Exposing a Crime.U.S. Auto Industries Deception of America
Going back to the 1920's, the U.S. automakers began to break
away from Henry Ford's philosophy of sticking with the same
model, in the same color, at the same price. Instead,
manufactures like General Motors changed models every year, to
give the impression that there was something unique that the
American Consumer needed to buy. But changing models constantly
required large investments of capital for design and retooling.
Detroit was planting the seeds of its own destruction if it
didn't keep up with trends amongst the buying public.
A high demand for cheap attractive models would lead to one of
the biggest muckraker stories in the mid 60's.
In 1965 Ralph Nader published "Unsafe at Any Speed: The
designed-In-Dangers of the American Automobile." He exposed how
General Motors and the American auto industry were placing
consumers' lives at risk by failing to design safe cars. Nader
especially singled out the General motors' Corvair which he
labeled a death trap.
By the late 1950's, the Big Three automakers were losing out to
a public that was demanding smaller, less expensive cars, and
was also increasingly attracted to imports, especially the
Volkswagen Beetle. Imports, in fact accounted for 10 percent of
all sales in the U.S., exceeding 600,000 a year in 1958. So in
1959 it came as no surprise when the Big Three introduced three
smaller models to compete against the imports: the Ford Falcon,
Chevrolet Corvaire, and the Plymouth Valiant. These cars, which
were cheap to make, and appealing to the consumer would turn out
to be unsafe and poorly constructed.
Nader, being a consumer, himself was outraged that the U.S. auto industry could
get away with murder. So he published his book "Unsafe at Any
Speed" to expose the automakers. Millions of people read his
book.
For its part, GM was shocked that this young, unknown attorney
would attack one of the pillars of American business. General
Motors trying to hide from the problem was finally caught, and
James Roche, president of GM, was forced to apologize before the
Senate Subcommittee on Traffic Safety. Also, thanks to Nader,
the Consumer Product Safety Act was passed along with the
Freedom of Information Act. This forced the U.S auto industry to
redesign and overhaul their automobiles.
America owes more than it may ever realize to Nader and his
research. If not for him Automobile industries could still be
building unsafe cars. The time and efforts put into "Unsafe at
Any Speed" has paid off for American consumers and also for the
US auto industry.
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