Last night on Twitter I found out the Ralph Nader was and is a huge advocate for car manufactors to make cars safer rather then focus on comfort. He's been doing this for a long, long time.
Who knew Ralph was kind of sexy that way?
According to Wikipedia:
Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile by Ralph Nader, published in 1965, is a book accusing car manufacturers of resistance to the introduction of safety features, like seat belts, and their general reluctance to spend money on improving safety. It was a pioneering work, openly polemical but containing substantial references and material from industry insiders. It made Nader a household name.
Though some of the book, I believe, could have used more emphasis on driver responsibility I have to remember this was written in 1965, a long time ago. Here is this smart guy saying, hey you all need to own up now and focus on safety versus comfort.
Here is a bit from his book, right on Ralph.
From Ralph Nader’s Preface to Unsafe at Any Speed:
For over half a century the automobile has brought death, injury, and the most inestimable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people. With Medea-like intensity, this mass trauma began rising sharply four years ago, reflecting new and unexpected ravages by the motor vehicle. A 1959 Department of Commerce report projected that 51,000 persons would be killed by automobiles in 1975. That figure will probably be reached in 1965, a decade ahead of schedule.
A transportation specialist, Wilfred Owen, wrote in 1946, "There is little question that the public will not tolerate for long an annual traffic toll of forty to fifty thousand fatalities." Time has shown Owen to be wrong. Unlike aviation, marine, or rail transportation, the highway transport system can inflict tremendous casualties and property damage without in the least affecting the viability of the system. Plane crashes, for example, jeopardize the attraction of flying for potential passengers and therefore strike at the heart of the air transport economy. They motivate preventative efforts. The situation is different on the roads.