Talk:Ford Pinto

Who designed the Pinto

The article credits Lee Iacocca for the car. At the time of its design, he was in charge of the Ford Division -- clearly responsible for executive oversight, but too high up to be the real design, engineering, or product planning force. I am trying to research who else was involved. He clearly was the leading executive sponsor, however. Paulmeisel 02:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you follow the link to the Grimshaw case, it was Justice Tamura who credited Iacocca. Of course, that could be incorrect, since there may be other evidence as to the management of the vehicle's design and production that didn't come into the trial for whatever reason (there are a lot of ways to exclude evidence). If you find a source with more detail than the Grimshaw case, be bold! --Coolcaesar 20:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

the link for the Grimshaw case is no longer active, but here is a good URL http://online.ceb.com/CalCases/CA3/119CA3d757.htm use it how you will, hope it helps... Shane198three@aim.com Email | AOL Instant Messenger Shane198three 06:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

My father worked on the Pinto as well as the Mustang. He always blamed Iacocca for the Pinto and thought he took too much credit for the Mustang. The Pinto was built based on his specification that it would cost $1000. Someone else says $2000, but that's probably what they sold it for originally. The Mustang was actually a lower profile project to redesign the Falcon. Of course, Iacocca did not want to take credit for the Pinto. My family had a Mustang and a Pinto. In the mid-70s they weren't that different, which Iacocca probably had something to do with also. Come to think of it those Chyrsler K-cars were junk heaps as well. The only people that bought them were true patriots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.59.237.189 (talk) 21:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

My father, Robert Emil Eidschun (born 1938) designed the Pinto -- largely at our home in Livonia, Michigan, and I remember his doing it. I was very young the time but I remember his doing it in a studio that he built in the basement of our house. In addition, I have some of his original sketches to prove it, as well as his own personal photos of the clay models that were made based on his sketches. The various claims made by Bob Thomas and others for the design of the Pinto are misleading, as those folks were involved in managing the design process or had designed elements of the Pinto that were ultimately rejected. But Robert Eidschun's design was eventually chosen in its entirety. Perhaps I should post scans of his sketches and the photos he took of the clay models? - Robert Walter Eidschun —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.67.31.237 (talk) 12:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Eidschun added as designer, sourced to Bloomberg Businessweek. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 14:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Pinto v. Mustang

The part about nobody investigating Mustangs for explosions and fires is actually wrong. 60 Minutes did an investigation of Mustangs in the early 2000s.

(dummy thread contribution for archiving unsigned thread) Hugh (talk) 16:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Gross vs. Net Horsepower

The article states that Net Horsepower is horsepower measured at the wheels. This is incorrect. Net horsepower is still measured at the flwyheel. Th difference is that net horsepower is measured with the engined fully dressed with accessories.

(dummy thread contribution for archiving unsigned thread) Hugh (talk) 16:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Problems with the Schwartz article

Could those who find the Schwartz paper problematical as an RS please identify their issues here? Greglocock (talk) 22:41, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

As I said above, I don't object to citing it, but I think that it clearly gives it WP:UNDUE weight to treat it as anything other than one paper among the large amount of commentary that this issue has gotten; devoting an entire section to it or citing it specifically in the lead is clearly giving it WP:UNDUE weight. Nobody is removing it entirely; but it clearly cannot be given an entire section or a specific highlight in the lead. I also feel that its conclusions are sometimes misrepresented here (it doesn't dispute the basic outline of the flaws, Pinto's awareness of them, or the fact that this opened Pinto up to liability.) It is absolutely worth a sentence or two, but I have not seen anyone give a reasonable argument why it should have an entire section devoted to it or used to set the structure of the entire article. --Aquillion (talk) 19:28, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

As I've said again, we can (and do) cover the paper, giving it appropriate weight; but we cannot word the lead as though it is central to the entire discussion. There is not enough support for the idea that it deserves that kind of weight. It is mentioned, yes. But putting in the lead as "...a later study examining actual incident data that concluded the Pinto was as safe as, or safer than, other cars in its class" is treating its release as a landmark aspect of the Pinto's history, and there is no evidence for that. It is one piece of commentary among countless others. "Some people have defended the Pinto, with one study concluding that the Pinto was as safe as or safer than other cars in its class" is an entirely accurate summary of the situation, isn't it? What do you object to about that wording? --Aquillion (talk) 23:13, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

• • We can certainly give both sides of the controversy in both the lead and the article. Without both sides, there is no coverage of the actual controversy. Instead, there's a repeated attempt to eliminate a noted source that has been well-vetted -- and in turn offer only a popularist viewpoint, as propogated by a for-profit magazine.842U (talk) 00:23, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

"Some people have defended the Pinto, with one study concluding that the Pinto was as safe as or safer than other cars in its class"is an entirely accurate summary of the situation, isn't it?" is false -that is, there are more than one study saying the Pinto was in line with its competitors). Sorry about that. . In fact there is very little evidnce that Pinto was an unsafe design, or that the 11 dollar fix actually helped. Greglocock (talk) 02:05, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Which is the second study? The version you reverted to specifies one in particular, so it still doesn't work. --Aquillion (talk) 05:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Something to consider with the Schwartz article is that is was released in a peer reviewed journal. The claims in the article contain a large number of sources. Ideally the Wiki article would link directly to those source when ever possible. The Schwartz article clearly has academic traction as Google Scholar shows it to have been cited 232 time.

It is also noteworthy that Lee and Erdmann's peer reviewed journal article confirms many of the thing said in the Schwartz's paper through their own research on the subject. In particular Lee and Erdmann illustrate a number of misconceptions about the public understanding of the Pinto case and note that the common knowledge understanding was so well rooted that it was frequently repeated as fact by generally reputable sources (See Lee and Erdmann starting on page 31). Lee and Erdmann is cited 57 times.

