Citation

Dardis R, Zent C. J. Consum. Aff. 1982; 16(2): 261-277.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1982, American Council on Consumer Interests, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1745-6606.1982.tb00175.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Ford Pinto automobile was first produced in 1970 as a 1971 model year vehicle. Though the vehicle complied with all existing safety standards, subsequent law suits charged that the Pinto was defective in design and that the Ford Motor Company had failed to use existing technology to provide a safer car. In 1976, the Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 301 was amended to include a rear impact safety standard; compliance affected all 1977 model year cars. There was, however, public pressure to modify the defective pre-1977 model year Pintos.

On August 11, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began an investigation of the claims. In May 1978, NHTSA determined that pre-1977 model year Ford Pintos were subject to "fuel tank damage, fuel leakage and fire occurrences which had resulted in fatalities and non-fatal burn injuries" when impacted at "moderate speeds," and that the "fire threshold" in those vehicles was reached at closing speeds of 30-35 MPH 1201. In June 1978, Ford agreed to a recall.

Cost-benefit analysis is applied to an evaluation of two strategies for reducing risk from pre-1977 model year Pintos. The first strategy is a design modification which might have been undertaken by Ford in 1970 when the Pinto was first produced. The second strategy is the recall which was undertaken by Ford in 1978. The analyses of the two strategies were based on the costs of strategy implementation and the benefits from the reduction in accidents involving pre-1977 model year Pintos. The results indicated that the recall strategy was more cost-ineffective than the design modification strategy. Consideration was also given to a third risk response strategy which included no corrective action.