(4 of 6)
The Automobile Manufacturers Association has told its members since 1957 not to participate in races, but Ford and Chrysler have openly broken the ban, and General Motors does not prevent its dealers from slipping cars onto local drag strips. Racing spurs the sales of the winning car, especially in the Southern states where there's year-round weather for racing—and the auto fatality rate is the nation's highest. Says Chrysler Safety Director Roy Haeusler: "I find very little defense for our advertising the racing aspects of our cars." To back the contention that speed sells and safety does not, automakers cite the 1956 Ford, a heavily promoted "safety car" that was a dud. Of course, times change: back in 1956, people laughed at filter cigarettes too.
A Step Ahead of Washington
There is no denying that most of the public has been apathetic about using the surest, simplest protection against violent death: the seat belt. Robert Wolf, director of Cornell University's auto-crash injury research, says that if seat belts were used universally they would reduce traffic deaths by at least 35%—more than 17,000 lives a year. Only 30% of the nation's 90 million cars have seat belts, and only 36% of the drivers with belts use them all the time. Hundreds of irate motorists have complained to auto companies that the seat belts are uncomfortable to sit on, and frustrated drivers have used fists, hammers and screw drivers to bollix the red-flashing "Fasten Seat Belts" sign in the Ford Thunderbird. Psychologists reckon that people reject the seat belt because it is a fear-inducing reminder that accidents can happen, and it insults their ability to avoid them; many would rather indulge their foolhardy feelings of derring-do and invulnerability or their fatalistic instincts that "when it's my turn to go, I'll go." But Detroit is beginning to realize that safety can be salable. Meanwhile American Motors President Roy Abernethy thinks that the industry should do more "force-feeding" of safety features to consumers.
Washington's General Services Administration, which buys 60,000 Government cars annually, is doing some force-feeding of its own. Last year it issued a long list of safety demands for those cars, and while the Automobile Manufacturers Association managed to get the list softened, the
Government still insisted on better standards for steering columns, padding and door latches. After the GSA ordered 17 safety features built into its 1966 cars, the industry adopted half a dozen of them as standard equipment on all models—and tacked an average of $60 onto the price.