Perhaps it would be worth while to compile a list of sources used in the section in question and then look at their relative weight then decide how much focus each should get. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.115.3 (talk) 17:06, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Estimates of Pinto safety

I suggest that the best way of resolving the difficulties with undue weight are to list he various sources, and their estimates, here, and discuss them, here. It is very much a work in progress

Source	Location	Claimed sfaety in source	averaged safety per million vehcile miles	Header text
Mother jones	Example	"Hundreds of deaths"	Example	Example
Ford Internal	http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-lament	"1.9% fatatlity rate compared with 1.9% fatatlity rate for competitiprds"	Example	Example
NHTSA 1965	Example	Example	Example	Example
Schwartz	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example

No, that won't work. We have to place weight on each aspect of the topic according to its weight in reliable sources; therefore, each study that covers the Pinto as dangerous or as a case of corporate wrongdoing without highlighting the aspects that the Schwartz paper thinks are important weighs against it. You cannot say "Schwartz states this fact, and nobody else references it at all, therefore it should be made the centerpiece of the article"; if almost nobody else mentions it at all, then Schwartz' opinion that those statistics are the key to the story is his WP:FRINGE view and cannot be given central billing in the article (though it deserves a mention.) Note that the article text doesn't actually state that the Pinto was less safe than other cars in its class; it merely states that the Pinto had design flaws that were widely-criticized, which is true (and which the Schwartz paper, broadly, does not dispute.) We can cite the fact that the Schwartz study and the Ford internal study highlighted the statistics you're concerned with, but it is undue weight to place excessive emphasis on its relevance -- most coverage focuses on the fact that, for instance, the Pinto rolled out with a potentially-lethal design flaw that Ford was aware of; on the fact that it (at least appeared) to do this based on a financial calculation related to the number of deaths that it would cause, and so on. The fact that some sources have discussed this from other angles and have taken different perspectives on the overarching story is worth covering, but it is also WP:UNDUE to take that framing and make it the focus of the entire article; you can't say "yes, dozens of articles and business ethics textbooks and huge amounts of coverage have discussed it in one way; but I have one study that disagrees with a few factual points, so we must make those disagreements the crux of the article." We can cover them (and do); but we cannot use it to determine the overarching structure of how each aspect of the topic is covered. See the NPOV policy on balancing aspects for the relevant policy; essentially, the issue isn't whether Schwartz is right, the issue is the weight each reliable source gives to different aspects of the controversy. Across all sources, the weight given to his perspective is clearly minimal -- it is a WP:FRINGE viewpoint. We can discuss it (and the article does; it even references it in the lead.) But we cannot structure the entire discussion of the topic around it, or present it as a viewpoint that carries weight equal to the majority view. For an encyclopedia article, our goal is to reflect the coverage in reliable sources according to the weight those sources give each aspect of the topic. --Aquillion (talk) 05:21, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

As an example, for the weight issue, here are some sources from the article that do not seem to give any weight to Schwartz' view:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a6700/top-automotive-engineering-failures-ford-pinto-fuel-tanks/

http://www.forbes.com/2004/01/26/cx_dl_0126feat.html

http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658498_1657866,00.html

http://www.autonews.com/article/20030616/SUB/306160770/lee-iacoccas-pinto:-a-fiery-failure

https://hbr.org/2011/04/ethical-breakdowns

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30006460/wood-dynamicsofbusiness-post-2003.pdf

Weiss, Joseph W. (May 8, 2014). Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. p. 345.

Birsch, Douglas (October 25, 1994). The Ford Pinto Case.

This isn't even remotely complete (especially not from the business ethics standpoint), but it covers a wide range of extremely high-profile reliable sources. You might argue that those sources are wrong; you might argue that they should read the Schwartz paper, that they ought to be paying more attention to the aspects of the Pinto's history that Schwartz highlights and thinks are important. Certainly I'm not arguing that we should exclude Schwartz' opinions entirely based on that! But I think it is clear from going over the sources that his take on the issue does not reflect the mainstream; it is WP:FRINGE among reliable sources that have covered it, and Wikipedia is not the correct place to try and reveal the truth by ignoring that mainstream view or by giving Schwartz' paper weight equal to everyone else who has ever commented on the issue. As it stands, the majority of the article's take on this aspect of the Pinto's history must reflect the consensus among reliable sources, which generally doesn't take Schwartz' perspective. --Aquillion (talk) 05:35, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

TLDR, here's one description of the scwartz paper, somehow I doubt that Forbes or Popular Mecahics will ever be described as landmark articles- "Here are the deaths per million vehicles for 1975 and 1976 for the best-selling compact cars of that era, compiled by Gary T. Schwartz in his landmark law-review article “The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case”:"

Incidentally the poular mex article says " Reports range from 27 to 180 deaths as a result of rear-impact-related fuel tank fires in the Pinto, but given the volume of more than 2.2 million vehicles sold, the death rate was not substantially different from that of vehicles by Ford's competitors. "

Greglocock (talk) 09:25, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure, it says that... in one sentence at the end, while noting that none of this changes the overarching damage the Pinto did to Ford's reputation. It also says that "...arguably the most dangerous fuel tank of all time was the rear-mounted vessel installed on the 1971 through 1976 Ford Pinto. It's possibly the best example of what happens when poor engineering meets corporate negligence", and most of the article is written along those lines. My point is that your interpretation (that those overarching death statistics completely vindicate Ford and are a decisive part of the story) is not borne out by most coverage. Even the Schwartz paper itself doesn't actually support the way you're interpreting it -- it does say (in a footnote) that the Pinto's overall safety record is average, but it concedes that Ford was actually liable, notes that the design flaw and danger were real, and describes it in extensive detail. ("The key problem, however, with the behind-the-axle location was that it rendered the gas tank more vulnerable in the event of a rear end collision. The vulnerability of the gas tank was increased by other design features..." It goes on to list the same design flaws highlighted by everyone else, acknowledging all of them as real.) It says that the Pinto performed badly in initial crash tests and continued to perform badly afterwards. Furthermore, while it says that the Pinto's overall statistics are typical, "When the prosecution's expert utilized FARS data to focus on rear-end fire fatalities, the results no longer cast the Pinto in a favorable light. These data showed that Pintos, while comprising 1.9% of the auto population, were responsible for 4.1% of all such fatalities." Summarizing, it says that "While this memorandum hardly supported any claim that the Pinto was a major highway hazard, it did suggest that the Pinto's record in this particular class of accidents was worse than the relevant industry average". And summing up its conclusion, the Schwartz paper says "Yet even if the general portrayal of the Pinto as a firetrap should be rejected as false, a limited core of the firetrap myth seems fair enough". You are taking one aspect of this one paper out of context and giving it extreme WP:UNDUE weight, then giving the paper itself WP:UNDUE weight because it says (in a footnote!) the one thing you feel is most important to the Pinto's history. But almost no sources (not even the Schwartz paper itself) support your assertion that the Pinto's overall safety record relative to other cars is that important; again, Schwartz mentions it only in a footnote. The Pinto's overall safety record, after all, is not what most sources are focusing on; they are focusing on the increased danger of fires from rear-end collisions, which is factual and not contested by a single reliable source. I've said all this above. Whether this was (for instance) offset by a lower risk of other kinds of risks or whatever is not relevant; the general coverage of the Pinto is that the fuel tank in particular was flawed in a way that made it unusually dangerous, that Ford was aware of this flaw, and that it did not correct it despite being aware of it. The Schwartz paper agrees with all of these facts. It takes a slightly different perspective in attacking some of the myths it says have arisen around the Pinto, but overall, this perspective is WP:FRINGE, and your focus on its footnote about the Pinto's overall safety record is giving WP:UNDUE weight to one aspect of what the paper says even beyond that. --Aquillion (talk) 10:04, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

