A Perfect Season, An (Almost) Perfect Prayer And The Far-From-Perfect Ford Pinto
The Miami Dolphins’ “Perfect (1972) Season” ended with a January 14, 1973 14-7 Super Bowl VII victory over the Washington Redskins.
Their “next-best game” was probably this year’s September 24 70-20 trouncing of the Denver Broncos.
Our favorite Dolphins’ moment didn’t play out on the 1750-inch endzone screen. It never made it to any screen.
One of my brother Michael’s special friends was a longtime chaplain for the Dolphins.
Michael was his frequent guest in the owner’s sky box and had a number
of opportunities to interact with team members. He still laughs when he tells
the story of a post-game interaction between “The Padre” and one player.
Seems Mike and The Padre were standing at the team door to the parking lot
when one of the heroes of the game exited and grabbed his
then-current girlfriend in a big hug and walked her right over
to The Padre to introduce her. The good Padre chatted amiably with both
– about the game and the team, about how they met and how long
they had been together. And, as the conversation closed and
the happy couple prepared to head to their car, the priest gently asked
to be able to pray for and bless the happy couple
(whose names will be kept anonymous):
“Dear God, we give you thanks for all of your graces and goodness.
We ask you to bless this happy couple – Jim and Jane.
Fill them will your joy, grant them continued health and
protect them on their journey. We pray, too, for Jim’s wife Ellen and his children
waiting for him at home. Help them to understand how much he loves
Jane and protect them in his absence no matter how much
they may need him. Amen”
What can we say?
Ya gotta luv it!
And the best part of the story is that it’s true.
The Padre’s prayer was…
A perfect prayer – under the circumstances.
Every now and then, hypocrisy – or just plain downright lying and deceit – comes back to bite….
The Padre’s prayer teaches one of the most critical lessons about sin.
Sin always has a social dynamic.
That wide receiver’s wife and children were home waiting for him. Ultimately, one way or another, they would be – at least – emotionally scarred. Perhaps for a while. Perhaps to the second and third generation.
Sin always has a social dynamic.
Too often, sin is disguised: a “business decision,” “we’’, “we really didn’t think of that,” “yeah, but it took years for that to happen,” “no one would ever have known if the people who knew just kept their mouths shut” or “we did a cost analysis and the figures just didn’t justify….”
On August 10, 1978, eighteen-year-old Judy Ulrich, her sister Lynn, and their eighteen-year-old cousin Donna were burned to death when their 1973 Ford Pinto was struck from the rear by a van near Elkhart, Indiana. As Ford engineers and executives at the highest levels knew would happen, the Pinto’s gas tank exploded.
In 1968, Ford executives decided to produce “Lee’s car.” [Lee Iacocca began his career at Ford in 1946; he was named vice-president and general manager of the Ford Division in 1960; vice-president of the car and truck group in 1965; executive vice-president in 1967; and president in 1970 – 1978.]
The rules were simple: Lee’s Car must weigh no more than 2,000 pounds, cost no more than $20,000 and be market-ready by 1971.The Pinto was rushed through production in just twenty-five months so it could be included in Ford’s 1971 line of new models. The normal span for production of a new car was about forty-three months. At the time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration standards required that by 1972 all new cars withstand a rear-end impact of 20-mph without fuel loss, and by 1973 they would have to withstand an impact of 30-mph. The Pinto prototypes all failed the 20-mph test – because gas tanks ruptured, resulting in dangerous leaks.
Ford officials did a “cost-benefit” analysis. It’s still available on line in various iterations as the “Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires” study. It’s easily summarized: Technical improvements that would prevent gas tanks from leaking in rollover accidents would amount to $11 per vehicle.
In September/October 1977 Mother Jones published Mark Dowie’s 7,000-plus word essay “Pinto Madness.” [Pinto Madness – Mother Jones]. It was a blockbuster and won a Pulitzer Prize.
When Judy and Lynn Ulrich and their cousin Donna were killed, Ford already knew that simple design changes – retrofitting or “hardening” and better protecting gas tanks or adding a $5.08 Goodyear rubber bladder to the inside of tanks to prevent spillage/leaks and fires in the event of rear end collisions – could save tens of thousands of injuries and lives.
Instead, Ford prevailed on the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to calculate the value of burns and deaths in the “Social Cost Components for Fatalities, 1972 NHTSA Study”:
COMPONENT 1971 COSTS
Future Productivity Losses
Direct $132,000
Indirect 41,000
Medical Costs
Hospital 700
Other 425
Property Damage 1,500
Insurance Administration 4,700
Legal and Court 3,000
Employer Losses 1,000
Funeral 900
Assets (Loss Consumption) 5,000
Miscellaneous Accident Cost 200
TOTAL PER FATALITY: $200,725
WOW!
