Nader is a charlatan and a fraud. Sure safety is important, but Freedom is more important. Nader spread egregious lies and false data to promote his cause, to promote himself, make big money and gain political power. He was the granddaddy of the now common practice of using junk science to create his own "facts", and whipping the fake news media into a feeding frenzy. Safety should have been allowed to come from market demand. It had already started on its own, without government force. But it is slower to raise public awareness and wait for it to occur organically, and there is less opportunity for fascist leaning power brokers like Nader to make bank on it.
Agreed....
Nader was and is a complete fraud ---- he made the Corvair out to be a safety risk ---- while ignoring other vehicles of that era with similar swing axle rear suspensions like VW and Porsche 356. The testing criteria used against the Corvair was weighed toward showing the rear oversteer characteristics which was part of the base engineering of a rear engine vehicle. At that point in time of auto evolution, understeer was the dominant handling feature in most vehicles --- oversteer with the rear swinging out can be throttle controlled and can be a benefit if the driver is aware and skilled enough to use throttle application to control roll.
The Edsel was a landmark car that featured numerous safety features that the public did not want and did not want to pay for.
However, all of the Big Three at that time had very rigorous safety feature development programs and all of that research and development was planned to be included in all models and become mainstream in the 1960s - regardless of Nader.
