Talk:Ford Pinto/Archive 4

Irrelevant detail of test conditions in NHTSA investigation section
Contented content:

"According to Matthew T. Lee, at the time a graduate student at the University of Delaware, and M. David Ermann, professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University, writing in a sociology journal in 1999, in testing to determine in the Pinto tank design warranted a recall, the NHTSA for forewent the 1977 rear impact crash test standard and created a 'worst-case' test. A large 'bullet car' was used instead of a standard moving barrier. Weights were placed in the nose of the car to help it slide under the Pinto and maximize gas tank contact. The vehicle headlights were turned on to provide a possible ignition source. The fuel tank was completely filled with gasoline rather than partially filled with non-flammable Stoddard fluid as was the normal test procedure. In a later interview the NHTSA engineer was asked why the NHTSA forced a Pinto recall for failing a 35 mph test given that most small cars of the time would not have passed. 'Just because your friends get away with shoplifting, doesn't mean you should get away with it too.'"



The detail of the test conditions used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is irrelevant and non-neutral. The NHTSA was perfectly within their mandate to do whatever they had to do to duplicate a reported public safety issue. Yes, in trying to duplicate the fire safety issue under test conditions, the NHTSA put actual gasoline in the gas tank. This excessive detail can only be read as an crass attempt to impune the motives of the NHTSA. For us to imply in Wikipedia voice that the NHTSA was not acting in good faith is unconscionable. Implying through summarization of selected sources that the NHTSA was not acting in good faith is an extraordinary claim that requires a broad consensus of multiple, extraordinary reliable sources. One or a few academic articles is far from sufficient. This is at best a minority view, clearly inappropriate weight in this context, which is a neutral telling of the facts and events. The incontrovertible, widely reported fact is the NHTSA found defect. We have policy and guideline regarding treatment of minority views and this sections is not complaint. Kindly self-revert. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:42, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Testing to determine a defect is independent from testing to pass a standard. It is not at all interesting or surprising that the NHTSA, in investigating reports of a fire safety vulnerability, devised specific tests. Of course they did not merely repeat the standard test and grade it pass/fail. If all the NHTSA administration did was repeat the standard test we would think them quite incompetent. Of course it is standard operating procedure in engineering that in pursuing a specific problem in order to develop a remedy, an engineer might have to manipulate conditions. Some problems are very high impact but intermittent. Whether the car passed the standard test is not the issue, they were investigating a fire vulnerability. No one is saying the NHTSA's finding of defect is a farce because the car passed the standard test. Only a lawyer or other non-engineer would bother to make such an insipid point. This is a minority view, undue weight in our encyclopedia, and a grossly non-neutral misrepresentation of events. Please revert this addition. Hugh (talk) 02:28, 12 March 2016 (UTC)


 * , I thought you said you had read Lee and Ermann. That would at least imply you have a copy.  I previously asked you questions about the text because I don't believe you have read it.  Today you removed the statement "worst-case" from the article with a claim of OR .  Perhaps you should have consulted with your copy of the text.

By 1977, the social context had changed. Dowie's (1977:18) article had labeled the Pinto a "firetrap" and accused the agency of buckling to auto-industry pressure. Public interest generated by the article forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that NHTSA would be under a microscope for its duration.

NHTSA engineer Lee Strickland was assigned to determine if Pinto (and Chevrolet Vega) tank problems warranted a mandatory recall. Strickland's work group held the Pinto and Vega to a higher standard than other cars (Strickland 1996). It dispensed with the usual moving barrier. Instead, it intentionally selected a large and particularly rigid "bullet car" to hit the Pinto's rear end. It weighed down the bullet car's nose to slide under the Pinto and maximize gas tank contact. It also turned on the bullet car's headlights to provide a ready source of ignition. And it completely filled gas tanks in both cars with gasoline rather than the non-flammable Stoddard fluid normally used. Strickland justified these actions as approximating real-world worst-case circumstances (Davidson 1983; NHTSA C7-38; Strickland 1996).

For NHTSA, the tests seemed an unqualified success: two 1972 Pintos burst into flame upon impact. In the summer of 1978 NHTSA announced that the Pinto gas tank represented a safety defect, leading to the largest recall campaign in automobile history at that time (NHTSA C7-38; Strickland 1996). Ford agreed to "voluntarily" recall 1971-1976 Pintos. Other small cars sold during the 19 70s were not recalled, even though most were comparable, or in the case of the AMC Gremlin probably less safe (Schwartz 1991; NHTSA C7-38; Swigert and Farrell 198081:180). Their manufacturers successfully defended them as acceptable risks (see Wallace 1978). When we asked why NHTSA forced a Pinto recall for failing the 35 mile-per-hour test, although most small cars could not withstand such a test, Strickland ( 1996) analogized that, "Just because your friends get away with shoplifting, doesn't mean you should get away with it too." Springee (talk) 05:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Though verifiable, the paragraph in our article on the details of the NHTSA testing is obviously undue, not to mention pointed in the direction of a vast anti-Pinto conspiracy involving the US government. Of course in investigating a specific reports of a specific safety issue with a specific model of car, NHTSA did testing specific to that problem and that model; that's their job. Lee & Ermann, the sociologist and his graduate student, interviewed the government employee NHTSA engineer who was in charge of NHTSA testing, and he told the citizens exactly what he did. Later, the Mulders & Scullys of the world fans of Pinto latch on to the interview, drawing conclusions far beyond anything in Lee & Ermann (1999): aha! the tests were rigged! the smoking gun that exonerates the Pinto! Oh my god, NHTSA wanted the Pintos to explode! NHTSA put gas in the tank, actual gas!! This is an example of a minority view. Hugh (talk) 16:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

To further illustrate the absurdly obvious and pointed undue weight of this paragraph, compare and contrast the level of detail with our article's coverage of Ford's crash testing:

"Ford's routine internal crash testing showed that in a low-speed crash, the filler neck could tear away from the tank, spilling fuel beneath the car, and the tank itself could also be punctured by the bolts protruding from the differential."



Note the summarization across multiple reliable sources. So much has been written about this case, we have vast reliable sources on Ford's testing: how many tests cars were prototypes, how many were pre-production or production Pintos, how many caught fire, etc. But we don't go into detail, because the point is one or more Pintos caught fire in rear end crash testing. Remove the paragraph on the NHTSA test detail. Hugh (talk) 16:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)


 * So far the most telling argument is HughD's attempt to belittle a peer reviewed source.  Springee (talk) 17:53, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * What in your mind is the significance for our readers, that there was gas in the tank, during the NHTSA testing? Hugh (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * What did the sociologist and graduate student Lee & Ermann say about the significance of NHTSA devising tests specifically designed to duplicate the reported fire hazard? Did the sociologist and graduate student Lee & Ermann say NHTSA exceeded their regulatory authority, cheated, deceived, or did anything illegal, unethical, or immoral? Hugh (talk) 23:36, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources that say that the NHTSA did anything illegal, immoral, unethical, or wrong in their testing of the Ford Pinto? Can we add a reliable sourced topic sentence to this paragraph which conveys to our readers the significance of this paragraph? For example, "NHTSA exceeded their Congressionally mandated authority when they used real gas in the gas tank during their testing of the Ford Pinto in response to consumer complaints." Or "NHTSA illegally turned on the headlights of a test vehicle during their testing of the Ford Pinto in response to consumer complaints." Something like that? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 16:29, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Can you explain why we shouldn't include this information given that it comes from a RS? Why is this information not important but the claim that 6 people died in Pinto fires between the time the recall was initiated and parts were available is important (note that we don't know the details of those 6 deaths, if the impact speeds were in excess of 30 mph (ie the 1977 standard) etc).  Springee (talk) 22:40, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Is it now your position that everything in RS goes in Wikipedia? Hugh (talk) 00:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * May I ask again, what would you propose as a topic sentence for this paragraph that might pull this detail together and give our readers some hint as to why we are asking them to read the details of the NHTSA test conditions? Hugh (talk) 00:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You wrote in article space:

"...in testing to determine in the Pinto tank design warranted a recall, the NHTSA for forewent the 1977 rear impact crash test standard and created a 'worst-case' test."


