or implied concurrence by staying silent.
GSA published seventeen preliminary safety standards in January 1965 [1] and invited comments. Some GSA personnel believed that these standards would be substantially toughened by the June 30th deadline for the issuing of the final standards. Just the opposite occurred.
In February and March numerous detailed commentaries were received. The industry comments expressed approval of the standards that adhered to SAE or ASA standards or simply detailed optional equipment (without any performance requirements) that they were currently selling, or pressed recommendations for lowering or altogether dismissing other standards. Comments from independent specialists and government agencies recommend that many of the proposed standards be strengthened.
During this period a shift to the industry's viewpoints began. MacLeod's superiors, H. A. Abersfeller, Commissioner of the Federal Supply Service, and his assistants, George Ritter and Walter Roberts, began to take over more of the details and the communication with the industry. A final specification-development conference was held on May 19 and 20, 1965. A revised list of preliminary standards was presented by GSA for consideration. There was little indication then that the final standards which came out on June 30 would be even weaker than the draft standards. For example, the standards for padded instrument panels were reduced to the point of uselessness. A GSA proposed standard regarding the decelerative force of the head upon impact was reduced from a required 44 feet per second and 40 gs in 40 milliseconds in May to a required 22 feet per second and 80 gs in 60 milliseconds in June. This standard was such that out of a group of sixteen automobile makes built between 1953 and 1959 that were tested by John Swearingen of the Federal Aviation Agency, nine would have met or exceeded the present GSA requirement without padding. Swearingen considers all sixteen makes he tested as excessively dangerous. Another illustration of how the standards were watered down relates to the instrument panel control devices, which, according to the preliminary standard, were to be designed so as to be Hush with the panel surface or be detached by a force not exceeding forty pounds; this was weakened to ninety pounds in June. The steering column standard had provided for a permissible rearward displacement not exceeding five inches during a barrier collision test at thirty miles per hour; despite much data and expert judgment to the' contrary it was changed to five inches at twenty miles per hour on the basis of some uncritically evaluated cases presented by an anatomist, Dr. Donald Huelke, a protege of GM's Kenneth Stonex and consultant to General Motors and Ford. The glare-reduction standards were weaker than their January levels, to the extent that many 1964 and 1965 glare-ridden models meet the GSA requirements. What makes the GSA standards even more accommodating to the industry is that they assume the occupant is belted to the seat. This assumption means, for example, that the standards do not take knee contact areas into consideration.
Nothing particularly new happened between May 20 and the deadline for the final standards on June 30. Civil servants tend to shape their jobs along paths that avoid strong adverse reaction and great controversy. Reaction and controversy mean more work. The industry and its satellites are most capable of having a strong reaction and creating controversy. The consumer is not.
The General Services Administration says that it did not have the data on which to base standards stronger than the ones it established the first year. This "lack of data" argument seems largely specious. It does not take any more data, for instance, to have more stringent glare-reduction standards, more complete tests for door latches and hinges, and a stipulation of the area adequately wiped by the windshield wiper. The General Services Administration, in a landmark study by John Swearingen on instrument panel design hazards, had data that it ignored completely.
The fact that during the month preceding the June 30 deadline the General Services Administration did not inform other federal agency representatives on the government advisory committee of its decision to weaken the standards was entirely inexcusable. GSA was far more solicitous of the industry than of the government. It permitted company engineers to see and comment on the final draft of the standards, right up to the lime when the draft had to be sent to the printers. The final standards in general represented quite a triumph for the automobile makers. They obtained a government endorsement of existing optional safety devices and approval, by and large, of existing levels of safety. GSA was directed toward the "gadget" approach to safety and away from the much more fundamental structural approach. After extensive interviewing of automobile company engineers, Automotive News reported that "most automotive people are quite receptive to the General Services Administration approach because they have representatives on the General Services Administration committee permitting them to influence the selection of reasonable features."
Comments by two top industry executives illustrate the extent to which the General Services Administration officials fulfilled the law's intent to exert Influence on the manufacturers to engineer higher safety levels for their 1967 models than contemporary vehicles offered. Arjay Miller, president of the Ford Motor Company, said in May 1965, "Although some reports may lead the public to believe that the GSA standards will be new, in most instances they are similar to or stem from our current engineering practice." In July 1965, Mr. Miller said, "Our newest [door] latches exceed ... General Services Administration requirements. The safety features we have added to our cars over the years include almost all the requirements recently announced by the General Services Administration for vehicles purchased by the government starting with 1967 models." In the same month, July 1965, James Roche, the president of General Motors, made note of six GSA standards that covered optional equipment long offered by GM. Then he added, "With respect to other GSA specifications, I would like to point out that General Motors cars already have a standard gear quadrant, safety glass, standard height bumpers, as well as door latches, hinges and anchorages for seats and seat belts -- all of which meet or exceed the standards established. Our current steering wheels more than satisfy these GSA requirements." In a statement submitted to the Ribicoff subcommittee, General Motors even claimed that its door hinges, which the Cornell study showed to have failed in collisions at a rate many times higher than competing vehicle hinges, "for all of these years from 1959 through 1965 more than satisfy the 1967 GSA requirements."