At this point almost anything written about the Pinto can be done with hindsight. The historical accident records presented by Schwartz are very compelling evidence that the overall design performed similarly to other small cars of the time. But that is just one source. If it's the only source then I would suggest it be accepted as is since it came from a highly cited, peer reviewed paper. If a second source shows otherwise then that source should also be included. I do think it is wrong to claim anything in the Schwartz paper should be considered fringe. Again, given the paper was peer reviewed and cited by a large number of other peer reviewed papers it is unlikely to contain fringe information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.115.3 (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

The article cites numerous other sources. The central issue, though, as I've said repeatedly, is one of weight; it is ultimately only one paper, one whose conclusions disagree with those of most other sources. Mentioning it in a sentence or two is fine. Devoting an entire section to it or mentioning it specifically in the lead is clearly giving it WP:UNDUE weight. --Aquillion (talk) 07:00, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Any paper is ultimately one paper. So that's a stupid argument. It is a peer reviewed paper that is referred to by two other RS. I note you have completely nuked the Schwartz paper from the article. That is not reasonable. Greglocock (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

We don't generally devote entire sections to individual papers, though, or devote them to the lead; a paper which has only been cited twice isn't exactly the groundbreaking, definitive thing it was portrayed as in some revisions. Like I said, I wouldn't be opposed to devoting a sentence or two to it, but certainly no more than that. --Aquillion (talk) 23:58, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I've tried to reinstate a compromise (mentioning the Schwartz paper -- even giving it an entire section and referring to it in the lead). I just don't feel that we can devote an entire section to it, or weight its conclusions equal to the entire rest of the topic. And it's important to be cautious about what it says -- it does not deny that the Pinto suffered from design flaws, so presenting those flaws as a "controversy" rather than as a fact is a WP:TONE violation. We have to present facts as facts; nobody disputes that the Pinto suffered design flaws that led to potential fire dangers, or that Ford released it despite knowing those flaws after a cost-benefit analysis. Even the Schwartz paper merely takes issue with the popular view of the Pinto as a uniquely-dangerous deathtrap, which doesn't disagree with what the other sources in the section say. --Aquillion (talk) 21:00, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't seem that the compromise in the lead held, but either way, please don't restore the entire section devoted to one paper. Devoting an entire section to it is WP:UNDUE by any reasonable standard. --Aquillion (talk) 06:56, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@Aquillion: - Ditto. And frankly I'd go further. Even mentioning the paper in the lead seems WP:UNDUE. There are thousands of scholarly sources about the Pinto out there. Highlighting one reeks of some kind of POV push. NickCT (talk) 13:45, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Can we have a bit more discussion here? As I've said, I'm not opposed to covering it to some degree, but it seems like absolutely any change is getting reverted to restore the section. We need to work out a compromise that we can all deal with, or discuss how much weight each aspect should get; I maintain that, while the paper is clearly worth mentioning (we have an entire paragraph for it still even in the version I prefer!), devoting a section to it or presenting it in the lead as something that decisively changed the Pinto's reputation goes beyond what the sources support and is generally giving it WP:UNDUE weight. --Aquillion (talk) 11:39, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem with UNDUE is that the Scwartz paper summarises a lot of primary sources about the ACTUAL performance of Pinto neatly, and counteracts the UNDUE way this article is written that takes the mother jones article as gospel. Greglocock (talk) 23:32, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

The page only references it directly once, with an inline citation making it clear that it's reporting the paper's opinions. But the Mother Jones article is clearly more important than the Schwartz paper -- every single cite in that section talks about it, often in depth. So we report on that heavy coverage and what those sources are saying, giving equal weight to one. The Schwartz paper is one of the many sources that have commented on the Mother Jones paper's allegations, and we talk about it with appropriate weight. Again, as I said above, it's also important to be clear on what the Schwartz paper does and doesn't say; it doesn't contest that the Pinto had liabilities that led it to have an increased risk of rear-end fatalities, it doesn't contest fact that Ford was aware of these flaws, and it agrees that this left Ford open to liability. It contest some of the mystique that has grown up around the Pinto -- the image of the car as an exploding deathtrap -- but I don't think the current section falls into that; and, again, literally a third of the text in the current section is still devoted to the Schwartz paper and its conclusions. It just isn't so major an event in the Pinto's history that we can devote an entire section to it. The Mother Jones paper (for the better or worse) clearly is, as we can see from the fact that people are still writing large amounts about it thirty years later. If you think the Mother Jones paper is completely wrong (something that, again, not even Schwartz says -- he mostly takes issue with the people who have built up a mythology of the Pinto later on, not with Mother Jones directly), this isn't the appropriate place to try and correct that; our job is to represent the discussion among reliable sources with weight appropriate to the prominence each voice has in that discussion. The Schwartz paper totally deserves a mention there, but it is silly to suggest that it deserves a weight equal to the Mother Jones paper, given that paper's extreme impact and the relatively few sources that discuss the Schwartz paper at all. --Aquillion (talk) 23:55, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

This article is not just about Mother Jones Pinto accusations, it is about the entire story on Safety of the Ford Pinto, and as such it should balance between the ethical case stirred up by MJ's distorted predictions and fabrications, and the actual in service performance. What was the point of fitting the 11 dollar fix if it didn't change the accident rate?. MJ's fabrications weren't born out in practice as Schwartz makes clear. The current para on Schwartz has a very mealy mouthed intro sentence and carries on in the same spirit. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ford_Pinto&oldid=686407729 Greglocock (talk) 00:10, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

