Ralph Nader still swinging at corporate America
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09293/1006867-84.stm
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
By Erich Schwartzel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Ralph Nader wanted to inspire students last night, even if they did
"grow up corporate" and attend "a high-priced tool factory"
(translation: a major university).
Mr. Nader, a consumer advocate and perennial presidential candidate,
spoke to more than 200 people at Point Park University. His speech
was titled "The Mega Corporate Destruction of Capitalism and Democracy."
It was not a night for ambivalence.
"I want your indignation level to start rising," Mr. Nader said as he
covered topics as varied as chronic pill-popping and chronic iPod
use. The flood of screens in students' lives, from big-screen
televisions to miniature cell phones, is the "new opiate of the
people," he said.
People are inundated with corporate advertising that undermines
personal choice, and Mr. Nader wanted his audience to break the cycle.
He challenged the college-aged listeners by asking what response
they'll have for grandchildren who want to know why they didn't do
more to help their country. "I was just too busy updating my profile
on Facebook?" he asked.
Mr. Nader ran for president as the Green Party candidate in 1996 and
2000, then as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008.
He had plenty to say on the financial collapses of this past year,
calling Washington, D.C., "a corporate state" that caters to big
business interests.
Mr. Nader sees fault on both sides, in the corporations that
collapsed and the government that rushed to save them.
In an interview with the Post-Gazette, Mr. Nader said he had little
faith in any financial regulation coming from the Obama administration.
He described officials like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as
"straight out of Wall Street," and said no real change can occur
until voters realize that corporations are "our servants, not our masters."
Federal bailouts grant "privileges and immunities not given to
individuals," he said, adding, "the real capitalists in this country
are small businesses."
He's a staple on the lecture circuit, but Mr. Nader also came to
Point Park to pitch his latest book, a 733-page novel, "Only the
Super-Rich Can Save Us!"
The book is about a "practical utopia" that imagines a world in which
real-life millionaires -- including Warren Buffet and Yoko Ono --
form a goodwill coalition.
By blending elements of fiction and nonfiction, Mr. Nader said he
hoped to give readers a chance to imagine what's possible once they
have "a sense of potential power."
And while he said he liked Pittsburgh and guessed this was his 80th
visit, Mr. Nader acknowledged some frustration with the Keystone State.
"Pennsylvania is one of the worst, most difficult states for
third-party candidates to get on the ballot," he said, as staff
passed around a sign-up sheet for Nader mailing lists.
--
Erich Schwartzel can be reached at eschwartzel@post-gazette.com or
412-263-1455.
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He's safer, and so are you
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/auto/hes-safer-and-so-are-you/article12592/
Crash test dummies aren't the only ones smiling. Advances in safety
technology mean that we are all driving more securely than ever before
JEREMY CATO
Feb. 12, 2009
Unsafe at Any Speed, Ralph Nader's 1965 polemic against the dangers
of automobiles and the ruthlessness of car companies, took consumer
advocacy to a new level and forever changed automobiles and the auto industry.
Some would argue, and I'd be among them, that Nader has had a greater
impact on the auto industry than the likes of Henry Ford, Billy
Durant, Gottlieb Daimler, Karl Benz, Kiichiro Toyoda, Soichiro Honda
or any other auto pioneer - a greater impact than all of them put
together, in fact.
Ralph Nader put safety on the map in the auto industry. His
blistering dissection of safety and environmental issues in the car
business rattled Detroit, then the undisputed centre of the auto world..
General Motors, particularly incensed by Nader's criticisms of the
Corvair - some of which remain in dispute to this day - went so far
as to hire private investigators in a campaign of harassment and
intimation. Nader's book clearly had an amplified impact as a result
of the personal attacks on him.
Some of Nader's assertions and conclusions have proven questionable,
even doubtful, in the 44 years since, but Nader was at the forefront
of setting in motion a sea change in both the auto industry and in
government regulation.
It may have been the case back in 1965, as Nader asserted in the
book, that styling changes added $700 to the price of a new car,
versus about 23 cents spent on safety by auto makers. But no longer.
Industry analysts today suggest that regulatory costs associated with
safety and emissions account for about one-third of the development
price tag of a new vehicle. The result of this investment is that
today 99 per cent of smog-forming vehicle emissions have been
scrubbed away compared to the unregulated 1960s, and it's hard to
find a truly "unsafe" car.
