If you never read the book "Unsafe At Any Speed" then back in the day (and probably still) you were coached by the auto industry to hate Ralph Nader and his book. The basics of the book was the fact that tens of thousands of people died in automobile accidents yearly and not one bit of regulation was being enacted to make the BIG auto industry to at least do something to protect occupants and drivers......and pedestrians too. The argument was that a plane crashes or a train derails or a ferry ship sinks or a public bus crashes and lives are lost and there is a total government investigation and new rules and regulation are enacted for the much smaller (still tragic) loss of human life. Why not the same concern for the hundreds of lives lost every week in automobile accidents. The arguments were that "hey it's my life and if I don't want to wear a seat belt nobody is going to make me". Well that wasn't the argument, the fact was the cars were unsafe at even the lowest speed for the "Second Impact" and for what the vehicle hit like the person that just picked up the kids from school or driving home from work in on coming traffic. No padded dashes, no collapsible steering columns, glove box doors that took your knee caps out, control knobs that punctured you sticking out, chrome everything dashes and shift levers that glare/reflection sometimes could keep you from seeing a pedestrian, Outside door handles that in a rollover would push the door button in, open the door on the first roll and sling the driver or passenger out or worse only HALF WAY OUT.....and why not NO SEAT BELTS. This roll over accident was one of the reasons for automatic door locks at 15-20 mph BTW. No hood secondary safety latch (as seen with the '59 Chevy in the video). No seat back latch, no non-snagging inside door handles or plastic break-away window crank knobs,,,,yep plastic on the '68+ cars and not because they wanted to make them cheaper. Non-glare dashes, ash trays that closed if your body/knee hit them. Low glare shift lever and turn signal stalks on the steering column along with a low glare horn ring and speedometer bezel. Padded dashes with rocker type switches and padded lower dash. In the book Chrysler stepped up as the LEADING auto manufacture to address all of the safety concerns and reading the book made me proud. Chrysler to address concerns with the major glare from the hood that was a complaint when a simulation of a child (manikin) stepping out from a sidewalk wasn't seen actually proposed a flat or non-glare hood surface like the dashboards became. It was hard to argue that cars were designed for styling and almost nothing else up to that point but the auto industry, except Chrysler and Ford were not going to change and GM was doing everything to stop it...............that's why it was easy to pick the Chevy Corvair as a good or is that bad example of a vehicle "Unsafe At Any Speed"........the rear suspension until GM put a travel limiter on them was shown to be able to roll at a very low speed as witnessed by a police officer coming the other direction. The Corvair, driven by an older woman, dropped the passenger's side wheels off a 6" edge drop of the road she was traveling on. When she tried to get the car back on the road the car dramatically turned into on coming traffic and rolled. The car's door opened on the roll and her arm flung out and door closed and amputated her arm. All witness by the LEO and documented. So after presenting all of the safety concerns,,,,oh forgot the dual master cylinder brake systems and setting brake standards, side marker lights and reflectors, windshield and all glass safety standards along with three point interior mirror break-away......the 1966 Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and followed along by the Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS) and then the rest of the world came on board (and now they try to claim it was their idea Ha) and IMO the world is a much safer place. Let the arguments begin and love Ralph or hate Ralph if you or a loved one have ever survived a vehicle accident or came away with way less injury you owe him at least a "whatever"

I have been on the wrong side of a number contentious issues in my life. Ralph Nader was one of them. I believe I have learned from my mistakes, and try to be extra careful to not repeat them.

B13 ... ole Nader was way WAY ahead of his time .....

He wasn’t referring to the Corvair... he was predicting the dangers of a particular 1969 1/2 Road Toad !

LOL here come all of the "I drive a car with a full frame for safety" guys. Maybe we'll hear the tall tale of the guy who says he was hit at 50mph and the car received barely a scratch.

So this is bailing out of the unmoderated section ?

Gooood decision..

Like so many things, government-mandated safety is a very good thing...in moderation.

And so is personal choice and freedom.

The rub comes when those two things start to bump into each other....

