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Risks/Costs > Sales: 11 Million cars, 1.5 Million light trucks > Unit cost: $11 per vehicle > Total cost: (12.5*$11) = $137.5M > For more than eight years afterwards, Ford successfully lobbied against a key government safety standard that would have forced the company to change the Pintos re prone gas tank It was concluded by Mother Jones from Pinto accident reports and crash test studies that

2.4 CASE STUDIES

2.4.1 FORD PINTO CASE STUDY

Ford believed that it was therefore not reasonably practicable to x the problem during manufacture. It preferred to retain the risk and make payments as required. There were no Standards for withstanding rearend collisions at a specied speed until after 1977.

STUDENT NOTES

Overview

The scenario used is a classic case that has been inuential in automotive safety. It contains many of the challenges of engineering design which are still relevant today and which must be addressed if Safe Design is to become a fundamental part of engineering.

In the 1960s there was strong competition in the American small car market. To be competitive in this market, Ford needed to have a product that had the size and weight of a small car, had a low cost of ownership and clear product superiority. The Ford Pinto went on to become one of the 1970s best selling cars.

This discussion oriented activity is designed to explore an Engineers professional responsibilities, ethical frameworks when dealing with issues related to safety and approaches to making decisions about public safety. It recognises that decision-making in engineering can involve ambiguity and differences in opinion.

if you ran into that Pinto you were following at over 30 miles per hour, the rear end of the car would buckle like an accordion, right up to the back seat. The tube leading to the gas-tank cap would be ripped away from the tank itself, and gas would immediately begin sloshing onto the road around the car. The buckled gas tank would be jammed up against the differential housing (that big bulge in the middle of your rear axle), which contains four sharp, protruding bolts likely to gash holes in the tank and spill still more gas. Now all you need is a spark from a cigarette, ignition, or scraping metal, and both cars would be engulfed in ames. If you gave that Pinto a really good whacksay, at 40 mphchances are excellent that its doors would jam and you would have to stand by and watch its trapped passengers burn to death An accepted approach by federal Automotive Safety regulators at that time for decision-making was risk/ cost-benet analysis. Ford applied this method to decide how to treat the fuel tank explosion risk. An internal Ford memo calculated;

The Department of Transportation announced in May 1978 that the Pinto fuel system had a safety related defect. Ford recalled 1.5 million Pintos. The modications included a longer fuel ller neck and a better clamp to keep it securely in the fuel tank, a better gas cap in some models, and placement of a plastic shield between the front of the fuel tank and the differential to protect the tank from the nuts and bolts on the differential and another along the right corner of the tank to protect it from the right rear shock absorber.

Intended learning outcomes

> Awareness of legal and moral professional responsibilities of engineers in relation to safety. Investigative journalism by Mother Jones established that; > Ford engineers discovered in pre-production crash tests that rear-end collisions would rupture the Pintos fuel system extremely easily > Because assembly-line machinery was already tooled when engineers found this defect, top Ford ofcials decided to manufacture the car anyway

The Ford Pinto was designed to meet these criteria. The strict design specications were that the car was to weigh less than 2000 pounds and cost less than $2000. Ford also decided on a short production schedule. Instead of the normal time from conception to production of 43 months for a new model, the Pinto was scheduled for 25 months. Under conditions of reduced product-time to market then tooling up for manufacture which involves making the machines that stamp, press and grind car parts into shape must be done whilst product development is underway rather than after product design. Ford wanted the car in the showrooms with the other 1971 models and tooling had a xed timeframe of about 18 months.

