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TIERNAN: Big Three should live by own rules of no government involvement

By Robert R. Tiernan

Published December 9, 2008 at 12:01 a.m.

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It has been 25 years since I testified before the Senate Commerce Committee at the request of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in support of a federal mandate for airbags. Earlier that year, our youngest son, Timothy, had died from a catastrophic head injury suffered in a car crash. He was injured on Aug. 7, 1981, at the age of 13 and died on Jan. 24, 1983, at the age of 15. He had laid in a coma for that entire period of time: 536 days, nearly a year and a half.

An airbag would have prevented his injury and saved his life.

I remember Sen. John Danforth, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, asking one of the top Reagan administration officials why the Department of Transportation had not mandated airbags years earlier. The response was that a cost-benefit ratio had been done and it was concluded that the cost of the technology outweighed the projected costs of death and injury which airbags would prevent. Sen. Danforth was shocked at such insensitivity and it still sickens me to recall it.

After that hearing, a small group of us decided to push for airbags in every way we could. When we looked at the history of the issue, we realized that airbags could have been standard equipment in cars as early as the mid-1970s. In 1971 the Department of Transportation was poised to issue a regulation requiring the phasing-in of airbags. The proposed regulation was scrapped, however, after Lee Iaccoca (then president of Ford) and Ford Chairman Henry Ford II met with President Richard Nixon at the White House in October 1971. Later in the 1970s, the Carter administration attempted to revive the regulation but, again, it was sidetracked by the domestic auto industry. Had either one of those regulations gone into effect there would have been an airbag in the 1982 Plymouth Reliant in which our son Tim was mortally injured. He would be alive today and would have celebrated his 41st birthday on Nov. 8.

Nearly everywhere our small group went we met with resistance. The Department of Transportation, the National Safety Council, the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association, the United Auto Workers Union, even the PTA. The tentacles of GM, Ford, and Chrysler reached into every corner.

In the end we prevailed probably more as the result of foreign manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and Volvo than our own efforts. These and other foreign manufacturers began to equip their cars with airbags in the mid- to late-1980s and literally dragged GM, Ford, and Chrysler into accepting this technology - a technology that, ironically, had been developed in the United States and should have been employed by our domestic auto industry to gain an advantage over imports. Instead, industry resisted with an effort that can only be described as brutal. These are the same people who gave us the infamous Ford Pinto, pickups with exposed gas tanks that exploded in side collisions, and other defectively designed vehicles that brought pain, suffering and death to thousands upon thousands of American motorists.

When one looks at the history of the domestic auto industry, one sees that it has consistently opposed every government initiative to make cars safer and more fuel efficient. In fact, it has treated government as an enemy. The reason the industry is in such trouble today is because of its shortsightedness and refusal to build cars that the public wanted. It literally turned the market over to foreign manufacturers. What makes anyone think things will be any different if we shower them with billions and billions of taxpayer money?

I can’t begin to say how galling it was for me to see Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a group of other government officials sitting across the table from the top executives of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler considering a proposal to provide federal funds to rescue the industry. Everyone was smiling but me. I couldn’t help but think of the industry’s morbid history and how the recklessness of the industry had killed and injured not only Tim, but countless others.

I wanted to say to myself that I need to forgive and forget but I just can’t. How does a father forget the death of his child, and how or even why should he forgive an industry which never gave a damn about the safety of its customers? When Pelosi was quoted as saying that we need to forget the past and help the industry in this difficult time, it made me angry. It’s easy for her to say such a thoughtless thing because her family is intact.

Our family has to live with the loss of Tim and don’t think that he isn’t on our minds every hour of every day. We don’t want to live with the thought that the very industry that was responsible for Tim’s death and the deaths of so many others will now be allowed to turn to us as taxpayers and take our money. It’s time for the industry to be forced to live by the rule it wrote - no government involvement in our business.

Robert R. Tiernan of Denver was chairman of the Airbag Information Center, Inc. from 1983-1986.

Comments

  • December 9, 2008

    12:45 a.m.

    Clarence_Boddicker writes:

    (This comment was removed by the site staff.)

  • December 9, 2008

    3:42 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    roger44 writes:

    Clarence, you are not too smart, making such a statement without knowing exactly what happened. The man lost a child because of the auto industry failures and I'd bet if you were in his company you are the kind of guy that wouldn't have the guts to say it to his face, hide behind the internet.

  • December 9, 2008

    4:54 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Brian1973 writes:

    The man lost a child probably because of the auto industry failures and I'd bet if you were in his company you are the kind of guy that wouldn't have the guts to say it to his face, hide behind the internet.

    Fixed it for you.