Sorry, but I do not believe in car "accidents". They are mostly always not an accident. It is usually some idiot not paying attention, driving like an idiot, or shouldn't be driving to begin with! I do blame auto manufacturers and lobbyists for pushing cars on the public and not enough training to be able to understand that driving a vehicle is, for 95% of the population, THE most dangerous thing they will do in their entire lives! Especially nowadays with all the "safety" features and the way new drivers are being taught how not to drive correctly are the biggest issues. Insurance should have never been made mandatory either, just learn how to drive and these things would go away on their own... TRULY A PET PEEVE OF MINE!

It is all part of the evolution of safety in automobiles, that's all there is to it. It still continues today.

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.

When safety features like seat belts and abs were optional, most people didn't buy them. That may have been mentioned in Naders book or another I read.

Point being that the people asses their own risks and make their own decisions.

Taken to the extreme, why should any manufacturer be allowed to sell a car that can exceed 70 mph? Speed kills, why not limit everything to 25mph?

OTOH, I do think that Nader was right to point things out, let the people be informed. But when the government gets involved, things get extreme. As the knowledge got out about the benefits of seat belts, abs etc people will start to buy them.

Speaking about people not knowing how to drive, just the other day we had a family discussion about driving with abs. I was surprised that nobody was happy with the abs in their vehicle after a recent ice storm. Otoh it's not the first time they have ignored the mechanic in the family.

They were all driving with the old school idea of pump the brakes. Not how you do it with abs, which is stab and steer for the most part.

I really don't have an opinion on Ralph, but I do think it is too easy to get a drivers license. Let's face it, plenty of people can't chew gum and walk at the same time. Plenty of people don't pay enough attention and more don't think ahead.

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.

[quote=ruderunner]When safety features like seat belts and abs were optional, most people didn't buy them. That may have been mentioned in Naders book or another I read.

Point being that the people asses their own risks and make their own decisions.

Taken to the extreme, why should any manufacturer be allowed to sell a car that can exceed 70 mph? Speed kills, why not limit everything to 25mph?"

Not going to agree with the 25 mph speed limit idea. Lots of things will cease to live after being hit at that speed with something of substantial mass.

Will agree that a LOT of people need a yearly refresher course on the basics of automobile operation.

Well, we now know who feels their freedom is irreparably damaged because they are required to wear a seat belt or a helmet on public roads

Guess since they are only putting "themselves" at risk with such behavior, don't look at me to financially support their surviving kids, or air transport their brain damaged body to a trauma center.

Exactly.

BTW I had a similar accident (to the Corvair described above) many years ago in a Pinto that turned out far better. Got my right side wheels off a tall paved lip at 50 mph on I-81. Tried to jerk it back on... instead, spun out, down an embankment and through the median, crossed the oncoming lanes, hit the gravel shoulder, spun BACK across the oncoming lanes, and finally came to rest in the median.

Fortunately it was noon in the middle of nowhere so I didn't collide with any other vehicles and wasn't hurt other than a few sore muscles. And I didn't blame Ford for my screwup either... but I sure learned a lesson about handling cars at highway speed

My all-time favorite vanity plate sighting was a beautifully restored red Corvair in N.Va.... it said, "F NADER"

I was going to respond, but the words in my signature prevailed.

There is wisdom there I admit, sometimes its best to not dig a deeper hole.

I can see a bit of both sides of the argument, and from experiences like an unbelted wreck as a passenger, and having owned a Corvair and a couple 911s.
Still have the scars from the wreck, and learned handling in SoCal's canyons in the Corvair & '73 911 without putting a mark on them.

What Nader did crate, besides an awareness of safety, was a high profile for himself, and primarily the culture of victimization.
He's the patron saint of an entire class of liability lawyers, and advanced the blaming game as a means to hide behind one's own incompetence.
Obviously one can be hurt or killed in a wreck, but the avoidance of same remains woefully under-addressed.
Witness the "jerk it back" experience posted previously. That never works, unless you want a catastrophe.
That's why I always recommend parents take their kids to a HPDE or race school to learn car control.

By the same token, though, many of the crash-mitigating and survival features are definitely a good thing, especially for innocent 2nd/3rd/etc parties.
And there's no defense for things like the Pinto fuel tank debacle or similar corporate decisions.
I'd say there's a sizable amount of evidence that mankind will put money before everything else, thereby becoming his own enemy.

His work on auto safety was no surprise to me but his revelations on meat safety shocked me.