This is the president of the Corvair Society of america. [applause] and on your other side, the executive secretary. [applause] you may sit down. You do not have to stand the whole night. We are pleased to have you. We have never had this kind of news media coverage. We are trying to figure how to get coverage and you solved our problem for us. [laughter] a little background. We had members in wisconsin go to a presentation that ralph nader gave and a couple of members talk to him and said that the convention was going to be in your backyard next year would you be interested in coming . We cant officially invite you but i am sure that you can come and we can get you in contact with them. Ralph nader graciously said, i would be pleased to, and we have been working on this for the past few months and we finally got our ask acts together and it was determined this would be the time. Ralph is here to give a talk on safety and he will talk for about a half hour in we will open up to questions. So row, step up. So ralph step up. [applause] we are trying to steal the show from you. We would like to present you with a 21st anniversary tshirt from our convention. [laughter] [applause] mr. Bourgondien you missed the comment. The comment was you would not dare where this wear this. [laughter] mr. Bourgondien we know that you do not have a corvair, but we have a dollar off, this is a nader buck, and you can use this to purchase any corvair parts you would like. [laughter] [applause] mr. Bourgondien over the years we have had a lot of fun with ralph nader and the corvair, a lot of humor and you are seeing it here. I am very pleased to welcome ralph nader. [applause] ralph nader thank you very much. Thank you also for the invitation. Right off, i want to trade this for a stabilizer bar. [laughter] ralph nader and we will set this up just right. [laughter] ralph nader this is the original, by the way. There it is. I know. Got to set it just right so it does not go out of control. [laughter] [booing] ralph nader now, it is nice to be in a group of hearty corvair survivors. I notice many cars were not retrofitted with seatbelts, but a corvair in retirement is a good car. [laughter] ralph nader one thing i want to point out at the outset is i understand the value of corvairs has gone up and will continue to go up, particularly some models. And as value goes up we should remember the contributions of the corvair and the many directions, some very bad and some not so bad. I want to start by talking briefly about the choice of the corvair and my book on safety, unsafe at any speed, this is the original. It was 5. 95. How quaint. [laughter] ralph nader this was be 1972 update dealing with the progress under the law. This is the one that just came out for the 25th anniversary. A lot of times this book is described as a book that exposed the corvair, the entire book on the corvair, but it was not entirely on it, this was just on the first in the first chapter. I have been asked, why did i choose the corvair to focus on. It was not because i wanted to vent and i anticipated the Corvair Society of america. It was that it represented some very important things that i wanted to make. It was a newly designed car, as we all know. And it was viewed as an innovative car by those who worked on it. And in my judgment had the least reason not to be in the vanguard of safety, because it was a newly designed car, so that was an important point right there because i was quite concerned about the logical stagnation technological stagnation of the industry. Something that did not escape the notice of people in japan and germany who began to think that they had a Market Opportunity because detroit was emphasizing style over safety. And they were selling stylistic pornography over engineering integrity and that of course had a lot of problems for motorists fuel inefficiency, rest problems, lack of rust problems, and lack of durability and Car Companies began to move in on the market especially in quality control. So that was one point. The second was the design of the corvair, i found in adequate. It was in three areas, one was an area that could have prevented accidents, prevented injury and the toxicity. What i am referring to is the simple swing axle problem in terms of stability of the car. The second was the rear displacement inclination of the steering assembly. It was a uniquely designed point in terms of vulnerability, the steering column started about two inches from the leading service of the front tires for many of the models. And any front type collision would run back into the driver. And the third was the Exchange Design problems. Which propelled Carbon Monoxide you cannot see it, smell it, taste it, into the passenger compartment. It also had a lot more information about cars, the car safety or lack there of then other car models. It was very difficult in those days to get any information about how cars performed on the highway, you would read magazines, but they were otherwise inclined to favor the Auto Companies, got a lot of their designed and etc. From the companies and they do not like to give people bad news very often and when they did they gave it in euphemisms that were creative. So, at that time the media would never even talk about a car model in terms of the name. In the first tv reports on the corvair, the reporter said a mediumsized rear engine american car. He did not want to say corvair that was an advertising taboo then. This card was in car was in litigation and had the positions by officials depositions by officials and there was a lot of material on it about it. That is another reason why it was chosen. Another was there was a number of Police Reports that zeroed in on eyewitness accounts on what happened. And to top it off it was produced by gm and that was important because i didnt want anybody to say that this model was just a small manufacture in france that you cannot say that that is representative of the attitude or lack