 * What in the source is "NHTSA forewent" a paraphrase of? What justifies this in our article? Is this original research? Hugh (talk) 00:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources, which say that NHTSA, in investigating consumer reports of a fire safety issue known from reports to be the result of a rear-end collision by another car, was under any obligation to stop testing after simply repeating the standard moving barrier rear impact test, and grade pass/fail? Hugh (talk) 00:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Additional context and RS article. Lee, the first author of the Lee and Ermann paper was also the sole author on an earlier paper on the subject. Lee's CV indicates that he is the chair of sociology at U of Akron. It also indicates that two of his works on the Pinto were republished as book chapters. The original publications and chapter publications are on page 10 of his CV. His 1998 article, "The Ford Pinto Case and the Development of Auto Safety Regulations, 1893-1978" makes it clear that he thinks the NHTSA handling of the case is significant as he discusses it in his article lead.

In an influentia1l 977 article in Mother Jones magazine, journalist Mark Dowie accused Ford Motor Company executives of callously deciding to produce and continuing to  market the Pinto (which he labeled a "firetrap") even after company crash tests showed that its gas tank would rupture in rear end collisions at relatively low speeds [Dowie, 1977]. This reprehensible decision, according to Dowie's interpretation, derived from a cost/benefit analysis which purportedly demonstrated that settling the few inevitable lawsuits filed by burn victims or their families would cost less than the eleven dollars per car needed to fix the defective tanks [Green,1 997, p. 130]. Dowie, along with well-known consumer advocate Ralph Nader, held a press conference in  Washington DC on August 10, 1977,t o drawn additional attention to the case. One day later, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) began its own investigation of the Pinto gas tank [Cullen, Maakestad and Carender,1 987]. ]

Lee Strickland was the NHTSA engineer assigned the task of determining if the Pinto gas tank met the criteria of a recallable safety defect [Stricldand, 1996]. The NHTSA investigation did not occur in a social vacuum. Strickland and his staff were charged with evaluating the Pinto in the midst of national publicity that had already labeled its gas tank "defective" and accused the federal government (and NHTSA) of buckling to pressure from lobbyists for the auto industry [Dowie, 1977]. Consumers also wrote letters to NHTSA demanding that it take action against Ford after Dowie's article was published [NHTSA, 1978]. However, according to Strickland, NHTSA's evaluation revealed that the Pinto had a "fire threshold" (i.e.t he speed at which a collision is likely to result in a fire) in rear-end collisions of between 30 and 35 miles per hour. Since the federal standard on fuel tank integrity (FMVSS 301, effective starting with 1977 model year cars) required that cars withstand only a 30 mile- per-hour rear impact, NHTSA would have to take extra-ordinary steps in order to force a recall of the Pinto [U.S. Department of Transportation 1988].

There was, and still is, disagreement within the federal government as to whether the law grants NHTSA the authority to  hold cars with potential safety problems to a higher standard than the federal minimum. Based on all the evidence (and Dowie's article), Strickland's work group decided that Pinto was "unsafe" even though it  met the minimum  standard. The decision was then made to increase the speed of the crash tests to at least 35 miles per hour- beyond the Pinto's" fire threshold ("and beyond the federal minimum) - so that fuel-tank integrity would be compromised and sufficient leakage would occur to justify the application of  the label "safety defect." To accomplish this goal, NHTSA selected a large and particularly rigid car as the" bullet car" (the moving vehicle in the collision) for the Pinto crash test, rather than the moving barrier that was normally used[ U.S. DOT, 1988]. Both the Pinto and the bullet car's gas tanks were filed with gas, rather than the non-flammable liquid normally used. The nose of the bullet car was weighted down so that it would slide under the Pinto upon impact and maximize the chance of contact with the gas tank. The bullet car's headlights were also turned on to provide a ready source of ignition. All of these steps, Strickland felt could be justified on grounds that they approximated "real-world" worst-case circumstances although most other cars were not subject to these test conditions. For NHTSA, the test was an unqualified success; the Pinto burst into flames upon impact. In the summer of 1978, NHTSA concluded that the Pinto gas tank represented a safety defect, and Ford agreed to "voluntarily" recall call the1 1971-1976 Pintos, even though they were built before the federal standard took effect [Strickland1, 996; Cullen, Maakestad and  Cavender1,9 87, p. 165;N HTSA, 1978].

The bolded text makes it clear that testing the car to something beyond the standard of the time was questionable under the law (that answers one of HughD's earlier questions) and thus makes it very notable. Perhaps the best change to the article to address HughD's request for a reason why this should be included would be the statement that it wasn't clear if the "worst case" test was legal. Springee (talk) 19:45, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Third Opinion
A third opinion has been requested. Will each of the two editors please state in one sentence (or at most two) what they think the question is? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The above contended content attempts to convey to our readers that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, when investigating numerous consumer reports of a specific problem with a specific make and model, did something noteworthy, when they did not merely repeat a federal standard moving-barrier rear-end collision test applicable to all automobiles, but, acting entirely within the authority of their mandate, of course devised a test plan specific to the reported problem, make, and model. The above contended content offers our readers no indication of why the details the NHTSA test conditions might be noteworthy, as in, the NHTSA did anything illegal, unethical, or immoral (which they certainly did not); the relevance of the details the NHTSA test conditions is a minority opinion of one source written by a sociologist and a graduate student, and so is non-neutral and undue here WP:DUE, and serves only as a pointed attempt to cast doubt in our reader's mind WP:RGW on the clear, well-documented fact that the NHTSA tested and issued a finding of defect regarding the fuel system of the Ford Pinto. Hugh (talk) 15:22, 16 March 2016 (UTC)