In fact, the U.S. government crash test program, administered by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(http://www.safercar.gov), most often awards a best-possible
five-star crash test rating for front and side impacts to the
vehicles its runs through the program.
At the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
(http://www.iihs.org), the insurance industry-funded agency that
conducts a more stringent independent crash test program than the
U.S. government, the list of Top Safety Picks among 2009 models
includes 72 separate models. Almost every category, from mini-cars to
pickup trucks, has a winner.
Indeed, NHTSA officials decided that this avalanche of best-possible
safety scores had become an embarrassment. So many top scores
suggested that its New Car Assessment Program had become dated, even
irrelevant. So the agency is doing an overhaul of the crash-test
program to make the tests more challenging.
The changes at NHTSA will take effect with the 2011 model year.
(Note: Transport Canada also does crash tests, but the results are
not made public, therefore the best source for safety information is
through U.S. sources.)
All production vehicles sold in Canada now come with standard seat
belts and front airbags, just two of a handful of safety features
that industry experts say help save lives each year. Side impact and
overhead curtain airbags are also fairly common, even in some of most
affordable cars. Anti-lock braking (ABS), electronic stability
control (ESC) and tire-pressure monitoring systems are also
commonplace in affordable vehicles, not just premium models.
Then there is the basic engineering. All cars and light trucks are
designed to absorb the energy of an impact in ways that dissipate
much of the force away from the passenger compartment.
The so-called safety cell absorbs force in a sort of accordion-like
fashion. Engines and transmissions, meanwhile, are engineered to dive
under the passenger compartment in an impact. Even below-the-waist
impacts are being ameliorated by available knee airbags.
The safety offered in vehicles today is a product of the blending of
mechanical and electrical engineering.
For example, ABS prevents a car's wheels from locking by taking wheel
sensor readings and then rapidly applying intermittent brake pressure
when a driver brakes. This allows the driver to steer and maintain control.
ESC builds on the ABS system by sensing impending skids and slides
and preventing them by applying the brakes to bring the car back
under control. Electronic controls manage the whole thing.
ESC is truly a cutting-edge technological advance, but by far not the
only one. The newest safety features are designed to prevent crashes
from happening altogether. Lane-departure warning systems, for
instance, alert drivers as they swerve into other lanes.
Mercedes-Benz was a pioneer in taking these types of systems further.
The 2003 Mercedes-Benz S-Class was the world's first production car
equipped with a system designed to sense a possible collision and,
just before the crash, automatically apply protective measures such
as tightening seatbelts, adjusting the seating position and even
closing the sunroof to protect passengers in a rollover. The Mercedes
Pre-Safe system works in conjunction with ESC.
Of course, even the best technology can't prevent some accidents.
That's where seat belts come in. The original safety device, seat
belts are still key for passengers to remain safe in a crash.
Still, advanced safety developments keep coming. For example, rear
parking sensors and rear cameras are now common as a way to warn
drivers about people or objects behind them.
However, some of the new safety gear billed as "technological
breakthroughs" have only limited protective value or may be misused,
the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety notes in a report released
last year.
So-called "crash-avoidance" devices may not work as planned when
drivers ignore the warnings, turn them off or drive with less care.
Blind-spot detection devices aren't likely to save many lives,
either, the IIHS suggests. Blind spots seldom lead to fatal crashes.
What the industry calls "adaptive" headlights might not be a benefit
to all drivers. Adaptive headlights help drivers literally see around
curves and corners, but the IIHS says they may not be of any use to
drivers who drive faster than speeds for which the technology is designed.
But the IIHS does like features such as Pre-Safe and other similar
technologies that warn of impending crashes -- especially when paired
with automatic braking.
Take the collision-warning system in the current Volvo S80. It teams
with the radar-based adaptive cruise control - a system designed
automatically to adjust your speed to keep a safe distance between
you and the car ahead - to alert the driver to an impending crash.
An audible warning and a flashing red light projected on to the
windshield signal an impending crash. At that point, the brakes are
primed to deploy full stopping power regardless of what pressure the
driver has on the brake pedal. Lane-departure warnings are also good.
These types of systems "show more potential to avoid or mitigate
crashes, including fatal ones," the IIHS report says.
Passenger vehicles today, then, are dramatically safer than anything
Ralph Nader imagined back in 1965. The changes have come far enough
that perhaps it's time for a new book: Safe at Many Speeds.
--
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