It is understandable why, in view of such a dismal performance, GSA officials did not present any technical justification for their standards, either on a formal basis or when requested by non-industry sources to do so. Instead, inquirers were given useless generalities which only confirmed the shallowness of the specifications. GSA's administration of Public Law 88-515 during 1964 and 1965 does not provide much ground for optimism over standards the agency is committed to develop in succeeding years.
Less than two weeks after the GSA standards were published, the United States Senate broke a sixty-year silence on the vehicle safety issue and, through Senator Abraham Ribicoff's subcommittee on executive reorganization, opened its first hearings. Each of the four domestic manufacturers was invited to testify. General Motors led off with its chief executives, Chairman Frederic Donner and President James Roche. From their testimony and attitude, it appears that Donner and Roche walked into that crowded hearing room on July 13 thinking that it would be just like 1956 and the Roberts subcommittee all over again, with perhaps a bone or two thrown in to pacify some headline-hunting Senators. Both presented statements whicl1 once again repeated the routine that has characterized all of General Motors' statements on safety through the years. Roche spoke about the progress of the past, beginning with the 1910 models. It was just after that date, he reminded his audience, that "all driver compartments were equipped with doors to keep the occupants from falling out." After devoting a quarter of his testimony to cataloguing past advances, he went on to discuss the company proving grounds, the rigorous company testing, the need for better vehicle maintenance by car owners, the support General Motors gives to driver education, and other financial support the company gives to the private safety movement. Then Roche told the Senators that the proper role for the federal government was to encourage and assist the states and local communities," whose traffic safety responsibilities include the vehicle itself, since these communities "are obviously most familiar with their own conditions with respect to the safe operation of automobiles."
Donner's testimony reaffirmed the optional approach to safety which goes back to the days when headlamps and bumpers were options. "Some things must be built into the motor car because they are essential to its operation. Examples are brakes, steering, and lights. Other items must be sold to the customer on their merits." He cited directional signals -- first introduced by General Motors on an optional basis in 1939 -- as a self-evident safety device and deplored the lack of prompt customer acceptance, which Impeded General Motors from standardizing this device on all its cars. Donner said that the "decision to offer an item as optional equipment recognizes what I believe is the basic freedom of the customer to pay the cost of tailoring a car to his own specifications or rejecting whatever he may not want." He neglected to explain why costly styling features were non-optionally imposed on the consumer, or whether General Motors ever clearly informs the car buyer about the safety purposes of particular options. He ignored the obligation of a manufacturer to make such features standard and not leave the decision to endanger innocent third parties, in other cars or on foot, up to the customer's acceptance of an inflated-price option. Rather, Donner was insistent that this optional policy "must be the approach" until there is high general acceptance or "there are other compelling reasons for standard installation."
Since he was speaking of attachable safety features, "safety" (without legislation) was not such a compelling reason. He re-emphasized his point: "I come back again to the climate of public acceptance. If we were to force on people things they are not prepared to buy, we would face a customer revolt; and departing from his prepared text, Donner added, "and we want to stay in business." [2]
At the time Donner was speaking, an advertisement about the Skylark Gran Sport run by his company's Buick division was circulating the country under the title "Son of Gun." The advertisement asked: "Ever prodded a throttle with 445- pound-feet of torque coiled tightly at the end of it? Do that with one of these and you can start billing yourself as The Human Cannonball." It is obvious that automobile company management is taking little responsibility for the climate of public acceptance which its tor rent of advertisements are helping to nurture throughout the country. As American Motors' Roy Abernethy once stated: "The influence of advertising on consumer attitudes is widely accepted as a substantial one."
What prompts automobile makers to refer in testimony or speeches to safety devices or other distinct, observable features instead of the far more important structural advances in safety engineering is the ease with which devices can help shift attention to the area of consumer acceptance and extra-cost options instead of the manufacturers' responsibility.