 * An acknowledged RS, quoted here, felt it was notable that the NHTSA, responding to political pressure, designed a test that was far in excess of the 1977 rear impact standards (no federal standards applied to the pre-1977 cars under investigation) and then used this extreme test to justify a Pinto recall. Springee (talk) 16:56, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the description of the unusual standards of the 1977 test are appropriate precisely because it was an unusually designed test for an unusual purpose. If there is disagreement, try another Request for Comments.  (WP:DRN is likely to be declined because two RFCs are already pending.)  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your opinion. The testing performed by the NHTSA in investigating consumer complaints regarding the Ford Pinto was not unusual. Of course in investigating reports of exploding Pintos the NHTSA put gas in the tank. The NHTSA sets standards, AND investigates consumer complaints. The testing for conformance with standards is independent of the testing for investigation of consumer complaints. The contended content non-neutrally conflates these two roles to make a pointy point. Given consumer complaints regarding a specific problem with a specific make and model, were the NHTSA to merely re-test the Ford Pinto against the on-the-books 20 MPH moving barrier standard test that applies to all cars, and pronounce the Ford Pinto compliant, we would have all thought the NHTSA quite incompetent. No one says the Ford Pinto did not comply with standards; yet, the fact is NHTSA testing found it to exhibit a design defect in the fuel system. Our article may state, as supported by multiple reliable sources, that the Ford Pinto was in compliance with all federal regulations at the time; however, this in no way discredits the conscientious testing the NHTSA did in investigating the consumer complaints. You may be familiar with the distinction in software engineering between white-box and black-box testing; as you know, a software may pass all functional tests yet exhibit bugs. In the US there exists a minority point of view that regulation is bad, product testing is government over-reach, and the market knows best, but this point of view is not noteworthy in this article. The contended content non-neutrally impugns the motives of the NHTSA as "political" without basis in reliable sources WP:OR; no source suggests the NHTSA was motivated by anything other than concern for public safety or proceeded in any manor other than best practices. Respectfully request further discussion and reconsideration. Hugh (talk) 23:22, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * As you can see Robert, typical HughD behaviour. Ask for a third opinion, get one, don't like it, ask it to be reconsidered. Thanks Greglocock (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I would like to correct a few of the factual errors in HughD's descriptions of events. HughD's comments suggest that the NHTSA test was not unusual.  I think such a statement would require some evidence.  Note that in the section above Lee said that even "today" (1998) it was not clear if the NHTSA could legally hold a car maker to a standard above and beyond the regulation.  Second, HughD seems to be confused as to what standards the car complied with.  There were NO applicable federal standards on the 1971-1976 cars.  None because the first rear impact standard went into effect in 1977.  HughD's statement, "were the NHTSA to merely re-test the Ford Pinto against the on-the-books 20 MPH moving barrier standard test that applies to all cars," illustrates a confusion.  There never was a 20 mph federal standard.  The NHTSA suggested a 20 mph standard.  Ford internally decided all of their cars would meet a 20 mph standard as of 1973.  The first federal standard was a 30 mph fixed barrier test.  Where HughD got the idea that the NHTSA should test the car to a 20 mph standard that never existed is unclear to me.  What is perhaps interesting to readers is that the pre-'77 Pintos likely would have (barely) passed the 1977 standard.  What the car didn't pass was an invented standard that was not applied to other cars.  Springee (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * In his master's thesis the sociology master's student Lee pointedly compared standards compliance testing with testing for investigating consumer complaints, as if it were a fair comparison. Perhaps if you are in a feverish small government state of mind, the NHTSA product testing of the Pinto in response to consumer complaints was a day of infamy in the history of outrageous government over-reach on a par only with the establishment of the income tax. The NHTSA testing of the Pinto in response to consumer complaints was widely publicized but it was not the origin of the idea of product safety testing in response to consumer complaints, even if some sociologists think it was. The Pinto recall was not an unprecedented recall of a product that had previously passed all written standards. Public safety issues may arise before they are addressed by standards; this is obvious, and a normal part of the product safety and standards development process, and the only reason one might attempt to portray otherwise is if one was determined to exonerate the Pinto, and advance a government conspiracy theory, at all costs, including the readability of our article. So much has been written about the Pinto, it has literally been written about from every conceivable point of view; however, the arch-anti-government point of view is undue weight in this article; the only relevant fact is that the NHTSA tested the Pinto and found a defect. Wikipedia prefers secondary sources to academic sources precisely because academics are expected to take a stand and adopt a point of view and defend it; while sometimes new editors are confused about this sourcing issue, mistakenly thinking peer-reviewed rules, or academic titles rule, this confusion is less common in experienced editors. Even if the details of the NHTSA testing were due weight, the context and background minimally sufficient for our readers to make an informed judgement about the significance of these details would require an absurdly long diatribe, off-topic in this article, into the role of government in a capitalist society, regulation, and consumer protection. The current article content on the NHTSA testing is grossly pointed and non-neutral. The evil governemnt did not "rig" tests so that the poor Ford Pinto had to fail. Balance on Wikipedia does not mean that an article must be written such that reprints would serve equally well as an encyclopedia article and as a handout at the Pinto table at a UFO conference. Hugh (talk) 14:46, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If you think Lee is not a reliable source then perhaps you should bring it up at WP:RSN. As it stands the material was not once but twice peer reviewed and accepted twice.  Journals don't care if the lead author is a grad student, that is actually quite common.  Springee (talk) 01:33, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

memo confusion
HughD has removed many referneces in this article, specifically ones demonstrating that the design was not unusual and that the memo DID NOT APPLY TO PINTO or even rear end collisions. if he chooses to disagree with those revisions and has any integrity then he can should put the cites back in, because he removed them in the first place. Greglocock (talk) 09:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No references were removed. Hugh (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * That isn't exactly true. No references were removed from the article.  You have removed a number of important specific facts from the article.  For example, you significantly altered the already too limited retrospective review.  Last month it contained this sentence, "A comprehensive analysis looking at road fatalities between 1976 and 1977 showed that accidents in the Pinto were more likely to cause fire deaths, but that the overall number of fatalities in the Pinto was comparable to or lower than similar cars in its class."  You removed the part that showed the Pinto wasn't less safe, "but that the overall number of fatalities in the Pinto was comparable to or lower than similar cars in its class."  The way you have described the memo in the article is simply wrong with respect to the most reliable sources on the subject (Schwart and Lee and Ermann in particular).  Springee (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * With respect to sources, any source that states as fact that the Pinto was uniquely unsafe or prone to fire should be considered an unreliable source or questionable source of fact. Both the NHTSA data and scholarly review have shown that the car's overall safety record and safety record with respect to fires was typical for the time.  To quote Schwartz:
 * ''Moreover, when all vehicle fire fatalities are considered, the Pinto turns out to have been less dangerous than the average subcompact and only slightly more dangerous than the average car. Indeed when occupant fatalities from all highway causes are considered, the Pinto performed respectably.
 * The above is given further context by several authors who note that designers have to balance all aspects of design safety during the engineering process. During the late 60s it was not obvious that placing the gas tank behind the rear axle was inherently problematic.  In fact it was cited as a better location in terms of side impact protection and because it kept the tank further from the passenger compartment.  Isolating the car's performance in one aspect of a rare set of crash circumstances (rear impact --> fire --> fatality) is seen by most of the authors as a questionable way to judge the quality of the safety engineering of a car.  Lee and Ermann discuss this in some detail when they explain why it wasn't obvious to either the NHTSA nor Ford that there was a problem with the Pinto.  Basically the stats that made the car look bad were a needle in a haystack.  One of the big issue with Pinto sources, again noted by several authors including Becker et al, is that the incorrect information is so widely "known" that it is often used without question.  Hence Time says the car was a firetrap or deathtrap when the actual record does not support this claim.  Furthermore, the exculpatory evidence was available to Time when they wrote their "worst" article but why look up what is "known"? Springee (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there is at leat one ref that has been removed (the memo itself), and all discussion of the fact that the memo did not apply to Pinto or rear enders, including refs and excerpts. Greglocock (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the so-called "Pinto memo"? It is currently ref #42:




 * Thank you. Hugh (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes you are right, that ref is still there, sorryGreglocock (talk) 18:22, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, some of the older references are easy to lose since they were added before people used more formal citations. However, a number of key facts have been removed in the flurry of edits (almost 190 in 5 days!).Springee (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No key facts have been removed. Hugh (talk) 21:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Who removed, referring to the memo paper trail quote ", ignoring the fact that it was not about rear end collisions or the Pinto." and "former head of the N.H.T.S.A. testified on Ford’s behalf, stating that in his opinion the Pinto’s design was no more or less safe than that of any other car in its class"? Space aliens? Both ar key pointsGreglocock (talk) 07:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Your comment in article space "...ignoring the fact that it was not about rear end collisions or the Pinto." was unsourced and removed as original research. Do you have a source? If it is a key point it will be in multiple reliable sources. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 07:31, 8 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Sure, Gladwell, Schwartz, both make the same point (not surprisingly, if you actually read the memo itself). http://www.pdhengineer.com/catalog/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2283 is another, whether it is a RS I don't know but it is an engineer's ethics course. http://www.ridgepoinths.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Pinto-Case1.pdf discusses the memo at great lengthGreglocock (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The former NHTSA administration head testimony is in the Indiana trial section. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 07:31, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * They aren't reffed because YOU removed the refs. Greglocock (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No references were removed. I did not remove any sources to my knowledge. Please provide a diff. Your editorial comment in article space "...ignoring the fact that it was not about rear end collisions or the Pinto" was unsourced and removed as original research, please see WP:OR. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 14:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I can't be bothered to do diffs. You are wasting my time. I had put in quotes in particular places in the article, to balance statements that were made. Putting those refs elsewhere diffuses the argument and allows for selective reading.Greglocock (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * , providing diffs at article talk is a fundamental collaboration tool on Wikipedia, I'm sorry to hear you feel it is not helpful. Anyway, may I summarize your point, to see if I understand it? Thanks. You feel the testimony of a former head of the NHTSA, testifying in defense of Ford, in a criminal trail in Indiana in 1980, regarding a general statement about the overall safety of the Ford Pinto compared to other cars, is such an important key fact, that its inclusion in the subsection on the Indiana trial is not sufficient weight in our article, that it should be repeated elsewhere, if anything impugning the safety of the Ford Pinto comes up, even to subsections covering earlier events? Have I got that about right? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 20:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC), could you please reply to this? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * HughD, please stop dancing around legitimate concerns. Perhaps a way for you to show good faith would be to voluntarily pull back from the article for a week and give others adequate time to respond to the edits you have made.  When that time is over they we can discuss editorial direction.  You have changed so much in the a crucial part of the article in a very short time.  Congrats on the Bold part of the BRD cycle.  Now please allow others a chance to review and respond to your work.  Springee (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * By now, I am very sure everyone on the project knows you wish I would go away, you need not repeat yourself. I have done nothing to prevent anyone from "reviewing and responding." I'm sorry I did not better respect your expertise and strong feelings of ownership of this article. Do you figure it will take you about a week to recast the article to conform to your preferred Schwartz/Lee/Erdman-based narrative? The talk page is open, why not start now, propose some improvements? Hugh (talk) 22:19, 8 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Perhaps a better question to ask would be is it correct to use WP to propagate material that has been shown to be false? Do you agree the "Pinto Memo" was not about the Pinto and did not discuss the cost of settling lawsuits against Ford (or any car company) vs the cost of production changes? Springee (talk) 15:21, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This thread lacks focus. I am reluctant to enable a wall of text, especially in a thread that is mostly personal attacks. Focusing on content if we can, our article has three sentences about the Grush & Saundy cost-benefit analysis memo in the subsection "Fuel system design". The content is well-sourced to multiple reliable sources. Those 3 sentences are a reasonable summarization of the sources. Our article makes no claim regarding Grush & Saundy's intentions in writing the memo. Regardless of the original intention of the Grush & Saundy, we have a sentence in the next paragraph clearly states how Mother Jones (magazine) interpreted the memo. With that, I think it would be due weight to add that the memo was originally intended as a regulatory response, if we bring in the context of Ford's and other automaker's multi-year ongoing effort to stall more stringent fuel system standards, and if we make more clear that the Pinto team affirmatively rejected design changes. Regardless of the primary intent of the Grush & Saundy memo, as a secondary purpose it helped the project team reject fixes. We have multiple reliable sources that document that the Pinto project team management met and considered and decided not to add any fix or fixes to Pintos in production. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I would like to add much of what you are suggesting. Perhaps if you gave others a chance to review your work and make their own changes we can address the concerns of you and others. In the mean time I would suggest you read Schwartz's article. You have read it right?

