The PINTO spinoff Re: 17-year-old dies in fiery Petawawa crash

[tango22a]

OldSoldier:

For years a certain family-owned car company built thousands of a vehicles KNOWN to catch fire if rear-ended! I have been told that it was a KNOWN engineering defect that would cost less than $5.00 per car to fix. The company decided to ignore the problem to save a few dollars per car in profits. This misguided idea cost the company millions in lawsuits.

I personally saw a young girl burn to death in one of these cars.

tango22a

 

[mariomike]

For years a certain family-owned car company built thousands of a vehicles KNOWN to catch fire if rear-ended! I have been told that it was a KNOWN engineering defect that would cost less than $5.00 per car to fix. The company decided to ignore the problem to save a few dollars per car in profits. This misguided idea cost the company millions in lawsuits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Safety_problems_and_scandal

 

[tango22a]

Thanks for the back-up MM!

tango22a

 

[mariomike]

Thanks for the back-up MM!
tango22a

I guess wrecks are the price we pay for not having to get around on the backs of animals anymore. But, what a terrible price we pay.

 

[the 48th regulator]

OldSoldier:

For years a certain family-owned car company built thousands of a vehicles KNOWN to catch fire if rear-ended! I have been told that it was a KNOWN engineering defect that would cost less than $5.00 per car to fix. The company decided to ignore the problem to save a few dollars per car in profits. This misguided idea cost the company millions in lawsuits.

I personally saw a young girl burn to death in one of these cars.

tango22a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Safety_problems_and_scandal

However, a 1991 law review paper by Gary Schwartz[12] argued that the case against the Pinto was less clear-cut than commonly supposed. The number who died in Pinto rear-impact fires, according to Schwartz, was well below the hundreds cited in contemporary news reports and closer to the twenty-seven recorded by a limited National Highway Traffic Safety Administration database. Given the Pinto's production figures (over 2 million built), this was not substantially worse than typical for the time. Schwartz argued that the car was no more fire-prone than other cars of the time, that its fatality rates were lower than comparably sized imported automobiles, and that the supposed "smoking gun" document that plaintiffs claimed showed Ford's callousness in designing the Pinto was actually a document based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations about the value of a human life rather than a document containing an assessment of Ford's potential tort liability.

The NHTSA put pressure on Ford to recall the Pinto. The NHTSA was largely motivated by public outcry and pressure from groups such as the Center for Auto Safety. Initially the NHTSA did not feel there was sufficient evidence to demand a recall due to incidences of fire. The 27 deaths attributed to Pinto fires is the same number of deaths attributed to a transmission problem in the Pinto. That same transmission problem resulted in 180 total death in Ford vehicles. In 1974 the NHTSA ruled that the Pinto had no "recallable" problem. (All the information in this paragraph is from a single reference [13])

 

[tango22a]

Tess:

I'm not a lawyer (Thank You Lord) but I did see a nine year old girl die on the curb after the Pinto station wagon she was in was rear-ended. The impact threw the contents of the gas tank into the interior of the vehicle. The victim was able to get out of the vehicle on fire, as were some of the occupants, She was dead on arrival at the hospital and others in the car were also burned.

tango22a



What some dimwits don't realise ( or absolutely refuse to admit to themselves) is that it only takes ONE
mistake to ruin your life or that of others. Denial doesn't always work!

t22a

 

[the 48th regulator]

Tess:

I'm not a lawyer (Thank You Lord) but I did see a nine year old girl die on the curb after the Pinto station wagon she was in was rear-ended. The impact threw the contents of the gas tank into the interior of the vehicle. The victim was able to get out of the vehicle on fire, as were some of the occupants, She was dead on arrival at the hospital and others in the car were also burned.

tango22a



What some dimwits don't realise ( or absolutely refuse to admit to themselves) is that it only takes ONE
mistake to ruin your life or that of others. Denial doesn't always work!

t22a

Tango,

As empathetic as I am for your story, it does not refute the concept that the media had a play in making the "Pinto" the demon of the Ford empire.

We all preach about how the MSM is a major "false" messenger of the military, imagine what it does to others....

As the statistics proved, the pinto was no more dangerous than any other vehicle of that era.

This poor girl died in a vehicle, in the same manner, 30 years after the fact, and she was not in a Pinto....So it proves that even with todays technology, the same style of horror can happen.

dileas

tess

 

[tango22a]

Tess and mariomike:

PM Inbound!

tango22a

 

[old medic]

No more Pinto talk in this thread please.