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.

Car Safety Wars is a concise history of the hundred-year struggle for safer cars and highways, involving at least six presidents, reluctant congresses, a fiercely resisting automobile industry, unsung heroes, and GM detectives.

Examining the state-of-the-art in passenger car vehicle safety, the book features thorough discussion of the interrelationships among the occupant, the vehicle, and the restraint system (in frontal, lateral, and rear impacts and rollover).

Dont be a Dummy is a primer on automotive safety. It is Auto Safety 101. What every driver or passenger should know because it May Save Your Life; or a loved one. The author uses personal experience and crash dummies to explain the consequences of not following the laws of Physics and not utilizing the safety features that are available to both drivers and passengers of automotive vehicles. The focus of this book is driver-responsibility and the need to educate the public about common hazards and vehicle misuse. Large car versus small car data analysis warns about vehicle incompatibility and the need for purchasers to consider the serious consequences of selecting a vehicle to buy based only on fuel economy and low cost. Federal safety standards are discussed and what the Five (5) Star Rating System really means. The quest for fuel economy may risk your familys life or result in serious injury! Fuel economy may be false economy! The size and weight of your vehicle can mean life or death or serious injury! Protect loved ones and save the children. Always use the proper child restraint! Speed, Alcohol and Drugs are killers. Dont be a Dummy!