According to Dowie and MotherJones, Ford officials, “managed to informally reach an agreement with the major public servants [of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration] who would be making auto safety decisions. This agreement was that ‘cost-benefit’ would be an acceptable mode of analysis by Detroit and its new regulators. And, as we shall see, cost-benefit analysis quickly became the basis of Ford’s argument against safer car design.” Dowie and MJ provided a chart “from Ford Motor Company’s internal memorandum; ‘Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires.’”
[As “computer challenged” as we are, we have attempted to provide a rendition of the chart that appears in that memorandum.”]
$11 vs. a Burn Death
Benefits and Costs Relating to Fuel Leakage
Associated with the Static Rollover
Test Portion of FMVSS 208
BENEFITS
Savings: 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100burned vehicles
Unit Costs: $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle
Total Benefit: 180 x ($200,000) + 180 x ($67,000) + 2,100 x ($700)
= $49.5 million
COSTS
Sales: 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks
Unit Costs [for safety modifications]: $11 per car, $11 per truck.
Total Cost: 11,000,000 x ($11) + 1,500,000 x ($11)
= $137 million
Perhaps the “money lines” in Dowie’s report are the following (taken form the opening and final paragraphs of the MJ article):
“By conservative estimates Pinto crashes have caused 500 burn deaths to people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into flames. The figure could be as high as 900. Burning Pintos have become such an embarrassment to Ford that its advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, dropped a line from the end of a radio spot that read: ‘Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling.’
“Ford knows the Pinto is a firetrap, yet it has paid out millions to settle damage suits out of court, and it is prepared to spend millions more lobbying against safety standards…
“…Furthermore, cost-valuing human life is not used by Ford alone. Ford was just the only company careless enough to let such an embarrassing calculation slip into public records. The process of willfully trading lives for profits is built into corporate capitalism. Commodore Vanderbilt publicly scorned George Westinghouse and his ‘foolish’ air brakes while people died by the hundreds in accidents on Vanderbilt’s railroads.
“The original draft of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act provided for criminal sanction against a manufacturer who willfully placed an unsafe car on the market. Early in the proceedings the auto industry lobbied the provision out of the bill. Since then, there have been those damage settlements, of course, but the only government punishment meted out to auto-companies for non-compliance to standards has been a minuscule fine, usually $5,000 to $10,000. One wonders how long the Ford Motor Company would continue to market lethal cars were Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca serving 20-year terms in Leavenworth for consumer homicide.”
What’s all this got to do with sin?
Why are two priests writing about Ford’s Pinto fifty-plus years later?
Dowie and MJ reported
“The Nixon Transportation Secretaries were the kind of regulatory officials big business dreams of. They understood and loved capitalism and thought like businessmen. Yet, best of all, they came into office uninformed on technical automotive matters. And you could talk ‘burn injuries’ and ‘burn deaths’ with these guys, and they didn’t seem to envision children crying at funerals and people hiding in their home with melted faces. Their minds appeared to have leapt right to the bottom line – more safety meant higher prices, higher prices meant lower sales and lower sales meant lower profits.”
In the last week of September, Target announced it was shuttering nine stores in four states because of mounting thefts and organized retail crime at those locations. Whole Foods has closed one of its flagship San Francisco stores citing concerns about crime in the area endangering employees. And retail “smash and grab” robberies are endangering shoppers, mom-and-pop and giant retail stores
In 2022, total retail inventory losses hit $112 billion with internal and external thefts accounting for roughly two-thirds of that amount – up from nearly $94 billion in 2021.
Walmart is currently scheduled to close eighteen stores, including four in Chicago; Macy’s has plans to close 125 stores over the next three years and Target is closing four stores; Best Buys will soon be closing 20 stores; and CVSs will close 300 stores in 2023 and 2024.
All the result of theft and the danger thieves – especially gangs of thieves acting in concert - present to the safety of employees and customers.
That means thousands and tens of thousands of employees will be out of work and families will have to travel further to purchase food, clothing, school materials and other items.
The innocent will suffer.
Not necessarily die. But suffer.
Because sin – whether choosing profit over a $5.08 or $11 fix, shoplifting or organized gang invasions of retail jewelers and Apple stores, or repeating lies about stolen elections and calling emotionally vulnerable (or brainwashed) “true believers” to Washington on January 6 with the promise “It will be wild!” – always has a social component.
Sin tears individuals, families and a nation asunder.
And
“The wages of sin is death.”
Romans 6:23