[imbok]

Horrible, stupid, and tragic.

[Brynjar]

Originally Posted by akyan ↗

dumb people don't wear seat belts. I notice that alot outside USA, backseat people don't wear seatbelts.

When I got my license to drive at 16, the first thing I always did was fasten my seat belt. The second thing, locked the door on driver's side and make sure the passenger door is locked. That was in 1976. You never know when some fucking crazy jackal is going to start some shit while in backed up in traffic and try opening your door to get in. BTW, my car was a 1976 Red Ford Pinto Pony. Cost $5.00 to fill the tank with gas.

[SimoneFlen']

Originally Posted by Brynjar ↗

When I got my license to drive at 16, the first thing I always did was fasten my seat belt. The second thing, locked the door on driver's side and make sure the passenger door is locked. That was in 1976. You never know when some fucking crazy jackal is going to start some shit while in backed up in traffic and try opening your door to get in. BTW, my car was a 1976 Red Ford Pinto Pony. Cost $5.00 to fill the tank with gas.

It's so weird that some members are old enough to be my parent, haha!

Nice car!

[gimlet]

Originally Posted by Brynjar ↗

BTW, my car was a 1976 Red Ford Pinto Pony. Cost $5.00 to fill the tank with gas.

Deaths and Injuries Lead to Litigation

Before long, the Pinto’s defective design began causing serious injuries — and fatalities. An official total of 27 deaths was tied to the vehicle, though some estimates are far higher. Of course, even at the conservative end of the spectrum, 27 preventable fatalities caused by a car with a propensity to explode and burn is still 27 too many.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was critical of the vehicle and was quick to launch an investigation into the Pinto. While the NHTSA determined in 1974 that a recall was not merited, Ford ultimately issued its own recall in 1978. The recall affected approximately 1.5 million Pintos with model years from 1971 to 1976 (as well as the similar Mercury Bobcat, from 1975 to 1976).

While the recall finally took unsafe vehicles off the streets, by then it was already too late: the terrible damage had already been done. An accident in 1972 led to the case of Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company. In Grimshaw, a California appellate court upheld an order for $2.5 million in compensatory damages, plus an additional $3.5 million in punitive damages.

Part of the court’s reasoning was that Ford knew about the dangers, but pushed the Pinto onto an unwitting consumer market anyway. The Ford Company’s cold cost analysis revealed that debuting the hazardous Pinto as-is and simply paying for subsequent lawsuits would be cheaper than making expensive safety modifications. In other words, Ford decided that profits were all that mattered, and that irreplaceable human life ultimately carried a lower value than an inanimate heap of aluminum, plastic, and glass.

In the aftermath, Lee Iacocca had this to say: “Clamming up is what we did at Ford in the late ’70s when we were bombarded with suits over the Pinto, which was involved in a lot of gas tank fires. The suits might have bankrupted the company, so we kept our mouths shut for fear of saying anything that just one jury might have construed as an admission of guilt. Winning in court was our top priority; nothing else mattered.”