I will repeat my earlier question, please provide a yes or no answer. Do you agree the "Pinto Memo" was not about the Pinto and did not discuss the cost of settling lawsuits against Ford (or any car company) vs the cost of production changes? Springee (talk) 16:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * From your question, I take it your preference would be for our article to state in Wikipedia voice that the Grush & Saundy cost-benefit analysis memo was "not about the Pinto," without any context, without any explanation of what it was about, that is, just one volley between Ford and NHTSA in Ford's well-documented multi-year campaign to stall more stringent federal regulation of fuel systems? Hugh (talk) 17:18, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You are avoiding my question and replying with more red herrings. Springee (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

NOR Noticeboard discussion related to this article
has posted a NOR related to this article. This is a NOR question that is clearly related to this article. Due to HughD's failure to notify the group I am posting a link and copy of the question here:

Link

Question: Article content:

Lee and Ermann said that the Mother Jones labeling of the Pinto as a "firetrap" and accusations that the NHTSA was buckling to industry pressure as well as the public interest created by sensationalized new stories "forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that the NHTSA would be under the microscope for its duration."

Source:

Dowie's (1977) article had labeled the Pinto a "firetrap" and accused the agency of buckling to auto-industry pressure. Public interest generated by the article forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that NHTSA would be under a microscope for its duration.

Lee, Matthew T; Ermann, M. David (Feb 1999). "Pinto "Madness" as a Flawed Landmark Narrative: An Organizational and Network Analysis". Social Problems 46 (1): 30–47.

Not directly related to the sourcing of this content, but for interest "Dowie's (1977) article" is:

Dowie, Mark (September 1977). "Pinto Madness". Mother Jones. Retrieved January 17, 2014.

Discussion

The source clearly says that public interest "forced" the second (1977) NHTSA investigation of the Ford Pinto. The contended content is a claim about what a source said about the motivation of actors in historical events, specifically the causes that compelled the NHTSA to investigate. The paraphrase of the source strays into original research by exceeding the claim of the source when it collapses two separate sentences. Yes, the Mother Jones (magazine) article called the Ford Pinto a "firetrap" (and this is covered in earlier article content); and yes, the Mother Jones article claimed the NHTSA was too lenient on the auto industry, but Lee and Ermann did not say that Mother Jones saying those things was what "forced" the investigation.

Does the article content constitute original research? Comments? Thank you in advance. Hugh (talk) 23:45, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Comment are welcome here or at the noticeboard. Springee (talk) 17:33, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Please join your colleagues in discussion in progress at WP:ORN. Thank you! Hugh (talk) 17:49, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Forum shopping again? No thanks Greglocock (talk) 18:06, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 14 March 2016
Add top tags reflecting, without other POV comment, all the issues seen with the article in its current form. NPOV, at least, belongs at the top, not just buried below.

Anmccaff (talk) 05:22, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello. Thank you for your proposal. I would support a POV article hat, although I feel much of the article outside of the "Safety..." section is non-controversial. What do you think? Your collaboration would be welcome here; perhaps your experience at General Motors streetcar conspiracy, trying to write an honest article on a subject rife with conspiracy theories, will find some parallels here. Can you please propose some specific article hats so we can reach consensus? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 00:22, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It doesn't look like we have agreement about what tags to add, so I'm closing this without any action. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:47, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

What goes in the subsequent analysis section
I wouldn't think that this is something that needs to be explained but one editor seems to disagree. Material that discusses how this case impacted future events, legislation, etc or information that looks back at the Pinto's performance now that the car is largely off the road would be subsequent. An article, written years later but discussing why choices were made or actions taken at the time is best included in the associated sections of the article. This material does not need to be dated in the article. So long as it is cited readers can find the date themselves. Thus a statement that the NHTSA was under considerable political pressure to act would be in the NHTSA investigation section. Similarly, statements by a NHTSA engineer explaining how and why he performed a crash test is not subsequent even if the interview was years after the fact. Subsequent material should be information that looks at the way this case impacted the future or information that is retrospective in view. For example, a statement by Schwartz looking at the car's overall safety record such as the one below would be "subsequent" (though the NHTSA's finding of 27 deaths from 1971-1978 would be at the time):
 * From what I have been able to learn, as for safety the Pinto was a car that was neither admirable nor despicable. Its overall fatality rate was roughly in the middle of the subcompact range; its record was better than the subcompact average with respect to fatalities-with-fire; yet for the quite small category of fatalities with rear-end-fire, its design features apparently gave it a worse than-average record. 

Looking at how the Pinto legal cases framed the public's understanding or misunderstanding of cost benefit analysis with respect to injury/death risks or how the Pinto case, and the Memeo in particular, has become widely quoted but frequently even in academic articles is retrospective. Springee (talk) 10:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed edit: remove citation to online course hand-out
In subsection "Cost-benefit analysis" remove citation:



Replace with.

Discussion
The citation is to an unreliable source. The citation is to an online PDF of a hand-out in a for-fee online professional development course, see Ethics: An Alternative Account of the Ford Pinto Case. The source has no evidence of an editorial process. Vast reliable sources are available on the safety of the Ford Pinto, including books, major newspapers, and peer-reviewed academic journals; our project has no need to consider sourcing to online course hand-outs. If the supported article content is noteworthy, it can easily be sourced to multiple reliable sources.

Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Since you are suggesting replacing the current citation with a CN tag, can you please tell us which particular claim/statement/fact in the article is, in your view, uniquely sourced to that particular citation? The RS guideline does not say we can only use sources that undergo editorial review.  Instead the guideline says, "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. "  The statements in question are from a PhD, PE in civil engineering.  He was a Prof at Washington U in St Louis and Chair of Civil Engineering at Southern Illinois U.  So which statements do you think are uniquely attributed to him and do you think he is unqualified to make such statements?  Springee (talk) 22:35, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The citation is to a self-published source. The source has no editorial process. The source is the sole work of the author. The source is not a peer-reviewed academic journal article. The source is a hand-out from a for-profit course. This proposed edit requests that the citation be replaced with an in-text request for citation, allowing interested editors to provide a reliable source for the content; this edit request takes no stand on the supported content pending resolution of the sourcing issue. Meanwhile, vast alternative reliable sources are available to the editors of this article. Hugh (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think you have answered Springee's comment at all, but have merely repeated your original assertion...which Springee -has- given an answer to; he's asserted, correctly so far as it goes, that the author has professional standing. (Whether that's enough by itself is another question.) So, what do you see in this source that requires something beyonf that?  It's largely a collector of other sources which have undoubted "reliability" in wiki's peculiar use of the word.  Anmccaff (talk) 16:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems to have escaped HughD's attention that textbooks would often fit his description. Now, wouldn't it be nice if instead of boring us to tears he actually answered the following question, Since you are suggesting replacing the current citation with a CN tag, can you please tell us which particular claim/statement/fact in the article is, in your view, uniquely sourced to that particular citation?Greglocock (talk) 16:53, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment. The academic title of the author is not in dispute. The academic title of the author does not establish the reliability of the source. The content supported by this citation is not in dispute at this time. The proposed  tag will invite concerned editors to improve the sourcing, or not, after which we can together evaluate the accuracy of the summarization across reliable sources. If it is the academic title of the author that lends this source due weight, then in-text attribution to the author and title might be a remedy, but I don't think so: the point is, the course hand-out was not vetted by any book publisher or editorial board or peer review, and so much high quality reliable sourcing is available to us on this topic, that if the supported content is truly noteworthy, it should be very straightforward to find better, reliable sources. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 17:15, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * So your answer is None? That wasn't so hard was it Hugh? Thanks. thanks very much. Thanks you. Thanks again. Greglocock (talk) 17:21, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * May I please clarify, I have no comment on the content supported by this citation at this time, pending anticipated sourcing improvements. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:32, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Support removal of the source as proposer. The citation is to an unreliable source WP:RS. The citation is to an online PDF of a hand-out in a for-fee online professional development course. The source has no evidence of an editorial process. The source has no evidence of use by others WP:USEBYOTHERS. Meanwhile, vast alternative reliable sources are available on the safety of the Ford Pinto; if the supported article content is noteworthy, it can easily be sourced to multiple reliable sources. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Use by others?
Has anyone cited the course hand-out by Rossow? Is there any evidence of use by others WP:USEBYOTHERS of the course hand-out by Rossow? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 17:18, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed edit: fatality numbers and subsequent commentary on public impact
Add to the Mother Jones article paragraph, after the sentence that begins "In September, 1977 Mother Jones magazine said...":

"The Mother Jones article said 'By conservative estimates Pinto crashes have caused 500 burn deaths to people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into flames. The figure could be as high as 900.'"

Add to the NHTSA investigation paragraph, after "On May 8, 1978 the NHTSA informed Ford of their determination that the Pinto fuel system was defective.":

"The NHTSA said the basis for the investigation was allegations, raised at the August 10, 1977 Washington press conference, that the Pinto fuel tank was vulnerable to damage in low and moderate speed rear end collisions. The NHTSA compiled reports from consumers, Ford, and the Canadian Ministry of Transport and found 38 Pinto rear-end collisions with fuel tank damage, fuel leakage, or fire, resulting in 27 fatalities and 24 non-fatal burn injuries."

Add to the "Subsequent analysis" section:

"In 1999 Lee and Ermann said that the public accepted the fatality estimates from the 1977 Mother Jones article while ignoring the fatality statistics reported by the NHTSA in 1978."

Discussion
Comments? Hugh (talk) 16:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose Springee (talk) 02:48, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Please elaborate. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 03:19, 25 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Support as proposer. The proposed content is well-referenced WP:RS and all four sources are already in use in our article. The proposed content is three sentences, one a direct quote and the other two very straight-forward neutral paraphrases of the source. The clear consensus of reliable sources is that the Mother Jones article had a noteworthy role in the NHTSA investigation of the Pinto, so saying what the Mother Jones article said is due weight WP:DUE. The clear consensus of reliable sources is that the NHTSA finding of defect report delivered to Ford had a noteworthy role in the recall of the Pinto, so saying what the NHTSA said is due weight. In the decades that followed, the Ford Pinto recall was analyzed by investigative journalists, engineers, ethicists, lawyers, and sociologists. Some noteworthy subsequent analysis noted the discrepancy between the fatality estimates of the Mother Jones article and the NHTSA. Briefly summarizing what Lee and Ermann and others said about the discrepancy between the fatality estimates of the Mother Jones article and the NHTSA article is due weight. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:02, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Proposer needs to be topic banned. NickCT (talk) 05:12, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Your comment is inappropriate on this article talk page; please focus on content WP:FOC, WP:TPG. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:12, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Current article content
Subsection Ford Pinto

"Lee and Ermann said that the Mother Jones labeling of the Pinto as a 'firetrap' and accusations that the NHTSA was buckling to industry pressure as well as the public interest created by sensationalized new stories 'forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that the NHTSA would be under the microscope for its duration.'"

Source


"Dowie's (1977) article had labeled the Pinto a 'firetrap' and accused the agency of buckling to auto-industry pressure. Public interest generated by the article forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that NHTSA would be under a microscope for its duration."

Proposed edit

 * 1) Move 1999 commentary and 1999 reference to subsection Ford_Pinto as per February talk page consensus at Talk:Ford_Pinto; and
 * 2) Repair original research as per WP:OR.

"In 1999 Lee and Ermann said that public interest generated by the 1977 Mother Jones article 'forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that the NHTSA would be under the microscope for its duration.'"

Discussion
— Preceding unsigned comment added by HughD (talk • contribs) 12:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose moving content: When the article is written does not dictated chronological placement in the article.  A retrospective would be discussions regarding how this event shaped future events, lawsuits, corporate practices etc.  It does not apply to a description of the events as they occurred.


 * Oppose proposed change to content: Not an improvement and tries to downplay a view that is clear in many reliable sources.  Springee (talk) 18:31, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment. The content has only one reference. The one reference does not support the content as stated. Do you have additional references that will rescue what appears to be a poor paraphrase bordering on original research? Thank you again. Hugh (talk) 21:15, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You are most welcome. The specific paraphrase is attributed to Lee and Ermann hence your request for other sources would be inappropriate.  I did include other sources in other sentences.  As for the I felt that including a near 2 page quote was a bit much so I just included the most important sentence.  It seems you are hung up on "sensationalized".  OK.  How would you try to incorporate L&E's comment that "Beginning in the late 1970s, claims consistent with "Pinto Madness" readily gained public acceptance, but credible contradictory claims did not.  For instance, Dowie's "conservative" estimate of 500 deaths (1977:18) was accepted, while NHTSA's report that it could document only 27 Pinto fire-related deaths (NHTSA C7-38; Frank 1985) was ignored."?  The numbers that were exaggerated resonated with the public but the numbers that turned out to be historically accurate did not.  "Sensationalized" is one way of phrasing that.  Do you have an alternative word which you feel is more neutral?  I would be OK with a direct quote (not the neutered quote you proposed) and the inclusion of the italicized quote as well.  Alternatively, if you can come up with a alternative word for "sensationalized", a word that makes it clear that the doom and gloom claims that later turned out to not be true, were widely reported and accepted.  What about "articled with greatly exaggerated fatality claims"?  That one we can surely support via the source. Springee (talk) 03:28, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

The collapsed section below contains an extended version of the quote for added context. The sentence above is indicated for reference.

'''Technical Core Beliefs and Actions (1967-1973)

To explain what employees in Ford's technical core subunits believed, when they believed it, and how corporate structures influenced them to communicate and act on their beliefs, we separate design from marketing stages. During the design stage ( 1967-1970), Ford technical core employees did not view their actions as taking calculated risks with consumers' lives. Even Harley Copp, the outspoken Ford safety whistle-blower, never asserted that informed Ford participants believed the car was unsafe. Furthermore, they were not thinking about potential lawsuits when making design decisions (Feaheny 1997; Gioia 1996). And they did not refuse to correct perceived problems because settling lawsuits would be cheaper (NHTSA C7-38; Strobel1980).