of engineering safety capabilities of the industry. Having said that, the case on the corvairs instability was not complete, it kept pouring out. In 1968, 19 six to nine, long after the corvair 1969, long after the corvair was fading out. Dealers thought it was pretty but thought it was a headache and a dm was preparing to substitute gm was prepared to substitute other models for it. Listen to a private letter that was sent to gm executive tom murphy by delorean long before he had his problems. [laughter] ralph nader he was, he was on his way to becoming a most peoples eyes, Vice President of General Motors and he wrote a letter to tom murphy, a very private letter. It was about 1971 or so. In the letter he said, the swing axle corvair was put into production by the way for those who do not know deloreans career, he was a fast coming executive and had a sales touch and was a real comerthe swing axle corvair was put into production despite pleading against it by the engineering Staff Experts on vehicle handling and suspension. The assistant head of suspension management said it was unsafe and they made models to demonstrate how the rear suspension would jack and the car would flip over. I was told that had to threaten to quit before the corporation would approve replacing the axle with a slightly more expensive safer design in 1965. All of this data was removed from files prior to litigation. If you must destroy a file because the contents are embarrassing, youre not acting responsibly. I do not think the last has been heard from corvair handling and expensive litigation. The same is true of the heater. Many people objected violently to a direct engine air heater without an intermediate safety shield. Because it is wellknown that all engine gaskets and exhaust systems or leak in time, so the car would eventually, inevitably become a Carbon Monoxide death trap. No telling how many people have been injured or killed by the deadly fumes. Causing a monoxide inhalation death. Of this would have been avoided with response ability and concern for the public. Certainly we were forewarned by engineers, once again we can expect expensive litigation so that the shield might have cost with the shield my cost, could have been avoided. Ralph nader when he got that letter, and the lorry and letter, the lorient delor eans name was crossed out. This could have been a breakthrough and they would not have had the problems they had later, which they seemed to have. What was interesting is that in researching the corvair, i went down to the Patent Office and i discover this patent by the most famous suspension engineer in the history of General Motors murrays mauurice olly. It was issued in 1959. He said, this is what he said of the suspension, he did not say corvair type suspension, but in the patent, the ordinary spring axle under ordinary forces lifts the rear end of the vehicle, so that both wheels assume suspension to an extent that the vehicle not only over stairs but steers, but tends to roll over. Thus presenting potentially dangerous characteristics. So as somebody said, the corvair presents a challenge to driving expertise so i am convinced from that deduction that in this room are some of the best drivers in america. [laughter] [applause] ralph nader now, i have had so many corvair owners come up to me and say, if you drive capably and if you have the tire differential pressures proper between rear and front and if you make sure that you look at the road you are driving on [laughter] ralph nader and if you dont drive too fast, you will be ok. Well, as you know, this was sold to the average driver and this is now viewed as a sports car but here is what you contribute. By the way, one good thing about the corvair. [laughter] ralph nader the one good thing. That is, did you notice the controversy over the fuel tank replacement over the years, so many cars were built with the fuel tank in a vulnerable position to reread rear end impact. The pinto is the worst. It was not forward to the rear axle. But the corvair fuel tank is in a safety zone protected by the adjacent axle, this is used as an example in the pinto fuel tank litigation. Here is how you could do it and they had a patent on that field tank. However, as everything often occurs with the corvair, although the field tank was ok this is what internal gm report pg 11 to five 1125 said gasoline spillage was extensive. Anyway, 1965 book comes out. In 1966, the Senate Hearings get underway and then the question is what did gm do about the corvair design and did it know there were problems before the car came out about the Suspension System. How long did they know that the Suspension System which was put in 1965 to greatly improve the stability . This was interesting in the sense that congress have to have things that are specific. He cannot just go to congress and say, auto safety is needed and they will say give examples. We gave the example of pontiac pintos, which would catch on Railroad Crossings and the driver kept moving. [laughter] ralph nader that was a notorious case. We had these cases before the senate committee, later before the house committee. My view, this giant industry was brought under regulation in six months, that is almost a record. Today you cannot even regulate the industry properly in years, even though we are having to pay half 1 trillion. The first hearing was in march 1966 and president johnson signed the Highway Safety laws he signed them into law in september of the same year. So there was tremendous speed in congress to get this done and one of the reasons was General Motors inadvertently helped all the way, they made almost every mistake, every attempt to cover up, that could be made. When they were asked, do you recall cars, they responded no, they send notices to dealers and says if someone comes back with the car, fix it, but do not tell them. When it turned out that thousands and thousands of cars were involved in these secret recalls, the senators