The consequences of Fords actions were signicant. Millions of dollars of civil lawsuits were led against Ford and awarded against the car maker. In 1979 Ford Motor Company was charged with reckless homicide but was acquitted in 1980. The Ford Pinto ceased production within months. The damage to the company has been incalculable and it is conservatively estimated there are over 500 burns deaths to people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into ames. The cost at the manufacturing stage to x the problem was $11 per vehicle and the benet would be no payouts resulting from the fuel tank explosion risk. Benets > 180 burn death, 180 serious injuries, 2100 burned vehicles > Unit cost: $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle > Total Benet (180* $200k) + (180* $67k) + (2100*$700)= $49.5M

> Awareness of Institute of Engineers, Australia Code of Ethics.

> Awareness of the use of cost-benet analysis for public safety decisions.

Lee Iacocca, who was the Head Engineer for the project has said The guys who built the Pinto had kids in college who were driving that car. Believe me, nobody sits down and thinks: Im deliberately going to make this car unsafe. Discussion Points 1. Is cost/benet analysis an appropriate approach for deciding public safety? 2. Should the engineering professions Code of Ethics impose a higher standard than that required by regulatory requirements?

Activity

Read the following scenario and be prepared to answer the discussion points.

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36 AUSTRALIAN SAFETY AND COMPENSATION COUNCIL

Intended learning outcomes

3. What would you consider when making a judgement about what was reasonably practicable for Ford to meet its duty of care responsibilities?

4. As a design engineer working on the Ford Pinto, what could you have done to demonstrate your duty of care responsibilities?

Activity
Read the following scenario and be prepared to answer the discussion points.

5. Designers of Extra-light vehicles face tremendous technical challenges in designing safety into those vehicles. How would you decide what appropriate safety measures are?

Scenario

6. When other costs have been cut as much as they can, one way to increase revenue is to get products to the market as quickly as possible. This will increasingly be a challenge to implement whilst ensuring there is a thorough and integrated approach to Safe Design. How can this challenge be met? Until the 1990s Mercedes-Benz had focused on the premium car market. They, like BMW, pioneered the use of safety features such as Air Bags, Electronic Braking Systems (EBS), and Electronic Stability Control (ESC). A long history of innovation in motor vehicle safety gave MercedesBenz a considerable reputation. Mercedes then decided to enter the small car market. The Mercedes A-Class was a microcar priced cheaper than a VW Golf.

Primary resources for information about this case

Mother Jones News Magazine, Pinto Madness by Mark Dowie, Sept/Oct, 1977. There is video at the site showing crash testing of the vehicle and other articles. Although the A-Class was a cheaper car, Mercedes did not intend to compromise on safety; The car had gone through rigid testing procedures for years (Ihlen, 2002). For example, the engine was installed at an angle such that in the event of a crash, the engine would go under the front passenger. The A-Class underwent extensive testing, including over 400,000 kilometres of testing by a thousand journalists.

Centre for Auto Safety, http://www.autosafety.org, search using term, Ford Pinto

Lee (1998) The Ford Pinto Case and the Development of Auto Safety Regulations, 18931978, Business and Economic History, v27(2). http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHprint/ v027n2/p0390-p0401.pdf

2.4.2 MERCEDES A-CLASS CASE STUDY

STUDENT NOTES

Overview

This activity includes a case study of how an automotive manufacturer dealt with a safety issue discovered immediately after the launch of their vehicle. It provides a contrast to the handling of a safety issue in some other vehicles. by other car makers. It explores some of the factors that can be considered when evaluating how safety should be handled during the design of products.

The A-Class was launched on October 18 1997 but on the October 21 1997 a passenger was injured when the A-Class being driven by a motoring journalist rolled over during an extreme driving manoeuvre known as the Moose Test (also known as the Elk Test). This test, unknown in Germany, is a Nordic test designed to simulated a car swerving at constant speeds (>60 km/h) onto the wrong side of the road and back again in order to avoid a moose. The test is conducted with the car fully loaded with luggage and 4 passengers. The journalist injured was one of a group who had gathered in Tannishus, Denmark to judge the Car of the Year award. The A-Class seemed the obvious choice: no other rival had pushed the design and technical envelope with such bravado
SAFE DESIGN FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS 37