The article isn't about the Mother Jones paper, but the section is about the Pinto's design flaws and the resulting lawsuits. As far as those go, the Schwartz paper is only a comparatively small part of the story; lending it increased weight if it simply because you feel that it's right or because you want to equalize "both sides" is a violation of WP:VALID. That said, I'll point out that the Mother Jones article itself is only mentioned in a single paragraph, which is (for the record!) smaller than the one devoted to the Schwartz paper. But beyond that, if you have issues with the wording, we can work on them. What part of the paragraph devoted to the Schwartz paper do you feel is mealy-mouthed? I'm not opposed to rewording it. I just object to devoting an entire section to it or making it a focus point in the lead; I'm not convinced that it has enough secondary coverage to show that it's that significant. --Aquillion (talk) 00:19, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Since it's come up again, I'll reiterate what I've said above; I feel that the paper is worth mentioning, but that devoting an entire section to it is clearly undue. And I object to structuring the section based on it (eg. calling it a "fuel tank controversy"), since for the most part the history is not hugely controversial at this point. Schwartz' points are well-taken but don't actually contradict most of the rest of what's in the section; he addresses some of the mythology that has grown up around the car (eg. the myth of the 'exploding car') but doesn't dispute the basic facts covered in the rest of the section regarding the design flaws, the fact that Ford knew about them and was therefore likely liable, and so on. Some people are treating it like an expose that blows the whole history wide open, and all else aside that's simply not what it says; likewise, structuring the entire section as "Mother Jones vs. Schwartz" is silly when there's extensive coverage from numerous other sources that confirm the basic outline of the history. We don't need to lean so heavily on one source at this point. Also, since this seems to have become an extended slow-motion revert-war and I'm not sure we're getting anywhere with the discussion, it might be worth considering an WP:RFC on the topic to ask for outside opinions. --Aquillion (talk) 22:35, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The "Pinto Memo", Jan 2016 the article confuses the purpose of the memo

I know the memo has been discussed before but I'm honestly not totally up on why things were changed over several years of this article. The article currently reads like Mother Jones states that the Pinto Memo was a cost benefit analysis that specifically applied to the development of the Pinto. This has been shown to be one of the great misunderstandings of the Pinto. I would like to change how that section reads and how the Memo is introduced but I want to get some feedback from editors who have been involved with this article first. Certainly by now we should have more than sufficient evidence to state that the memo was related to the whole auto industry of the US (12.7 million cars per year was more than even GM was making at the time) and the numbers as well as estimates were not related to the Pinto project at all. Springee (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

So long as I'm commenting, there is also an issue with how the legal cases are presented. It isn't clear that Ford saw any "defect" in the design when the car was first released. We should not use WP voice to state what is in reality an accusation that is not agreed upon in the reliable literature on the subject. They did decide to take a wait and see approach to design changes related to the as of yet unknown impact standards. Ford's decision to both settle and to agree to a "voluntary recall" were heavily impacted by the PR nightmare the company was facing.

I tend to agree with the view that we shouldn't highlight the Schwartz paper as it's own section. However, as there are more sources that agree with Schwartz we probably should just mix the information from Schwartz and the other sources into the article as appropriate.

Finally, and this is off the Memo subject, the media about the car should probably be separated into a few subsections. The reviews of the car when it was released shouldn't be conflated with the historic retrospectives such as that by Forbs. Those retrospectives as much judge the legacy of the legal and PR battles as the car itself. Also, when the car is cited as one of the worst cars of all time (with just cause) the reasons should be explained. It's not one of the 50 worst because it say handled badly or was notably unreliable by the standards of the day. As I recall from previous reads of the "worst" articles in question it was the damage the car did to Ford's legacy that made it bad. Kind of like how the Corvair is a "bad" car for GM because of the Nader affair. Not because the Corvair was particularly unsafe, unreliable or bad in just about any other way for the time. Anyway, again I'm commenting here hoping for some group feedback before I make any article level changes Springee (talk) 20:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Detailed production changes.

Since no one seems interested in supplying accurate and detailed info about year to year production changes and features, I have consulted my private collection of Ford Pinto brochures from 1971-1980 and Mercury Bobcat brochures from 1974-1980 to better complete this page. Watchdevil (talk) 10:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• Consider being very careful in this regard. Try not to introduce minutae or Fancruft that is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. In other words, not all information is deemed relevent for a Wikipedia article, and if you have any question that consult the relevant automotive portal to which the article belongs.842U (talk) 22:42, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Since accurate and detailed information is not desired and appreciated I will no longer contribute time any energy to make sure articles are worthwhile. Watchdevil (talk) 00:52, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Inaccurate production details

The article has inaccurate production details stated and the inaccurate and does not even have a notation where such erroneous information came from.

It is inaccurate that the Pinto's all glass hatch replaced the metal framed hatch. The all glass hatch was an option as stated in the 1977-1980 Ford Pinto factory brochures. A metal framed hatch remained standard.

It is also inaccurate that all Mercury Bobcat wagons were called Villager. Only the woodgrain bodyside wagons were given the Villager name as stated in all the 1975-1980 Mercury Bobcat factory brochures. The Villager was eqivalent to the Pinto Squire Wagon with woodgrain bodysides. Regular wagons without woodgrain bodysides carried no special name.

Also, the 1979 Pinto facelift is stated to have square headlamps. The last time I checked a square had an equal length on each side. The H6054 sealed beam headlights the Pinto and Bobcat used for 1979-80 were 5"x7" rectangular, which is the proper term for referring to any standardized rectangular sealed beam headlamp.

The facelift for 1977 was the first significant restyling of the front end of the Pinto with it's urethane flexible shovel nose. Taillamps were redesigned as well.

Watchdevil (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Schwartz Paper - WP:UNDUE

The repeated inclusion of the Schwartz Paper as a source and the undue emphasis placed on that source has been brought up on this talk page as an issue by multiple editors again and again and again and again. It's been re-inserted and edit warred over and over again by User:842U and User:Greglocock in what's a pretty disturbing example of WP:OWNership behavior. If this continues, I'm really going to have to consider reporting this. You're pretty obviously in violation of WP:DUE and WP:NPOV here. Are you guys somehow related to this Schwartz character? Is that why you're unduly emphasizing the source? NickCT (talk) 16:42, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

The vaguely denigrating assertion, calling Schwartz a "character", hurts your credibility here -- especially when you have zero reason to actually suggest anyone here has a relationship to Schwartz. You've since suggested that you meant that Schwartz is "not unknown" -- but you not only didn't say that, Schwartz is actually rather "quite well known." Let's keep this conversation respectful. And no, I have no dog in the Pinto fight. I'm not related to Schwartz, don't work in the industry (including the legal industry) and have no conflict of interest. It's clear that extremely difficult to measure when a source has undue weight -- but your repeated reversion of the article has been tendentious and divisive. Nonetheless, deleting the references to Schwartz in the face of his academic background, his citations by other sources, including the New York Times, and noted legal scholar Walter Olsen -- suggest the pot may be calling kettle black. Especially combined with a tone and approach that suggests a willingness to strong-arm the conversation. Please refrain from vague comments that can be easily construed as divisive, and please refrain from strong-arming. Let's move this discussion to a more civil tone. 842U (talk) 15:21, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

You might find it helpful to read that in 1993, Walter Olson, the Wall Street Journal's noted legal scholar and senior fellow at the Cato Institute cited Schwartz's study when he wrote that " "remarkably, even the affair of the "exploding" Ford Pinto--universally hailed as the acme of product liability success--is starting to look like hype."

