Safety has been a very important issue for everyone in the daily lives. It is one of the main reasons, which allow the people to survive and keep humans alive. When it comes to business for example, the owners are put in a position to choose what is best for its company and what would it take to achieve their goal. Safety is the number one criteria for such a case most of the time, but sometimes the companies are forced to choose profit over safety according to different analyzes. In the ford pinto case study, the owners of ford have been accused of choosing knowingly and recklessly profit over safety.
In order for the American market to be more competitive with the European market for cars, they had to come up with new ideas and design new vehicles, especially those small ones, which will dominate the streets in America. That is the overall goal, but from Fords point of view and the owners, it was somehow different. Ford designed the pinto as small and cheap car to serve most people around the U.S and to reduce the sales of other European cars such as the Volkswagen. All sounded nice until Ford was accused of designing a bad vehicle for the people as it had serious problems in its gas tank that eventually was causing burn and death injuries. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), “although Ford makes 24 percent of the cars on American roads, these cars account for 42 percent of the collision-ruptured fuel tanks.”() Different stakeholders showed up here to analyze this case and see who was wrong here, if any.
For Ford stakeholders, as the owners, their goal is to put in the cheapest income to get the greatest outcome and maximize the profit. This is usual, as this is probably the main goal for most businesses around the world. In the company still, there was the engineers and the workers. Their goal was to design a safe and cheap car to be competitive in the market. They are limited however by the budget of their company, Ford. Then there is the NHTSA, which are responsible of constructing safe highways to serve all kind of vehicles and setting the safety standards to prevent collisions. The public or the people stakeholders who represent the customers here are looking for an affordable and safe car to serve their needs and wants in their lives. There are also the victims in those death injuries, in either the pinto or the other affected cars, whom are looking again for a safe and affordable car. Every one of those had his own point of view on the case and everyone was affected by the other.
Ford was being accused from different perspectives, especially from Mother Jones the magazine, which represents the public opinion. In response to the number of accidents that Ford was responsible for, Ford said that “statistics imply that Pintos were involved in only 1.9 percent of such accidents.” () On the other hand, Mother Jones claimed that the standards for rear end accidents should be able to “withstand a fixed barrier impact of 20 mph without losing fuel.” () For the Pinto however, according to analyzes it could not stand this safety standard, which meant a new design for the rear end of the car. Ford was not happy with these accusations and had other opinions to protect their products.
With already the Pinto in the streets and new cars are being produced. Designing a new rear end for the car was not the best choice for Ford. Ford have done analyzes and found that it would approximately cost $11 per car to do some improvements which will prevent the gas tank for capturing fire so easily. Ford however convinced the federal government that this improvement “was not cost-effective for society.” () These Cost-Benefit analysis showed that it would be much more profitable if they ignored the improvements of the car as the value of human deaths, injures and burns, was beneficial for Ford at a value of $49.5 million. In contrast, analysis shows that the $11 per car improvement would cost Ford a value of $137 million. There is a huge different here in the profit and loss comparison, and as a company, Ford choose profit over safety of the people. Most business would have done that, as no one would start a business to lose money. Business is based on profit and money is what runs the society. For instance, if Ford would have chosen to improve their cars, it would have meant a big lose the company and the employees, and it would have taken a long time to stand on their feet again.
Mother Jones magazine was probably shocked by Ford analysis for choosing profit over the value of human beings. According to the magazines’ analysis, Ford could have fixed the problem by “installing a rubber bladder inside the gas tank for only $5.08 per car,” () which is about half the way less than $11 per car, still though, it is not enough profit for Ford to do it, that if they could have actually done so. Ford could have negotiated with that price and play around with it to make Mother Jones but that would have meant choosing safety over profit, and no business would probably do that. Mother Jones also suggested that they could have made it an optional product for Pinto’s customers and let them know that what they are driving was not safe. Los Angeles safety expert Bryon Bloch argued that “Ford made an extremely irresponsible decision when they placed a weak tank…in such a soft rear end. It’s almost designed to blow up.” () Now Ford did not design the car to blow up, the aim here is not to make a bomb and killing people, Ford, the company is serving the public, and without customers, it will mean a great lose.
What Ford have done to choose profit over safety was reasonable according to what they had to say. They knew what they want to choose, but they never “recklessly” choose profit over the values of the human lives. They had tables and date to prove that this was not carelessly done and they chose based on their analysis. It was one specific incident for the Pinto that led all this arguments to come out. It was a 50 mph impact to a stand still Pinto, any car would have suffered that, but the teenagers who died in that accident were just an example for the people to loose their stakes, as Ford did not give them exactly what was good for them. There were also no safety standards that Ford had violated, and everything was legal about what they were doing. As humans though, we would not do something that is unsafe to others. On the other hand, no reasonable mind would choose lose or safety over profit, which makes no point of his business at all. That what makes this case a dilemma and it is hard to make a choice about who is right and who is wrong. It all depends on which stakeholder do you represent and what is your stake to do what is good for your company, yourself and the others.
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