were pretty outraged and looking to see if their cars had been recalled. [laughter] ralph nader the process moved quite quickly. Now the two laws that would have been a regularly enforced eu regularly enforced president have different views. Under nexen and reagan there was not much activity. But about 200,000 lives can be a true but it to having been saved by the Motor Vehicle laws, in this country alone. Quite apart from the impact on canada, western europe and japan to get those cars up to snuff and recall more of them. And there is a lot more research and development done, there are more scientists working in the industry on safety, more technical conferences. And third, there were over 100 million cars recalled. That is since 1967. Probably closer to a hundred and 60 million 160 million cars including rollsroyce and mercedes. If it was given half a chance, the laws would have brought up our Automotive Technology in terms of fuel efficiency, bumper protection against damage and a lowspeed collisions keeping insurance rates down and the allimportant accident prevention. We would now have doubled the number of lives saved, saving 400,000 american lives. He consider 360,000 americans lost their lives in world war ii, the biggest war in our history apart from the civil war, you can see the magnitude of the saving. Ethical ed cole wrote a letter to the department of trepidation as the head of gm and he said that he would buy air drag airbags in all cars and trucks by the 1955 model year. Unfortunately, he was born two years too early, because he was required to retire early. The policy was reversed and the rest of the industry followed suit. I recall one of you earlier one of the earlier meetings something came out of the meeting and the airbag was called asinine. I remember that. I only remember that. [laughter] ralph nader the airbag can be viewed two ways, ideologically. It can be viewed as Ronald Reagan viewed it as he opposed it, as an instant interference with your freedom to go through the windshield. [laughter] ralph nader or it can be viewed as an instant preservation of your freedom to stay alive. You can imagine a website i came down on. Which side i came down appeared by the airbag took 20 years before it reached the irreversible installation, and now it is on its way to standard installation. There are designed for smaller airbags on side collisions and rear seat airbags on the drawing boards. You almost think of the pinocchio, what he can do with this little model in terms of throwing his voice. The possibility of an airbag in terms of acceleration, where it can be put, it is just marvelous. Now let me ask you a question . Does anybody know who invented the airbag or who invented a portion of the airbag . You know come a we all know who invented the light bulb and a telephone and some of us know who invented the xerox eight process xerox process, the cotton gin. We do not know who invents these lifesaving devices and they deserve recognition, we just talk in terms of Auto Companies, not in terms of conventions inventions. Almost no pens patents tribute to overseas inventions. It was invented by about three inventors in the 1950s, although the first idea came in the early 1940s. But now that lee iacocca has become a convert and we are going to give him an award for redemption, he was an arch enemy of the airbags. He was in nixons office when he turned him around on the airbag. Nixon ordered a great enthusiast for airbags to put in an interlock system, a great boomerang as everybody knew it would be. Iacocca was an adversary of the airbag until 1988 or 1989. I picked up the paper and there was a fullpage ad that said coming cannot teach an old dog new tricks, and there was iacocca saying that the airbag was fine. He became the leading protagonist for the airbag and he is quite touched by it. He get letters from people who say they would not be alive without the airbag. Some survivors are in the television ad. And while there is another reason for his promotion for the airbag, because what else does chrysler have . [laughter] [applause] ralph nader one has to credit him with a susceptibility to humanitarian impulses, there is no doubt about it. Now, they are all following him even gm announced it would cut airbags and Standard Equipment on all 1994 model year cars. Just think, this is 20 years after the president of gm said it that airbags would be on all cars, trucks and vans. We can only sadly contemplate the number of individuals who lost their daughters and sons, mothers and fathers because ed cole wasnt born two years later and forced to retire. One of the great accidents of history and it tells us how often these giant Auto Companies can be turned around by just the person at the top. Just a person at the time going one way or the other, the idea that these are dominated bureaucracies is true, but not that true if the person at the top with a sense of response but he cannot make the decisive difference. If anybody wondered why allstate was a supporter of airbags, for years, even to the discomfort of sears and the outrage of the Auto Companies who felt they were being pushed too fast, was because of two men the ceo and Vice President. When they left allstate became like any other cash cow, not focusing on loss prevention. The Unfinished Business of course, the Unfinished Business that is right on the front burner in auto Engineering Design safety the highway, we need to pay more attention to highway design. The second is to get the bumper back to 78 Miles Per Hour. That was one of the great parts of the Reagan Administration bringing the bumper standard to a protective level of 2. 5 and they did. And they did not even want to have a car protect against the sender at walking speed collision, that was too much strain on gm resources. Keep thinking of gms mark of excellence when i recall that little maneuver at the white house. That is about 2 billion per year in higher collision repair costs, just that degrad