I had just added this to the article, before you again reverted the article, without taking into account event further evidence that Schwartz's paper and viewpoints merit inclusion. Your comments above make it clear that you are basing your judgment of Schwartz on your personal opinion, and not the evidence. Please restore the article as it last included references to Schwartz in both the introduction and the section on the controversy. Thanks.842U (talk) 16:51, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

@842U: - Perhaps you're not familiar familiar with the Cato Institute, but it's not the kind of place to cite in defense of your own neutrality.

re "your judgment of Schwartz on your personal opinion," - What are you talking about? If I read any article which dedicated such a large portion to a single source like you're doing here, I would question it. Regardless of the topic of the article or the paper. If you don't see the WP:UNDUE issues here you really need to sit down and examine your understanding of WP:BALANCE.

If you want to include this material I suggest you RfC or straw poll the topic to try and demonstrate support for it. If you like I can help you generate a balanced and neutrally worded RfC. NickCT (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

You seem to have ignored that the CATO Institute is nonetheless a credentialed, noted association, that editorial board of the Wall Street Journal saw fit to include Walter Olson's article, and that Olson's other credentials are noteworthy and significant, including publication in the New York Times and testifying before Congress. The Pinto article includes the Pinto Myth precisely because it offers noteworthy, credentialed balance to the controversy. It seems you only want to include the information that supports the single point of view the Mother Jones article posited. And while you argue for balance, you suggest that by eliminating a counter-balancing viewpoint from the article, you create balance? Yes, let's also get an administrator to take a look at the article now and with the Schwartz paper. And what makes you think Schwartz was "a character?" 842U (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

@842U: - "credentialed, noted association" does not equal WP:NPOV. It does not mean they will give WP:DUE weight to things.

What POV in Mother Jones? I'm not citing Mother Jones or relying on it for anything. I'm not even sure which article you're referring to.

You can certainly offer the "counter-balancing" viewpoint offered in the Schwartz paper. What you can not do is devote an entire subsection or paragraph in the lede to a single source. Especially on a highly notable topic like this one. There are thousands of articles and sources out there covering the Pinto. Schwartz's is one.

"a character" is a simple term for an unknown person. NickCT (talk) 21:55, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this. We can present the perspective of the Schwartz paper; but we have to give it appropriate weight, relative to what we give other sources in that section. Note that the actual Mother Jones article, while it has far more coverage in secondary sources than the Schwartz paper, only directly gets two sentences, which describe what it claimed in neutral language; everything else is cited to other sources. I'd be totally fine with giving a similar sentence or two neutrally summarizing what the Schwartz paper says as one of the numerous followups to that article, but devoting an entire section to it and framing it as equal in weight to everything else that has ever been written about the Pinto combined is overwhelmingly WP:UNDUE. Additionally, I have major concerns that 842U's preferred version seriously misrepresents what the Schwartz paper does say -- even Schwartz doesn't deny that there were serious design flaws in the Pinto, or that Ford was liable, both ethically and legally; yet it is being used to downplay all of those things. However, given the intractable length of this dispute, we might want to consider pursuing some sort of dispute resolution. --Aquillion (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree, let's find out if other people regard MJ and the Schwartz papers as RS. Personally I think this article takes the thrust of its tone from the original MJ articles, which were long on exaggeration and short on fact. Greglocock (talk) 00:23, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Please do report this, to whoever you think will care. The continual complete deletion of the Schwartz paper and the arguments it makes leaves this article in a very one sided (and frankly stupid) condition, as it swallows the MJ rabble rousing line holus bolus. Quick summary why the MJ article is wrong:The memo did not refer to this case. The $11 fix didn't work. The Pinto was at least as safe as its competitors, overall, as it had positive qualities in other areas that offset the statistically higher rates of deaths from rear end collisions. MJ wildly exaggerated the number of deaths and injuries. Greglocock (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Aquillion and Greglocock: - I'm a bit confused by the parallel being drawn between MJ and Schwartz. What facts are we attributing to MJ that's seen as balancing? NickCT (talk) 00:44, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

MJ is a pretty dubious source. It shouldn't be relied on as the sole source for any information. NickCT (talk) 00:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

There's a great deal of focus on the credibility of the Schwartz paper, which is valid -- but misses another point. Even though the Mother Jones article was based on specious hyperbole, it's hard to say the article didn't affect the legacy of the Pinto. And it's fairly clear from even a cursory search that not only was Schwartz well-credentialed (the LA Times called him a "nationally recognized scholar of personal injury cases and other forms of tort law" in his 2001 obituary) but his work is cited frequently by other notable sources (Malcom Gladwell, Walter Olson, The New York Times, etc.) and it is typically brought up as a counterbalancing point, just as it is being brought up here. After much of the dust had settled on the Mother Jones article and the original Ford lawsuits, but after Schwartz offered counterbalancing points (about the Memo, the number of deaths, about the relative safety of the Pinto compared to other cars of its day), his work is routinely cited -- not only on the merits (that Malcom Gladwell, Walter Olson, The New York Times, etc are known to consider because of their own status and credibility) precisely to give balance and credence to the idea that controversies have two sides. So it's hard to argue that the legacy of the Pinto wasn't affected by the Schwartz paper, when the countervailing pattern is to cite his work whenever the Pinto is brought up in an important context.842U (talk) 18:09, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@842U: - You're cherry picking. Do a basic search on the Pinto Scandal. How many links do you have to go through before you see a single mention of Schwartz? 10? 20? 100? 200?