Although technical core work groups were not informed by explicit cost-benefit analyses (we explain these analyses below), they did recognize that unavoidable cost and time constraints make safety trade-offs inevitable for all product designs (see Lowrance 1976). For the auto industry, with its long history of subordinating safety to styling (Eastman 1 984; Nader 1965), implicit safety compromises were particularly common. In the Pinto case, Lee Iacocca and others wanted to compete with foreign imports with a car that weighed less than 2,000 pounds and cost less than $2,000 (Camps 1997; Dowie 1977; Strobel1980). Other car manufacturers were building cars under similar or more stringent guidelines (Davidson 1983 ).

Commentators on the Pinto case (writing in a later era with different beliefs) assume that fuel tank leakage in rear end-crash tests must have alarmed both engineers and managers. They didn't, because the tests were not sufficiently convincing at the time (or even today). Crash tests during that era were novel procedures. Both the auto industry and NHTSA were more concerned with the reliability and validity of the tests than with safety data generated by a particular car's tests. Harold MacDonald, the engineer in charge of the Pinto's design, and every other engineer charged with interpreting crash-test data at the time-all of whom whistleblower Harley Copp considered "safety-conscious individuals" (Strobel 1980:183)-doubted that the tests accurately represented real-world conditions (Feaheny 1997). After all, they reasoned, a car slamming backwards into a wall at twenty to thirty miles per hour in a crash test is only a rough approximation of a real-world car-to-car crash. Results that seemed "troubling" (Schwartz 1991:1028) to later writers seemed less problematical at the time and were neutralized by participants' background assumptions about small cars and crashworthiness. NHTSA validated the engineers' skepticism by asking the auto industry to help develop reliable and cost-effective ways to approximate real-world conditions (Strobel1980).

Thus, engineers in the design stage were still trying "to find out how to conduct crash tests" (Feaheny 1997; see also Lacey 1986:613). For example, an internal Pinto test report dated November, 1970 listed as its objective "To develop a test procedure to be used to provide baseline data on vehicle fuel system integrity" (NHTSA C7-38-Al.5, Final Test Report #T- 0738). In this test, a Pinto sedan exhibited "excessive fuel tank leakage" when towed rearward into a fixed barrier at 21.5 miles per hour, considered roughly equivalent to a car-to-car impact at 35 miles per hour.

Nothing in this, or any other, Ford test report indicates that participants felt cause for concern or organizational action. Although some Ford engineers were not especially pleased, they felt that the data were inconclusive or the risks acceptable (Feaheny 1997; Strobel 1980), or they kept their concerns to themselves (Camps 1997). Some felt that cars would rarely be subjected to the extreme forces generated in a fixed-barrier test in real-world collisions (Feaheny 1997; Devine 1996). NHTSA apparently agreed and ultimately replaced the proposed fixedbarrier test with a less-stringent moving-barrier test in its final standard (U.S. Department of Transportation 1988).

Occupational caution encouraged engineers to view many design adjustments that improved test performance as "unproven" in real-world accidents (Devine 1996; Feaheny 1997; Schwartz 1991; Strickland 1996; Strobel 1980). Engineers, who typically value "uncertainty avoidance" (Allison 1971:72 ), chose to stick with an existing design rather than face uncertainties associated with novel ones (Devine 1996; Strobel 1980). One series of tests, for instance, showed that Pintos equipped with pliable foam-like gas tanks would not leak in 30 mile-per-hour crashes. But some engineers feared that such a tank might melt and disagreed with others who felt it was safer than the existing metal design (Devine 1996, see also Strobel 1980). Other engineers believed that rubber bladders improved performance in tests, but anticipated problems under real-world conditions (Strobel 1980). 3

Ford whistle-blower Harley Copp's argument-that the Pinto would have been safer had its gas tank been placed above the axle rather than behind it-is often cited in Pinto narratives as an example of safety being sacrificed to profits, or at least trunk space, in the design stage (Cullen, Maakestad and Cavender 1987; Dowie 1977; Strobel1994). Yet Copp did not reach this conclusion until1977 (Strobel1980). And other engineers were considerably less certain about it, even though the above-the-axle design did perform better in one set of crash tests. The engineer overseeing the Pinto's design, Harold MacDonald (whose father died in a fuel tank fire when his Model A Ford exploded after a frontal collision with a tree), felt that the above-theaxle placement was less safe under real-world conditions because the tank was closer to the passenger compartment and more likely to be punctured by items in the trunk (Strobel1980).

Additionally, after making a judgment that the Pinto was acceptably safe, most participants readily devalued subsequent competing definitions (Feaheny 1997). Lou Tubben, an engineer Nwith a genuine concern for safety" (Dowie 1977:23), did not press his concerns until1971-after the car's release. Frank Camps (1981, 1997), another concerned engineer, did not formally object to the Pinto's windshield and frontal-impact fuel tank design problems until1973, and never objected to rear-end fuel tank integrity. Tom Feaheny (1997) was worried about the lack of safety glass on all Ford models, and viewed the Pinto gas tank as a "nonissue" by comparison.

In sum, the design stage was not characterized by an engineering consensus that the Pinto was Nunsafe." The value of crash tests was unclear. The Pinto's specific "problem" (e.g., frontal fuel tank integrity, safety glass) varied among those few engineers troubled by the car's safety performance. A "safe" placement of the gas tank was not identified, and the safety value of potential design changes was subject to disagreement. Additionally, engineers believed that the crash test performance of other small cars, particularly imports, was "terrible" (Feaheny 1997). Given this background and the host of other safety issues confronting engineers as a result of the recently passed MVSA, it is not surprising that many Pinto engineers and their family members (e.g., the chief systems engineer's wife) drove Pintos (Strobel1980).

In the design stage (1967-1970), no company or government standard on rear-end fuel tank integrity existed to guide the engineers, but their actions were consistent with the takenfor- granted, industry-wide tradition of building lower levels of crashworthiness into small cars. This situation changed in the marketing stage (post 1970). Shortly after the 1971 model year Pintos were released, Ford adopted an internal20 mile-per-hour moving barrier standard for the 1973 model year-the only manufacturer to do so (Gioia 1996; Strobel 1994). The extant legal/regulatory environment reinforced engineers' beliefs that this standard was Nquite reasonable" since it was the "same one recommended at that time by the federal General Services Administration; the Canadian equivalent of the GSA; the Society of Automotive Engineers; and a private consulting firm hired by NHTSA ... " and by NHTSA itself in 1969 (Strobel 1980:205). This standard would constrain future debates by certifying the Pinto as "safe" to Ford's subunit charged with evaluating potential recallable safety problems.

Most Ford technical core personnel became less involved with Pinto safety during the marketing stage. One exception was Dennis Gioia, who began a new job in another part of Ford's technical core in the summer of 1972. A self-described Mchild of the '60s," Gioia ( 1992:379) hoped to change an industry he saw as insensitive to safety concerns. Within one year, this inexperienced recent MBA graduate was promoted to Field Recall Coordinator and charged with coordinating all active safety recall campaigns and identifying potential safety problems. Thus Ford had at least one individual in its technical core with the inclinations and authority, though little experience or organizational power, for taking a stand on the Pinto gas tank issue.

When Gioia became Recall Coordinator, he inherited about 100 active recall campaigns, half of them safety-related. As with most jobs, the enormous workload required him to use Mstandard operating procedures" (SOPs) to organize and manage information for decision making (d. Kriesberg 1976:1102). SOPs increase organizational efficiency by operating as cognitive scripts that transform decision-making opportunities into largely predetermined action patterns. Existing SOPs required that, to be "recallable," problems needed either high frequency or a directly traceable causal link to a design defect.

When reports began to trickle in to Gioia that Pintos were "lighting up" in relatively low speed accidents, and after viewing the burned wreckage of a Pinto, he initiated a meeting to determine if this represented a recallable problem. His work group voted unanimously not to recall the Pinto because the weak data did not meet SOP criteria (Gioia 1996). The work group was unaware of any cost-benefit analyses or Pinto crash test results.