    I'm a big believer of "if it's your time, it's your time" If the airbag had saved him something else would have happened. I may be wrong in that belief, but I've seen some odd stuff in my lifetime that re-enforces it.

  • December 9, 2008

    6:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    VVVV writes:

    Nothing will bring Tim back, and nothing will change the failure due to arrogance of the American automotive industry. Billions are only a bandaid on an artery. If they are forced to build high technology cars with improved gas mileage or hybrids, the Pinto will look like a Rolls.

  • December 9, 2008

    6:43 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    Let them go under. Bad business management does not deserve to be rewarded. Only politicians get rewarded for sloppiness and bad judgment.

  • December 9, 2008

    7:12 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    farsidefan writes:

    The industry has stifled any ideas that would make cars more fuel efficient. I had a friend who developed an electronic ignition system that increased mileage by 40 %. He built five prototypes.
    His company sold the rights to Chrysler. They in turn got the patent and buried the technology. My friend kept three. One for each of his cars and the third as a replacement.
    This was in 1969-70. He died two years ago and had yet needed to replace either of the models he built.

    Here is an idea:
    Why not let the oil companies loan the auto industry the money they claim they need ? Keep the taxpayer out of this mess.

  • December 9, 2008

    8:54 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Clarence_Boddicker writes:

    You know the exploding side mounted GMC fuel tanks was a fraud perpetrated by NBC Dateline, right?

  • December 9, 2008

    9:56 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Marshdale writes:

    Big Three and the Federal Reserve: We love the free market. We need less regulation.

    Government: Sounds Risky

    Big 3 and the Federal Reserve: We love the free market. It will work itself out.

    Government: Okay, we will feed you some rope

    Big 3 and the Federal Reserve: We love the free market. We need more deregulation.

    Government: Ok, we'll give it to you

    Big 3 and the Federal Reserve: We love the free market, now we can do more.

    Government: The economy is booming

    Big 3 and the Federal Reserve: We love the free Market. Look how much money we can print and lend now.

    Government: This thing is a runaway train.

    Big 3 and The Federal Reserve: We love the free market. Don't worry the it will fix itself.

    Government: The banks are going to fail.

    Big 3 and the Federal Reserve: We love the free market. "CAN WE PLEASE BORROW 734 BILLION DOLLARS TO BAIL US OUT"

  • December 9, 2008

    1:11 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    P_Denver writes:

    Let them go bankrupt and reorganize. Let competition decide.

    The airlines did it. There's still competition out there to control prices. The auto makers can do it -- there's more competition in cars than airlines.

    They brought it on themselves. No bailout.

  • December 9, 2008

    2:11 p.m.

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    vendari01 writes:

    My heart goes out to you, Mr. Tiernan, and to the countless others whose lives have been forever altered by Big Business' 'cost effectiveness' practices. Acceptable losses have their place in war, not in peace. Countless lives have been saved by such features as air bags, seat belts, collapsible steering columns, etc., yet the auto industry violently resists any such change. And, when (not if, I fear) the Big Three get their bail-out, I imagine that it won't be long before they once again demand to be left alone, as so many financial institutions are already doing.

  • December 9, 2008

    2:24 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    The bailout is for the union. If the banks aren't lending our money for our cars, we'll be here again next year, bailout or no bailout. We get nothing as tax payers. Socialism doesn't work as well as advertised.

  • December 9, 2008

    3:06 p.m.

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    infidel91 writes:

    Marshdale, it's your anti-capitalist buddies in congress who are trying to push through this auto industry bailout. And it's been many decades since we've had anything resembling a "free market."

  • December 10, 2008

    11:31 a.m.

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    rg writes:

    Tiernan: You lost your boy when he was 13; I lost my girl when she was 15; I walk in your shoes. I concur with those whose sentiment is not to pour $$$ into the deep hole the auto guys have dug themselves into. This reminds me of the deep hole W. Bush dug America into with its attack on Iraq which did not have anything to do with 9/11 -- this is tantamount to Pakistan's two dozen rogues attacking India with India attacking Austrailia in retribution. Fifteen $billion is only going to bail out the shareholders and line the CEO pocket. They need to reorganize in bankruptcy.

  • December 11, 2008

    3:29 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Clarence_Boddicker writes:

    rg wrote: "this is tantamount to Pakistan's two dozen rogues attacking India with India attacking Austrailia in retribution"

    Or blaming the auto manufacturing industry because you lost control of your vehicle and killed the passengers

  • December 14, 2008

    2:37 p.m.

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    jvb writes:

    The big three have at times refused to install a $15 dollar safety feature figuring it would be cheaper to pay a large money judgment.