Claiming the Schwartz source is somehow different than the others is dubious. I think it's more likely that you're simply sympathetic to his viewpoint and so you're over-emphasizing his paper in your mind. NickCT (talk) 21:43, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Problems with article 12 feb version

Article reads:

...after an article in Mother Jones. The article said that Ford was aware of the design flaw, was unwilling to pay for a redesign, and decided it would be cheaper to pay off possible lawsuits. The magazine obtained a cost-benefit analysis that it said Ford had used to compare the cost of repairs (Ford estimated the cost to be $11 per car) against the cost of settlements for deaths, injuries, and vehicle burnouts . The document became known as the Ford Pinto Memo

This is false, the CBA did not refer to rear end collisions, it referred to rollover. Here it is, bottom of first page http://www.autosafety.org/uploads/phpq3mJ7F_FordMemo.pdf

So what evidence did MJ actually have for " Ford ... decided it would be cheaper to pay off possible lawsuits"  ?

I realise this is an accurate summary of what MJ says but MJ were wrong. therefore it needs to be pointed out.

Incidentally by 1978 NHTSA were TELLING car companies to use a risk benefit analysis, the exact methodology the memo discusses.

Greglocock (talk) 01:38, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Greglocock: - Fair enough. We should point it out. Do you have a secondary source that makes your point about Mother Jones so that we can avoid WP:OR concerns? NickCT (talk) 14:01, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

There are many eg P120 in http://academic.udayton.edu/lawrenceulrich/How%20Shall%20We%20Know%20If%20Our%20Products%20Are%20Safe.pdf Sentence begins "It is important to emphasize.." Greglocock (talk) 23:36, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Greglocock: - Did the MJ article actually point to "rear end" collision risk as opposed to generic "design flaws"? The current wording in our article doesn't make it clear whether the MJ expose was specifically talking about the "rear end" issue.

If the MJ article specifically focused on rear end collisions, I think it would be fine to use your source to point out that MJ's article may have misinterpreted Ford's original cost/benefit report. NickCT (talk) 07:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

If you read the MJ article it is such a muddle it is hard to tell, but here's the quote "...internal Ford memorandum. This cost-benefit analysis argued that Ford should not make an $11-per-car improvement that would prevent 180 fiery deaths a year. (This minor change would have prevented gas tanks from breaking so easily both in rear-end collisions, like Sandra Gillespie's, and in rollover accidents, where the same thing tends to happen". So they are confusing a study which talks about a hypothetical $11 fix, and rollover, with the rear end collision cases. In actuality the cost of the fix for rear end collisions was lower, but so was the rate of injury and death, than the examples used in the memo. The MJ article is a fine piece of rabble-rousing mud-slinging, but is far too frothy mouthed to take seriously. Greglocock (talk) 06:08, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Honestly I think Mother Jones should not be used as a RS for facts in this article at all. They got far to many things wrong. MJ is an important source to help people understand the public perception of the case but should NOT be used as reliable source of facts. Schwartz IS a reliable source of fact in the case. This view is supported by both the type of research he conducted, especially given that he was doing the work with historical hindsight. His work is also enforced by other academic who looked at the issue after the fact for various reasons. For example, John R Danley writes in "Polishing up the Pinto: Legal Liability, Moral Blame, and Risk" Business Ethics Quarterly:

Unfortunately, as Gary Schwartz has painstakingly documented in "The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case," this received wisdom is largely a fable built upon misconception and misinformation. While relying heavily upon Schwartz's documentation and analysis in an effort to correct many of the more misleading misunderstandings, the primary purpose here is to examine the impact of such a reassessment on ascriptions of Ford's moral responsibility, and to take that opportunity to examine the broader issues involved in the logic of moral blame in cases such as this.

...

A convenient point for departure is to address what may well be the most egregious distortion of fact involved in the Pinto case - the wild and unsupported claims asserted in "Pinto Madness" and elsewhere that hundreds or thousands of deaths resulted from this design.

The careful nature of Schwartz's basic research means that when the WP article wants to report on the facts of what happened with the Pinto fires and all that is SHOULD be relying on Schwartz and should treat MJ and the other early reports that repeated the MJ claims as news articles that drove public perception but have since been found to be incorrect. In a real sense the later works (not just Schwartz) should be given every bit as much weight as any sources discussing the fire related controversy Springee (talk) 03:49, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Schwartz RS

[[1]]

Have at it. Greglocock (talk) 00:54, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Despite some of the arguments tendered at the RS discussion, and for the record, the article has not recently given a "huge" portion of the article to Schwartz paper; it explains the Schwartz paper and why it's meaningful to the controversy. It does not give an entire paragraph in the lead to the Schwartz paper, rather one paragraph in the lead cites four factors affecting the legacy of the Ford Pinto:

The Pinto's legacy was affected by 1) media controversy and 2) legal cases surrounding its fuel tank safety, 3) a recall of the car in 1978, and 4) a later study examining incident data, concluding the Pinto was as safe as, or safer than, other cars in its class. The Pinto has been cited as a noted business ethics case.

The article has not most recently had "a subsection" devoted to the Schwartz paper, but rather is formatted as a sub-subsection -- granting the Schwartz Paper a part of a section, but giving it no mention in the table of contents. This makes it more important to mention in the lead, otherwise it is buried in the article (i.e., no mention in the lead, no mention in the table of contents, the article subjugating a cogent and reliable argument pertaining directly to the subject of the article, the Ford Pinto.

Most recently the article was reverted repeatedly to completely remove ANY mention of the Schwartz paper (e.g., right now). So even though the Schwartz paper is notably cited in post-litigation reporting (and it's no more cherry-picking to find these references, than it is cherry-pick them out of a Wikipedia article). The Schwartz paper was cited by noted legal scholar Walter Olson, has been cited in the New York Times numerous times, and was cited by noted author Malcom Gladwell. There has been an extremely careful and concerted effort to find a balance on this issue. And clearly it has little to do with the reliability of Schwartz as a source.842U (talk) 14:34, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

• I replied to the RSN discussion. Schwartz is clearly an authoritative source on this subject. I noted two other academic articles that enforce that view, this is particularly true of the basic data collection and the exposures of public misunderstandings of the case which were likely due to Mother Jone's reporting on the subject. Springee (talk) 03:30, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

  @Springee: - On a philosophical note; after read up on this issue I'm not sure I'd call it a "public misunderstanding" as much as it was perhaps a "mis-perception". Ultimately there was a real danger presented by the fuel tank (few sources deny that), and the public understood this. That said, the public probably perceived the level of danger and risk to be significantly greater than it probably was. NickCT (talk) 17:52, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Sectioning Compromise?

