Unsafe at Any Speed PDF Download

Author: Ralph Nader
Publisher: New York : Grossman
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 396

View

Book Description
Account of how and why cars kill, and why the automobile manufacturers have failed to make cars safe.

Author: Michael R. Lemov
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611477468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

View

Book Description
Car Safety Wars is a gripping history of the hundred-year struggle to improve the safety of American automobiles and save lives on the highways. Described as the “equivalent of war” by the Supreme Court, the battle involved the automobile industry, unsung and long-forgotten safety heroes, at least six US Presidents, a reluctant Congress, new auto technologies, and, most of all, the mindset of the American public: would they demand and be willing to pay for safer cars? The “Car Safety Wars” were at first won by consumers and safety advocates. The major victory was the enactment in 1966 of a ground breaking federal safety law. The safety act was pushed through Congress over the bitter objections of car manufacturers by a major scandal involving General Motors, its private detectives, Ralph Nader, and a gutty cigar-chomping old politician. The act is a success story for government safety regulation. It has cut highway death and injury rates by over seventy percent in the years since its enactment, saving more than two million lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. But the car safety wars have never ended. GM has recently been charged with covering up deadly defects resulting in multiple ignition switch shut offs. Toyota has been fined for not reporting fatal unintended acceleration in many models. Honda and other companies have—for years—sold cars incorporating defective air bags. These current events, suggesting a failure of safety regulation, may serve to warn us that safety laws and agencies created with good intentions can be corrupted and strangled over time. This book suggests ways to avoid this result, but shows that safer cars and highways are a hard road to travel. We are only part of the way home.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobiles
Languages : en
Pages : 12

View

Book Description

Author: Ulrich Seiffert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 304

View

Book Description
Examines the state-of-the-art in passenger car vehicle safety. Looks at both active and passive safety systems. Describes basic relationships and new developments related to accident avoidance (including man/machine interface) and mitigation of injuries. In addition to detail on accident avoidance, occupant protection and biomechanics, the book features thorough discussion of the interrelationships among the occupant, the vehicle and the restraint system (in frontal, lateral, rear impacts and rollover). Other subjects covered include safety legislation, vehicle body and interior design, accident simulation tests, pedestrian protection and compatibility.

Author: Samuel I Schwartz
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541724046
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 266

View

Book Description
The country's leading transport expert describes how the driverless vehicle revolution will transform highways, cities, workplaces and laws not just here, but across the globe. Our time at the wheel is done. Driving will become illegal, as human drivers will be demonstrably more dangerous than cars that pilot themselves. Is this an impossible future, or a revolution just around the corner? Sam Schwartz, America's most celebrated transportation guru, describes in this book the revolution in self-driving cars. The ramifications will be dramatic, and the transition will be far from seamless. It will overturn the job market for the one in seven Americans who work in the trucking industry. It will cause us to grapple with new ethical dilemmas-if a car will hit a person or a building, endangering the lives of its passengers, who will decide what it does? It will further erode our privacy, since the vehicle can relay our location at any moment. And, like every other computer-controlled device, it can be vulnerable to hacking. Right now, every major car maker here and abroad is working on bringing autonomous vehicles to consumers. The fleets are getting ready to roll and nothing will ever be the same, and this book shows us what the future has in store.

Author: J.-S. Wang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Traffic accidents
Languages : en
Pages : 74

View

Book Description

Author: Jo Ann Jenkins
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1610396766
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 274

View

Book Description
This book "sets out to change the current conversation about what it means to get older. In it, Jenkins chronicles her own journey, as well as those of others who are making their mark as disrupters, to show readers how we can all be active, financially unburdened, and happy as we get older. It's [a] ... narrative that touches on all the important issues facing people 50+ today, from caregiving and mindful living to building age-friendly communities and attaining financial freedom"--

Author: George A. Peters
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0203166302
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 231

View

Book Description
Automotive Vehicle Safety is a unique academic text, practical design guide and valuable reference book. It provides information that is essential for specialists to make better-informed decisions. The book identifies and discusses key generic safety principles and their applications and includes decision-making criteria, examples and remedies. It

Author: James M. Anderson
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833084372
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 215

View

Book Description
The automotive industry appears close to substantial change engendered by “self-driving” technologies. This technology offers the possibility of significant benefits to social welfare—saving lives; reducing crashes, congestion, fuel consumption, and pollution; increasing mobility for the disabled; and ultimately improving land use. This report is intended as a guide for state and federal policymakers on the many issues that this technology raises.

Author: Jerry L. Mashaw
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674423466
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300

View

Book Description
Combining superb investigative reporting with incisive analysis, Jerry Mashaw and David Harfst provide a compelling account of the attempt to regulate auto safety in America. Their penetrating look inside the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) spans two decades and reveals the complexities of regulating risk in a free society. Hoping to stem the tide of rising automobile deaths and injuries, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966. From that point on, automakers would build cars under the watchful eyes of the federal regulators at NHTSA. Curiously, however, the agency abandoned its safety mission of setting, monitoring, and enforcing performance standards in favor of the largely symbolic act of recalling defective autos. Mashaw and Harfst argue that the regulatory shift from rules to recalls was neither a response to a new vision of the public interest nor a result of pressure by the auto industry or other interest groups. Instead, the culprit was the legal environment surrounding NHTSA and other regulatory agencies such as the EPA, OSHA, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The authors show how NHTSA's decisions as well as its organization, processes, and personnel were reoriented in order to comply with the demands of a legal culture that proved surprisingly resistant to regulatory pressures. This broad-gauged view of NHTSA has much to say about political idealism and personal ambition, scientific commitment and professional competition, long-range vision and political opportunism. A fascinating illustration of America's ambivalence over whether government is a source of--or solution to--social ills, The Struggle for Auto Safety offers important lessons about the design and management of effective health and safety regulatory agencies today.