Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile.

AuthorSmith, Fred L., Jr.

Ralph Nader's Unsafe At Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile, a blistering attack on the Chevrolet Corvair and the whole American auto industry, was the first assault of the consumerist movement. Published in 1965, this book had an immediate impact on the American political scene. General Motors was immediately placed in the spotlight, and within a year Congress enacted the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Spurred on by his victory, Nader redoubled his assaults against America's producers and innovators, pushing a spate of regulatory initiatives. Congress, in turn, passed the Wholesome Meat Act, the Comprehensive Occupational Health and Safety Act, the National Gas Pipeline Act, the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act, anymore. For the next three decades, American automobiles, as well as other consumer products, would increasingly be designed by politicians rather than corporate engineers.

The significance of Nader's book goes beyond its direct political ramifications. Nader's work profoundly changed the way risk and safety were viewed in the American polity. Regulators and consumer activists were immediately cast as noble crusaders who sought a safe, clean, healthy world--thwarted by those willing to place a price tag on a human life, to assign a dollar value to a clean environment. Health, safety, and environmental risks, Americans came to believe, could only be addressed by pervasive political controls. Laws mandating "safety" at any cost have accounted for much of the growth in government for the last three decades.

Aaron Wildavsky in Searching for Safety sought to reframe this debate--to reexamine the argument that...

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