Having read a little more into the analysis performed on the Pinto's safety, it seems there's clearly a reasonable amount of RS arguing that the Pinto was not as dangerous as the public perceived it to be. After some reflection, I think that's a good, WP:DUE and fair piece of information to have in the article. I think the disagreement here has been caused not by the point User:Greglocock and User:842U trying to make, but by the way they're trying to make it. Here's a solution I think we might all find palatable.

Let's create two subsections. The first subsection will cover the public controversy generated by the Ford memo revelations. The second subsection will discuss the more technical and statistical analysis of the danger issue. In that second subsection we can mention the fact that there were analyses done suggesting the Pinto wasn't really all that dangerous (I would still prefer we simply cite Schwartz rather than name him here). That subsection can also include the NHTSA head testimony.

There are really two stories here. 1) The controversy created by the Ford report. 2) The subsequent research suggesting the controversy may have been overblown. If we divide those two stories into two subsections I think it's going to be clearer for the reader. I also think this solution is going to let everyone insert the information they want in there.

Does this sound fair? NickCT (talk) 07:34, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea. There is no doubt the controversy exists, and hence should be documented, and I'd argue there is little doubt the attack part of the controversy was overblown, and the exaggerations in the MJ article and subsequent tag-ons should be examined and refuted via RS. Greglocock (talk) 11:52, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It's possible this could work. The proof is in the pudding. In the meantime: there are not two but at least four stories to the fuel tank conversy: the initial media firestorm, subsequent litigation, the vehicle recall and the later Schwartz Study (five if you count the business ethics case study aspect). While there is an attempt to call references to the Schwartz Study "cherry-picking," the cherry picking seems to be occurring right now, in the article. As it stands, there has been an effort to expunge the topic from the article. And as it stands, the article has zero mention of the Schwartz paper in the article. Clearly there editors completely content with that: ergo a highly dubious effort to lean the article in away from ONE counterpoint (Schwartz Study) while including THREE/FOUR points against the car. It is highly advisable that editors "against inclusion" of the Schwartz study at least revise the article in the interim -- make some mention of it, to show good faith. Otherwise there is a willful disregard for telling the whole story. 842U (talk) 14:53, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I would support this idea as well. The public perception and the misinformation that was out there is VERY important because it not only guided people's understanding of the car but became the basis for many discussions on corporate ethics. Ford has yet to live down the false accusation that they calculated that it was cheaper to pay off families vs install a cheap part (The Danley paper I mention is particularly significant in this regard). I would add that I think we need to start off the public perception part with some sort of note that many of the facts and understanding initially reported were later found to be incorrect. Basically we should warn the reader that the section is telling what was told and what the public understood, not what was later found to be true under careful and impassioned analysis. Springee (talk) 03:56, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

• Suggestion Propose rolling the article back to the version with the Schwartz paper specifically mentioned until the better version that NickTC is created. Even though I agree with some of the concerns regarding how the article was a few weeks back, I think it's much better with that information vs without. Given the clear evidence that the Ford design was not out of historic norms and that most of the MJ claims about the safety issues and corporate thinking were clearly wrong I think it's a disservice to leave the material out. Springee (talk) 21:47, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

• @Springee: - Appreciate your input. Give me 48 hr to give the "two subsection" resolution a stab. I think I can do this in a way that will make everyone happy. NickCT (talk) 16:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

• Sounds good. If you can get access to it I would really suggest reading these references as well: Danley, "Polishing up the Pinto: Legal Liability, Moral Blame, and Risk" Business Ethics Quarterly and Lee and Ermann, "Madness as a Flawed Landmark Narrative: An Organizational Network Analysis", Social Problems. They are long reads so perhaps just some skimming but they both support the general views of Schwartz with regards to the facts as well as discuss why much of the moral outrage was misguided. To keep things more focused on the car and the controversy I would probably pick several of the key issues raised by MJ (tank location, value of life calculation, previous, "secret" Ford rear impact tests, projected number of deaths, law suits, others?) These items could be described is a bit of detail. The next section could be used to describe the same points as seen by the more recent scholarly work (Schwartz and others). Springee (talk) 17:23, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@Springee: - I took a stab. Would appreciate review.

re "suggest reading these references as well" - Ok. I will take a look if I get a chance. Please be WP:BOLD if you want to add the material yourself. You'll notice there's now a Ford_Pinto#Subsequent_investigation_and_analysis subsection where I think indepth analysis of the safety issue ought to go.

re "pick several of the key issues raised by MJ (tank location, value of life calculation.....described is a bit of detail." - Yes. In reading over this, I've seen a lot of coverage on the Pinto Memo and the value of life calculation. I was half considering another subsection call The Pinto memo. That subsection could detail the value of life calculation. Again, I can take a stab at this, but if you're feeling up to it, you should be WP:BOLD. NickCT (talk) 17:30, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Nick, perhaps tonight I can do some edits. The hard part is I read the articles a while back so I have to re-read them just to know what I think should be put in! Anyway, thanks for starting this off. Springee (talk) 18:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

This is looking ok, but is there some reason there is no mention of Schwartz? 842U (talk) 18:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@842U: - See my comment above re "I would still prefer we simply cite Schwartz rather than name him here". I've already cited him. I'm not sure what the rationale would be for calling him out by name. I'm guessing Shwartz analysis is probably pretty similar to Danley's as Springee suggested. We should summarize all of their work, but I'm not sure we should name any of them. NickCT (talk) 18:53, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

For the same rational of not citing Schwartz, let's also not look at citing the details and names of a lawsuit. Let's cite summary lawsuit information from any of the numerous citations and business case studies.842U (talk) 19:32, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

re "let's also not look at citing the details and names of a lawsuit" - Agree that we definitely don't want a long list of lawsuits and details. It might be worth naming one or two of the most prominent ones though. NickCT (talk) 20:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@Springee: - No.... Thank you! You've provided good third party opinion, commentary and insight on this topic. NickCT (talk) 18:55, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Please take a look at the intro changes I've just made. I think the paragraph has more do with legacy than anything else, and need summarize rather than detail the specific allegations, exonerations etc. 842U (talk) 19:04, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@842U: Ok. I've taken a look. I like most of what you've done, but there are two or three edits I think are a little questionable. I'm going to WP:BRD those edits and give detailed explanations below. NickCT (talk) 20:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