Reports of Pinto fires continued to trickle in, and eventually Gioia did become aware of, and concerned about, the crash test results. Again he wondered if the Pinto had a recallable problem, so he initiated a second meeting to convince his co-workers that crash tests showed a possible design flaw. But others again saw no design flaws-after all, the Pinto met internal company standards, and no contradictory external standard existed. The work group conceived the tank leak "problem" not as a defect, but as a fundamental and unalterable design feature: the car's small size, the use of light metals, and unibody construction produced a tendency for Pintos (and others in its class) to "crush up like an accordion" in rear-end collisions (Gioia 1996). In light of what they believed, work group members felt they would become the "laughing stock" of the company if they recommended a recall (Gioia 1996). But fear of ridicule did not motivate their vote. They doubted a recall's legitimacy, or its chances of approval.



'''NHTSA's Role In The Landmark Narrative

We now consider NHTSA's often contradictory contribution to the Pinto landmark narrative. Two issues are of primary importance: the selection of the Pinto for recall and NHTSA's use of cost-benefit analysis. NHTSA ultimately recalled the Pinto, but this outcome was far from predictable given the agency's record on the issue of fuel tank integrity. NHTSA's top administrator even testified on behalf of Ford in the Pinto's criminal trial (Strobel 1980). While NHTSA's actions appear Mrational" from a distance, like Ford's they were the product of compromise, conflicting organizational interests and routines, and environmental pressures and constraints.

Before we examine NHTSA's actions concerning the Pinto, some background is necessary. Most accidents involve multiple factors contributing to the crash itself or the resulting death and injury. In detailed studies of specific accidents (see NHTSA C7-38), NHTSA employees made numerous recommendations for tougher standards regarding driver behavior (e.g., drunk driving laws), road safety (e.g., guardrails), and vehicle design (e.g., airbag standards). Outside parties (e.g., consumer groups, insurance companies, state government agencies) lobbied NHTSA to take action on particular problems. Therefore, deciding which problems to address was far from clear, given the blizzard of information and cross-pressures (Mashaw and Harfst 1990). Following two fuel tank burn deaths when a large truck rear-ended a Pinto in 1976, for instance, Pennsylvania's Bureau of Traffic Engineering pleaded with NHTSA for tougher truck braking standards, not auto fuel tank integrity standards.

As early as 1968, the year of its creation, NHTSA had attempted to adopt a fuel tank integrity standard. The specifics of the standard were subject to much disagreement. In addition to dealing with industry claims that NHTSA's fuel tank integrity proposals would prove ineffective, NHTSA had to son through a fog of ambiguous data on vehicle fires. An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study (NHTSA C7-38), for instance, reported that only 72 (out of a sample of 1,923) fires in 1973 resulted from collisions. Of these 72 fires, only 24 originated in the fuel tank-most began in the engine compartment and were caused by electrical shorts. Additionally, a number of factors affected the likelihood of vehicle fires, including make and age of the vehicle.

The Pinto landmark narrative describes unique design features that purportedly made the Pinto less crashwonhy than other cars: for example, bolts on the differential housing and a fuel filler pipe that easily pulled out in collisions. Yet these same issues had been identified much earlier with other cars. For example, a 1970 NHTSA report (C7-38), along with a 1968 Society of Automotive Engineers report, found that pre-1967 Ford sedans exhibited "gross fuel spillage [in crash tests] arising out of the detachment of the filler spout" and tank punctures caused by a "poorly located track-bar bolt." NHTSA did not recall these cars to fix this acceptable risk.

'''Forcing a "Voluntary" Recall

In September, 1974, NHTSA crash-tested a number of vehicles, including the Pinto, Mto verify the [Department of Transportation's] rear-end moving barrier procedure ... " (NHTSA C7-38). Several cars, including the Pinto, exhibited significant fuel loss in 30 mile-per-hour tests. A 1969 Plymouth station wagon exhibited a Msteady flow of fuel." Like the Ford crash- test reports discussed above, NHTSA's report expressed neither shock nor concern, concluding only that "The tests indicated that the procedure would produce repeatable test results." None of the cars were subjected to follow-up studies or recall proceedings. 5 Also in 1974, Ralph Nader's Center for Auto Safety asked NHTSA to investigate Pinto fuel tank integrity. NHTSA beliefs and procedures were similar to Ford's: not enough evidence existed to warrant a full defect investigation (Graham I 991). The Pinto had no "recallable" problem, even though people were dying in Pinto fires.

By 1977, the social context had changed. '''Dowie's (1977:18) article had labeled the Pinto a "firetrap" and accused the agency of buckling to auto-industry pressure. Public interest generated by the article forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that NHTSA would be under a microscope for its duration.'''

NHTSA engineer Lee Strickland was assigned to determine if Pinto (and Chevrolet Vega) tank problems warranted a mandatory recall. Strickland's work group held the Pinto and Vega to a higher standard than other cars (Strickland 1996). It dispensed with the usual moving barrier. Instead, it intentionally selected a large and particularly rigid "bullet car" to hit the Pinto's rear end. It weighed down the bullet car's nose to slide under the Pinto and maximize gas tank contact. It also turned on the bullet car's headlights to provide a ready source of ignition. And it completely filled gas tanks in both cars with gasoline rather than the non-flammable Stoddard fluid normally used. Strickland justified these actions as approximating real-world worst-case circumstances (Davidson 1983; NHTSA C7-38; Strickland 1996).

For NHTSA, the tests seemed an unqualified success: two 1972 Pintos burst into flame upon impact. In the summer of 1978 NHTSA announced that the Pinto gas tank represented a safety defect, leading to the largest recall campaign in automobile history at that time (NHTSA C7-38; Strickland 1996). Ford agreed to "voluntarily" recall 1971-1976 Pintos. Other small cars sold during the 1 970s were not recalled, even though most were comparable, or in the case of the AMC Gremlin probably less safe (Schwartz 1991; NHTSA C7-38; Swigert and Farrell 1980- 81:180). Their manufacturers successfully defended them as acceptable risks (see Wallace 1978). When we asked why NHTSA forced a Pinto recall for failing the 35 mile-per-hour test, although most small cars could not withstand such a test, Strickland ( 1996) analogized that, "Just because your friends get away with shoplifting, doesn't mean you should get away with it too."

'''Selection of the Pinto

Beginning in the late 1970s, claims consistent with "Pinto Madness" readily gained public acceptance, but credible contradictory claims did not (e.g., Davidson 1983; Epstein 1980). For instance, Dowie's "conservative" estimate of 500 deaths (1977:18) was accepted, while NHTSA's report that it could document only 27 Pinto fire-related deaths (NHTSA C7-38; Frank 1985) was ignored. A transmission problem that also caused 27 Pinto deaths (and 180 on other Ford products [Clarke 1988]) never became a social problem. Similarly, publics accepted claims of safety errors leveled by Harley Copp, a Ford engineer who was apparently overseas when early crucial decisions were made (Camps 1997; Strobel 1980), but ignored other safety-conscious Pinto engineers who believed windshield retention was a more important safety problem (Camps 1997), and lack of safety glass caused more deaths (Feaheny 1997).

Ford's cost-benefit analysis, a normal product of an interorganizational network, also facilitated the selection of the Pinto for inordinate attention. The year Ford sent the Grush/Saunby document to NHTSA (thus making it available to outside audiences), General Motors conducted a similar cost-benefit analysis (Nader and Smith 1996). Like Grush/Saunby, this analysis used the government's $200,000 figure as the value of a human life. Unlike Grush/Saunby, which addressed static rollover for all cars and light trucks, the GM analysis looked specifically at rearend collisions on its own cars. These facts suggest that GM would have made a better target for Dowie's analysis, but the GM document did not enter the public record until 1988. Contingencies led to the identification of Ford as deviant, while other auto makers escaped scrutiny.

By the time of its Pinto investigation, NHTSA had essentially abandoned its original mission of forcing industry-wide safety improvements, in favor of investigating and recalling specific cars (Mashaw and Harfst 1990). NHTSA had two primary incentives in reinforcing the extant Nfocal organization" imagery of the Pinto narrative. First, NHTSA was pressured by specific organizations in its network (e.g., the Center for Auto Safety) and members of the public (see NHTSA C7-38) to take action on the Pinto's gas tank. Second, other network actors (e.g., courts, the Nixon administration, the auto industry) had increasingly limited NHTSA's ability to address systemic auto safety issues.