Donner did have an olive branch for Ribicoff's subcommittee. Just the week before the hearings it had happened that General Motors had arranged to give the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a $1,000,000 grant to be spread over the next four years for a "long-range, in-depth, quantitative analysis of all facets of the safety problem-the car, the road, the driver, and their various interactions." This grant breaks down to $250,000 a year, less than a third of Donner's annual earnings from General Motors. Though no Senator inquired how much "in-depth" analysis of anything such a modest sum would buy, given the majestic sweep of the grant's subject matter, General Motors' testimony did not satisfy either Senator Ribicoff or Senator Robert Kennedy. The question-and-answer period left them even less satisfied.
Donner and Roche refused to tell the subcommittee how much their company spends on collision safety research, claiming it was impossible to segregate it from their other engineering and development programs. When asked about the Cornell report on the exceptional fragility of General Motors' door hinges, GM's engineering vice president, Harry Barr, first said he was "not familiar with such data." After Ribicoff and Kennedy persisted with their questions, Barr suddenly recalled enough of the report to attempt to explain it away.
After one berating by Ribicoff, Donner and Barr inadvertently burst forth defensively with replies that indicated how remote General Motors' top management has been from the subject of vehicle safety and how few resources were being allocated to it. Donner said, "We got very concerned as we dug into this and found that we had nowhere to go." That is why "we wanted to see if we could get an institution like MIT to make a really in-depth study." Barr said that Dr. Huelke's investigations of one hundred and fourteen fatal accidents (financed by a grant of $15,000 from the U.S. Public Health Service) had given General Motors more useful information on second collision passenger impacts in General Motors' cars than the company had accumulated in the preceding ten years.
Senator Kennedy pressed to find out how much was spent for research such as that conducted by Dr. Huelke and whether General Motors had similar investigative arrangements elsewhere in the country. Donner and Barr declined to answer the first question, for obvious reasons. As for the second, Barr said, "We have not found another dedicated doctor that is doing this type of work." Kennedy asked whether he had tried to find people in other areas to do this kind of research. After much evasiveness, Barr simply stated: "No, I have not." Kennedy was visibly nettled by what he properly grasped to be the very low priority given crash safety research by General Motors. What followed was a rapid exchange of such electric intensity that the hearing room was hushed into total stillness.
Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year?
Roche: I don't think that has anything to do --
Kennedy: I would like to have that answer if I may. I think I am entitled to know that figure. I think it has been published. You spend a million and a quarter dollars, as I understand it, on this aspect of safety. I would like to know what the profit is.
Donner: The one aspect we are talking about is safety.
Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year?
Donner: I will have to ask one of my associates.
Kennedy: Could you, please?
Roche: $1,700,000,000.
Kennedy: What?
Donner: About a billion and a half, I think.
Kennedy: About a billion and a half?
Donner: Yes.
Kennedy: Or $1.7 billion. You made $1.7 billion last year?
Donner: That is correct.
Kennedy: And you spent $1 million on this?
Donner: In this particular facet we are talking about ...
Kennedy: If you just gave 1 per cent of your profits, that is $17 million.
This tug of war sent the Ford and Chrysler representatives in the audience rushing back to their typewriters to make revisions and additions to their prepared statements. Both companies were more specific than General Motors in the role they visualized for the federal government The industry, of course, would take care of the vehicle. Chrysler urged the establishment of a federally-financed center to look into accident causation, to study the "sociological and psychological factors" involved in operating automobiles, and to educate consumers to buy and use proven safety devices offered by the industry. Ford recommended a similar long-range program, sponsored by the Department of Commerce and contracted to private industry and universities, to study the driver, the highway, and law-enforcement -- those weaker links of the chain linking the elements needed for safer highway travel. The Ford president, Arjay Miller, stated that at present "industry facilities for vehicle design and testing are the strongest links" in this chain.
During the two-hour hearing, Miller put on a long presentation which left little time for questioning. Learning of the no- nonsense treatment accorded General Motors, he prepared a three-page addendum outlining ten areas of increased activity by Ford in fulfilling "our responsibilities in the safety field." Ribicoff was intrigued by the way the automobile companies suddenly began pledging more attention to safety because of a brief public exposure at a Congressional hearing. But the pledges were vague, unenforceable, and designed to fend off any move for regulation. Safety remained solidly in the corporate embrace of the "trade-off."
