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1991 was 13 years after the recall during which Ford went out of its way to reinforce the fuel tank to mitigate further criticism. There was a legitimate and we

by bydo 5y ago

1991 was 13 years after the recall during which Ford went out of its way to reinforce the fuel tank to mitigate further criticism. There was a legitimate and well documented problem with the original design of the Pinto, and no article about how it's fun to race them now is going to change that. Here's an NHTSA report: https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/import/ODIPinto.pdf https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/import/ODIPint... "In nine staged collision tests of 1971-1976 Pinto 2-door sedans and 3-door runabouts impacted by 1971 Chevrolet Impalas at closing speeds of 30 and 35 miles per hour, two tests resulted in fires. In all of the remaining seven tests, fuel tank damage occurred with fuel leakage rates ranging from 6 to 700 ounces per minute, with an average rate in excess of 240 ounces per minute." Does having two out of nine low speed collisions result in fire seem normal? Does having nine out of nine low speed collisions result in significant enough damage to the fuel tank to cause gasoline leakage seem normal? I would certainly hope not. The original Pinto design was flawed and dangerous, unnecessarily killed people, and Ford was rightfully and successfully sued for releasing it. P.S. That Rutgers PDF in your citation is about the myth of the Ford Pinto legal case, which is that whole thing about how Ford allegedly calculated that it would cost less to settle on wrongful death lawsuits than to fix their cars, not about the safety of the Pinto. The link in the article is broken but you can find it here: http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pint...

smt88 5y ago
The contrived collision tests have become irrelevant because we have actual data of people driving the car. It's like you're saying that a lab test is more relevant than years of field testing with millions of miles traveled. > The original Pinto design was flawed and dangerous, unnecessarily killed people, and Ford was rightfully and successfully sued for releasing it. Again: it did not kill more people than the average car at the time. That was my original contention, that it was not more likely to explode than any other car. Could it have been safer if they had designed it more responsibly? Yes. Could those deaths have been avoided? Probably. And should Ford have been sued for that failure? Yes. But that doesn't change the raw fact that it did not explode more than the average car at the time. > That Rutgers PDF in your citation is about the myth of the Ford Pinto legal case The Rutgers studies provides data, which are you are still ignoring, that showed the Pinto was 1.9% of all vehicles on the road and accounted for 1.9% of all fatalities. If the lawsuit was suggesting that Ford was negligent for not getting that number even lower, then it's still a valid lawsuit. But I wasn't referring to whether Ford should've been sued, only that the "exploding Pinto" myth is a myth in real-world observational data.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  500 people died by being burned to death in a ford Pinto after an accident that otherwise would have survived. They oftentimes couldn't escape the vehicle due to crumple zones pinching the doors shut. Sure, the "exploding Pinto" is a myth, but only on a technicality. Those people experienced your real-world observational data first hand. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness/
- bydo 5y ago
  The "contrived collision tests" are actual, standardized, government monitored collision tests, with verifiable results. Your "actual data of people driving the car" is not from the period when these claims were made. Again, the vast majority of early model Pintos produced that had not already combusted had at that point already been recalled. The Rutgers report is about the lawsuit, not the safety of the automobile, as mentioned. It's also just an opinion piece. Though it does cite some data! Can you check the PDF? Upon its publication the Pinto accounted for 1.9% of vehicles on the road, 1.9% of vehicles involved in fatalities, and 4.1% of vehicles involved in fatalities involving rear impact. So maybe the Pinto was actually overall a pretty safe car! Except for exploding upon rear impact. Which is, you know, the defect in question.

by bydo 5y ago

smt88 5y ago

The contrived collision tests have become irrelevant because we have actual data of people driving the car. It's like you're saying that a lab test is more relevant than years of field testing with millions of miles traveled. > The original Pinto design was flawed and dangerous, unnecessarily killed people, and Ford was rightfully and successfully sued for releasing it. Again: it did not kill more people than the average car at the time. That was my original contention, that it was not more likely to explode than any other car. Could it have been safer if they had designed it more responsibly? Yes. Could those deaths have been avoided? Probably. And should Ford have been sued for that failure? Yes. But that doesn't change the raw fact that it did not explode more than the average car at the time. > That Rutgers PDF in your citation is about the myth of the Ford Pinto legal case The Rutgers studies provides data, which are you are still ignoring, that showed the Pinto was 1.9% of all vehicles on the road and accounted for 1.9% of all fatalities. If the lawsuit was suggesting that Ford was negligent for not getting that number even lower, then it's still a valid lawsuit. But I wasn't referring to whether Ford should've been sued, only that the "exploding Pinto" myth is a myth in real-world observational data.

BizarroLand 5y ago
500 people died by being burned to death in a ford Pinto after an accident that otherwise would have survived. They oftentimes couldn't escape the vehicle due to crumple zones pinching the doors shut. Sure, the "exploding Pinto" is a myth, but only on a technicality. Those people experienced your real-world observational data first hand. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness/
bydo 5y ago
The "contrived collision tests" are actual, standardized, government monitored collision tests, with verifiable results. Your "actual data of people driving the car" is not from the period when these claims were made. Again, the vast majority of early model Pintos produced that had not already combusted had at that point already been recalled. The Rutgers report is about the lawsuit, not the safety of the automobile, as mentioned. It's also just an opinion piece. Though it does cite some data! Can you check the PDF? Upon its publication the Pinto accounted for 1.9% of vehicles on the road, 1.9% of vehicles involved in fatalities, and 4.1% of vehicles involved in fatalities involving rear impact. So maybe the Pinto was actually overall a pretty safe car! Except for exploding upon rear impact. Which is, you know, the defect in question.