 * Are we in agreement the current article content is not a good paraphrase? The current article content is a very strong statement explicitly specifying three factors as together the compelling cause of the NHTSA investigation of the Pinto. The current article content claims that three things "forced" the NHTSA to investigate the Pinto:
 * The Mother Jones article saying the Pinto was a firetrap;
 * The Mother Jones article saying the NHTSA was lenient on automakers; and
 * public interest created by sensationalized new stories
 * Meanwhile, the source says only that "public interest generated by the article forced..." I do not find support for the first two of these three factors as "forcing" the investigation anywhere in Lee & Ermann. I believe we should restrict ourselves to carefully summarizing noteworthy reliable sources. A reasonably accurate paraphrase of the source is proposed. The reasons why the NHTSA investigated are sufficiently complex that it is ill advised to attempt any summarization of the causes of the NHTSA investigation in one or even a few sentences, in our facts and events section, even if attributed in-text and not in Wikipedia voice. I would look forward to collaborating on summarizing Lee and Ermann's from 1999, and others', main views in the "Subsequent analysis" subsection. May I respectfully suggest our approach should be that our article quote the Mother Jones death claims in the context of the Mother Jones article, and quote the NHTSA number in the context of the finding of defect notice to Ford, and trust our readers to see the difference, and in case anyone doesn't get it, paraphrase Lee and Ermann 1999 analysis highlighting the discrepancy in the "Subsequent analysis" section; embracing the editorial principles of facts first, and when sources differ we include the difference. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 05:34, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, we are not in agreement that it's a poor paraphrase. Springee (talk) 10:15, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If the current article content is a reasonable paraphrase of reliable sources, do you have reliable sources that say that the NHTSA investigation was the result of three things, two of which were the Mother Jones article calling the Pinto a "firetrap" and the Mother Jones article saying the NHTSA was lenient on automakers? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 14:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Support as proposer. This sentence is the single most significant problem sentence in the current article content, since it misleads our readers. The content is sourced to one academic journal article, with in-text attribution, but the paraphrase of the source in our article is not supported by the source or any other source. The sentence is an overly-strong claim explicitly identifying a unreasonably small set of three very specific factors which alone compelled the NHTSA to investigate the Pinto. No source says that Mother Jones calling the Pinto a "firetrap" forced the NHTSA to investigate and no source says that Mother Jones saying that the NHTSA was lenient on automakers forced the NHTSA to investigate. The vast majority of reliable sources are in substantial agreement that the precedent events and the reasons why the NHTSA investigated the Pinto are numerous and diverse. The paraphrase currently in the article so far exceeds the claims of the cited source, and all other sources, so as to constitute original research. Fixing it is an editorial priority with this article. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 14:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Fairly clear WP:NPOV issues. NickCT (talk) 05:13, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment. The above proposed edit is intended to correct an inaccurate paraphrase currently in our article. May I respectfully ask, do you know of reliable sources that support the current article content? May I request that you clarify the neutrality issues you perceive with the proposed edit? Thank you again. Hugh (talk) 16:23, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Do we have enough editors to ask for a lift of the article edit lock?
It seems we now have five active editors on this page. Is this enough to ask for a lift of the page lock? I think at this point we can discuss things as a group. What are the thoughts of others? Springee (talk) 20:59, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The lock is necessary; more discussion is required; the lock should stay as long as we have tendentious editors who are unclear on fundamentals of Wikipedia editing including the distinction on Wikipedia between facts and events and opinions and interpretations. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:49, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry that you are unclear on the fundamentals of Wikipedia. Springee (talk) 00:17, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * We can probably lift the lock. We're going to have tendentious editors until HughD chooses to go away.
 * - Seriously dude. Springee and I don't see eye-to-eye on some of the points in this article. The difference between us and you is that User:Springee and I seem willing to calmly discuss our differences and seek compromise.
 * Tone it down. Maybe you can join us. NickCT (talk) 18:11, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

If two more editors agree that we have enough active editors to lift the lock I will put in the request. With just two editors it's hard for admins to identify the source of a disruption. It becomes he said, she said and it's the reason why the article was locked vs an editor sanctioned. However, if there are 4-5 active editors then I think the group can discuss and veto the actions of one and lodge a stronger ANI if need be. Springee (talk) 20:03, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * In the 10 days since the lock, not a single edit has been proposed at talk that achieved consensus and was incorporated into the article, strongly suggesting a lack of consensus, that additional dialog is required, and that lifting the lock would be premature. Admins will look for one or more proposed edits achieving talk page consensus through discussion. Why don't you express your support for one of the above proposed edits or propose an edit as per WP:EDITREQ? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 21:06, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * More distortions from HughD. Nobody has challenged my review of the frozen article, indeed an admin has started to work on them. So in fact there are several edits which have been proposed and one assumes consensed if only by silence. As I requested I would like a breathing space once the lock comes off to actually implement those suggestions.   Greglocock (talk) 00:25, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * , thank you for your review. May I respectfully ask you to provide diffs of your proposed edits you refer to which have been implemented in the article during the page lock? Who is the administrator you refer to as implementing your proposed edits? Also, would you please propose specific edits, with sufficient detail that an administrator might implement them, for comment? Please see WP:Edit requests. Consensus on even one edit would show progress. Thank you again. Hugh (talk) 01:22, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Hugh, while I understand that 's 50+ edits per day were problematic, I think with a larger group of editors we can work together to handle any edits he tries to force on the article without consensus. Springee (talk) 01:39, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Silly Hugh can't even do a diff to find out the name of the admin who has implemented changes to the article without Hugh's permission. No Hugh, i am not going to waste my time doing your bidding. Greglocock (talk) 04:58, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * What changes? Posting deliberately misleading claims on an article talk page is a serious violation of talk page behavior guidelines. Hugh (talk) 15:11, 23 March 2016 (UTC) Since the edit lock, there has been one (1) edit to the article, a correction to a verb tense. What am I missing? I can't find the efforts of an administrator to implement your proposed edits you describe. Please help. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Despite your logorrhea your grasp of English is shoddy. Lies is not a tense of lives it is a different word entirely. You said " not a single edit has been proposed at talk that achieved consensus and was incorporated into the article" yet I demonstrated that one edit has in fact been made, thereby demonstrating your statement was false, if we accept silence as consensus which is what I proposed.Greglocock (talk) 20:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for proposing the typographic revision, but not sure kicking back and waiting for an admin to implement your proposals will help us demonstrate consensus so the edit lock can be lifted. Have you had a chance to look at WP:EDITREQ? We are asked to prepare our proposals in sufficient detail that our colleagues can express support and then an uninvolved administrator might be able to apply the edit. Will you please participate? Thank you again. Hugh (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * More timewasting from the king of time wasters. I shall edit this article as I see fit, thank you. That has worked well for many years.Greglocock (talk) 22:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

"...breathing space once the lock comes off..." The edit lock changes very little; with the edit lock, we need to achieve consensus for edits, and without the edit lock, we need to achieve consensus for edits. The only thing different is the relatively minor issue of the mechanics of applying the consensus edit in article space. and, do I understand from your comments here, that you do not intent to participate in the process described at WP:EDITREQ, preferring instead argue for an unlock, or to wait out the edit lock, and to demand the community confer on you exclusive rights to edit the article? Hugh (talk) 15:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Don't try and foretell my actions HughD. I have been editing wiki long enough to know how to edit an article. You on the other hand seem inclined to waste everybody's time and energy. I don't remember having to work with a worse editor than you. Thanks for nothing. Greglocock (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * We are all volunteers, my good colleague, do what you want, but I ask again that you join in collaborating at article talk. The edit lock is scheduled until 14 April or until disputes are resolved. If by April 14 we have not managed to achieve consensus on even a very few edits, the edit lock may be extended. Please advance one of your proposals as per WP:EDITREQ. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:00, 24 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Hugh (talk) 16:29, 26 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The uninvolved editor will note that this section invoked begins "There is no official policy regarding when or whether most personal attacks should be removed, although it has been a topic of substantial debate." i.e., HughD is assuming a policy agrees with him, rather than actually read it. At least, that's the more charitable assumption.  Anmccaff (talk) 16:46, 26 March 2016 (UTC)