Having helped focus Congressional attention on vehicle safety, the question now is how far the Ribicoff subcommittee will go to get at the roots of the problem and propose genuine solutions to it. An idea of the difficulties that any such effort will be likely to encounter can be imagined from knowing the continuing struggle to establish the first public tire safety standards in this country. In 1959 The Wall Street Journal published a front-page article entitled "Tire Troubles," which told of the tire industry's concern about the hazards of over-loaded original-equipment tires and the inadequate recommended air pressures for the growing weight of the new cars. The article quoted an Akron tire engineer as saying, "Tire overloading has been a problem for the thirty years I've been in the business, but it started to become acute in the 1950's." The tire industry, it continued, had been trying to get the motor companies to buy larger tires to avoid this overloading. The Wall Street Journal described why it was bad to overload tires. "The constant Hexing builds up terrific heat in the tire for the new cars. And heat is the worst enemy of a tire. It weakens the fabrics embedded in the rubber and saps the strength of the adhesive which holds together the various layers of fabric and rubber of which a tire is made." This leads to shorter tire life and blowouts long before the tread wears down.
Two years later, Karl Richards of the Automobile Manufacturers Association told the Roberts subcommittee that "tire problems today are mainly concerned with improper use, maintenance, and replacement." Again it was the motorist's responsibility. Again there was no problem with the tires as they were received on the original vehicle.
About this time, New York State Senator Edward Speno began to receive letters from around his state complaining in some detail of new tires on new cars that mysteriously blew out after a few hundred or few thousand miles. The more Speno looked into the matter the more he learned of the inability of the tire buyer to know what he is buying. There were no reliable purchasing guides or any law anywhere dealing with tire safety standards. Any quality of tire could be sold, even those advertised for $7.95 as "perfect for in-city driving." Speno's legislative committee visited Akron, Ohio, home of four of the big five tire companies, on September 23 and 240 1963. At a dinner given in the committee's honor by tire company leaders, Speno proposed the establishment of minimum safety performance standards for new automobile tires. Stunned silence greeted the end of his speech. One dinner guest spilled both his coffee and his after-dinner liqueur onto the man seated on his left. Speno had not only said something no one had ever said before, but it sounded as if he meant it.
The tire industry decided to cooperate with Speno in order to have a voice in negotiating the contents of the tire bill that was to be drafted. After several meetings with Speno and his technical consultants, tire company representatives, headed by those from Goodyear, prevailed upon Speno to limit the bill to standards for blow-out resistance and overloading. The sections on skidding and cornering standards were dropped. Late in 1963, the automobile industry told the tire companies crisply that there was to be complete and total opposition to any tire legislation. There followed what veteran observers at Albany called some of the most intensive and improper lobbying ever seen on those legislative battlegrounds.
Speno told the American Trial Lawyers Association in August 1964 how the tire industry began applying pressure. "In January," he said, "I received at my home a call from Akron from the president of one of the big companies, a very friendly call. It had to do with finances for my next election campaign and national public relations expenses. 'You're not serious about this legislation, Senator: he said. I'm not categorizing the nature of the phone call. I'm just telling you it happened."
Another meeting was held between Speno and leading tire company representatives in Albany on February 19, 1964. Speno agreed to numerous modifications requested by the companies, including deletion of the overloading section which the automobile industry so violently opposed. They then surprised him by saying they would support the bill at the March 4th hearings. At that hearing, Speno was surprised again. The Rubber Manufacturers Association, the Goodyear representative, the Automobile Manufacturers Association, and automobile company spokesman all stood up and totally opposed the bill. The Senate passed it, but the lobbying paid off in the Assembly where the bill was never brought to a floor vote.
On July 1, 1964, the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) announced voluntary agreement among the tire companies to adhere to minimum tire standards promulgated by the RMA. The objective of this move was to take the steam out of any further legislative drives. The RMA standards were so obviously incomplete, weak, and unenforceable that both tire and automobile industries turned to another of their controlled agencies, the Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission (VESC) to write slightly more stringent standards that would have an official facade.
In September, the managing director of the Automobile Manufacturers Association, Harry Williams, recommended to the Speno committee in a letter and press release that it refer its tire legislation and all other automotive safety bills to the VESC which, Williams implied, was far more qualified to deal with such technical problems. The notorious background, purpose, and structure of the VESC as a tool of the automotive industry and as a palpable undermining of state legislative initiative is fully documented by the minutes of its meetings and its performance to date. Speno, who initially approved the bill making New York state the first to adhere to the compact creating the Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission in 1962, is so repulsed by its subversive effect on the integrity of the governmental process that he is considering a move to have the state withdraw from the compact.
Interest in tire hazards began in Washington after Senator Gaylord Nelson med a bill in the Senate to establish tire safety standards. Complaints from motorists, automobile clubs, and tire dealers poured into Nelsons office. They applauded his statement of the need to assure motorists that the tires they are buying are safe. One California tire dealer wired: "You are right -- many motorists are riding on a time bomb." The insidious aspect of this problem is that when the "bomb" explodes it is the driver who takes the responsibility.
Similar complaints were coming into the Federal Trade Commission, which finally decided to hold hearings in January 1965 on tire safety, size, grade, and quality. These hearings brought forth testimony from specialists in industry and government that visibly shocked some of the FTC commissioners. FTC chairman Paul Rand Dixon told the Senate Commerce Committee (which began its hearings in May) what the record had produced: "Our hearing contains substantial testimony as to the inadequacy of these Rubber Manufacturers Association standards.... The specific safety problems which were developed at greatest length during Our hearing relate principally to the matters of tire size and the so-called practice of overloading, which are interrelated. Overload is the situation which exists when the curb weight of a vehicle plus the designed load capacity in terms of passengers and luggage exceeds the load carrying capacity of the tires with which the vehicle is equipped. The matter of tire size is directly related to the overload problem in that, all other things being equal, the size of the air chamber and the amount of inflation pressure therein determines the amount of load the tire can bear.
"Our record contains a number of statements to the effect that many original equipment tires mounted on new cars are inadequate to safely carry the passenger and baggage load the vehicle is designed to carry. One tire manufacturer stated that 'over the years, vehicle manufacturers, in an attempt to cut costs, have cut down the amount of tire they are designing on to their vehicles, and that some vehicles are overloaded when they are empty of passengers or baggage.'"
Repeatedly the problem of overload was traced back to the automobile manufacturers, who chose not to present themselves before the Federal Trade Commission. After it became obvious to the commissioners that cost-cutting and the car makers' obsession with the soft ride were the key reasons for the motorist getting an undersized tire, Commissioner Philip Elman wondered aloud whether the absence of the automobile companies hadn't turned the hearing into a performance comparable to Hamlet without the Danish prince.
A Goodrich executive explained how the automobile industry chooses tires for new cars. "For example, with a six passenger sedan, the weight of three passengers is added to the curb weight of the vehicle to determine the load that is to be used to select the tires." All the major tire companies and the Rubber Manufacturers Association refused to be drawn into any criticism of the automobile industry -- their biggest customer -- though some of the assistants to the spokesmen in the room were heard quietly cursing the automobile makers for forcing them into this predicament of trying to defend the indefensible.
Chairman Dixon later told the Senate Commerce Committee that the replacement tire market provided a great deal of consumer confusion and deception. "We believe confusion and deception are the results inherent in the existing situation where the approximately 950 different tire names currently marketed represent the products of approximately 120 private label marketers and 14 tire manufacturers; where tires may be designated as to quality, i.e., 'premium,' 'first line,' 'second line,' etc., regardless of the lire's inherent quality or safety; where the price of the tire has no discernible relation to its quality or safety level; and where many of the descriptive terms employed, such as 'ply rating,' '100 level,' and other grade designations, have no real meaning or definitive value in the absence of uniform standards. Testimony adduced at the hearing reflects that one manufacturer's 'first line' tire may be inferior to another manufacturer's 'third line' tire; and a manufacturer may supply a tire represented by him as a 'third line' tire to a private label marketer who is free to designate it as his 'premium' tire."
The commissioners listened incredulously as they heard John Floberg, secretary and general counsel of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, offer this steely assurance at the end of the hearings: "I submit that the best standard, the time- tested and proved standard and the appropriate free enterprise standard of quality should be the one that has in the case of tires, as in the case of other consumer products, worked most satisfactorily; namely, the discriminating and sophisticated taste of the American consumer." A leading National Bureau of Standards tire expert has said that he could not compare tires reliably for his own private purchase from the information available on the marketplace. Yet Mr. Floberg would impute such discernment to the average consumer.
There was only one candid statement submitted by a tire manufacturer. This came from Harry McCreary, Jr., chairman of the McCreary Tire and Rubber Company, longtime producers of replacement tires. McCreary argued for the need to inform the car driver, by a visible decal, of the net number of pounds of people and/or baggage which can be put into the vehicle before any tire becomes overloaded. "Then," he said, "if the driver insisted on piling in more people and/or baggage, he would at least know that he was skirting the danger area. As things stand now, the average driver simply doesn't give any thought to the matter-because no one has ever told him that he was placing himself, his passengers and every oncoming driver in a potentially dangerous situation."
McCreary told of the hold which the automobile makers have on the tire companies by virtue of their great purchasing power. "When Detroit snaps its fingers, Akron jumps through the hoop -- backwards, if necessary.... [The1decision as to what kind of a tire will go on those new cars is made in Detroit."