1 - Undid lead changes because 1) Your use of punctuation seems a little unorthodox. Are you using all those semi-colons for a reason? 2) The fuel tank controversy is probably a lot more notable than the rebagded variant. We should keep the controversy lede summary higher in the lead. NickCT (talk) 20:10, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

2 - Partially undid changes to the "Emergence.." subsection b/c 1) changing "saying that" -> "allegedly". I'm a bit confused why we'd use the word "allegedly". Everyone agrees that the Ford did know about the issue and had done a cost-benefit analysis, right? Is there anything in doubt there? 2) Regarding the line starting "and was subsequently revealed to per...."; this really confused me. This statement seems out of line with all the sources on this topic. Could you quote the specific line in Shwartz you are getting this info from? NickCT (talk) 20:22, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Thinking a little more about the "and was subsequently revealed to per..."; I think you're getting this from the Walter Olson piece? I took a look at that reference. I think it's probably an Op-ed. While the WSJ is a RS, commentary in their Op-ed section should not be used for factual information. NickCT (talk) 20:47, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The lede semi-colons have been changed to commas and the order has been changed to reflect your request. The paragraph has been modified to remove all colored language. Re: allegations: at the time Mother Jones published its article, it was making allegations. Yes, we know more now than we did then, but that goes both ways, e.g., the memo.842U (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Expand Ford_Pinto#Lawsuits? - Judy Ulrich

It seems there's a significant amount of coverage regarding the death Judy Ulrich and subsequent trial. Might be worth adding something about that to Ford_Pinto#Lawsuits. (ref) NickCT (talk) 17:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Intro order

I haven't weighed in on the language of the intro section. Given the current ~3 paragraph intro I think the fuel tank part should be the last paragraph. I'm also OK with basically arranging the article with the fuel tank stuff at the end. Basically discuss the car and sibling models first. This would include press reviews, SCCA etc. Once finished then move to the controversy section. I would suggest the intro should follow in the same order. To be fair, I do think that at this point the most significant thing about the Pinto is the fuel tank/safety controversy. I'm suggesting making it basically the second half of the Pinto article (in truth it could be a separate article) about the issue because I think the topic is too significant to mix between a discussion of the Pinto and Bobcat. For that same reason I think the controversy section should be the last paragraph, not the middle, of the intro. I also think that we should use terms like alleged or other words that indicate that many of the claims made against the Pinto regarding safety etc were not proven. Honestly we should treat MJ as an unreliable yet significant source in this article. Springee (talk) 20:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The information in the lede should be provided in order of its notability. As you point out, the fuel tank controversy is more notable than other aspects. So why bury it in the lead?

We could probably make a spin-off article, but at this point, I don't think the Ford Pinto article as a whole is reaching or exceeding our article length limits. So I think we're fine.

You're probably right about the MJ article. I don't think we're currently using MJ to cite any information which isn't also contained in other, more reliable sources, right? NickCT (talk) 20:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the "controvery" paragraph should follow the "Bobcat" paragraph. There is flexibility about the order built into lede guidelines. Putting the "controversy" after "Bobcat" not only puts the elements in chronological order, it moves from general information to specific, which is highly recommended for an introduction. Again, Mother Jones did not know then what we know now. It was making allegations.842U (talk)

@842U: - re "lede order" - It seems obvious to me that the more notable issue should appear higher in the lead. Would you like to poll other editors on this topic?

re "allegations" - I don't think we should use the word "allegations", unless we have reason to believe that some specific fact is in doubt. Is there any information we are pulling from Mother Jones that you think is in doubt? If so, could you point to the specific sentence? NickCT (talk) 21:33, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Again, Mother Jones mis-characterized much of the data and the memorandum. They were writing an inflammatory piece. I'd be find with a group of editors reviewing the entire article.842U (talk) 21:36, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Again, I think you're using a WSJ op-ed to support your "mis-characterization" statement. I agree MJ is a non-neutral source, but if we're going to point out stuff it got wrong, we shouldn't point to other non-neutral sources. NickCT (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I think the MJ article gets singled out because, if I have my history right, it was the one that started the ball rolling. I read one article that said the feds didn't get involved until after the MJ article because it was causing a poop storm with people calling their Congressmen and demanding action. However, I think others such as the news broadcast on the story (forgot the network) further inflamed (:D) the public. I agree that MJ was going for impact rather than quality. Perhaps the others were as well. Maybe we should start the section with a statement noting something like "a series of (damaging?) allegations were made regarding...". That way it's clear that the material in the section is not what was later proven but what Ford was said to have done/not done. It certainly can be hard to pick the right langauge in a case like this. Springee (talk) 21:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@Springee: - re "it was the one that started the ball rolling" - Yes. That's my interpretation too.

re "a series of (damaging?) allegations were made regarding..." - That's fine when talking about the MJ article. I'm opposed to using the word "allegation" next to anything that was later shown to be true though. Otherwise we'll confuse the reader. NickCT (talk) 21:55, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

NickTC, I understand the wish to put things in order of significance and generally agree. However, I think it's just a case of how we claim to be cutting up the topic. I would say the first two paragraphs are about the hardware (the automobile). I would group the Bobcat info into that hardware topic. This hardware had to come first (chronological) and without it the controversy can't happen thus it's more important. The second half of the article is the controversy. Thus I would see it as paragraph 1&2 are the hardware and 3 is the controversy. The first half of the article is hardware, the second half is controversy. Thus, and hopefully my intent is clear, both the article and intro are in chronological and significance order. It also just feels right to me. I get why you changed the order but I don't think it reads as well.

As for MJ references, I don't recall right now. I think in the past some non-controversial facts were cited to MJ. When I read over the current version of the article I wasn't checking and meant it as a general statement. It sounds like we are all in agreement in that regard.

As for "allegations", I'm not opposed to the word given that much of what MJ said was later proven to be wrong. However, I also understand it is a loaded word. What would be a good alternative? "Said" is perhaps OK but alleged really is, grammatically, the better choice. Perhaps WP:WEASEL can help.Springee (talk) 21:42, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

re "I'm not opposed to the word given that much of what MJ said was later proven to be wrong" - I keep hearing this repeated, but whenever I've asked to see the specific piece of information we're using which has been proven wrong, all I'm hearing are crickets.

re " I get why you changed the order but I don't think it reads as well. " - Ok. I guess I sorta see your point, but it really looks like we're trying bury important information by pushing it down in the lead. Ultimately I think this is going to be a pretty subjective question. Shall we do a simple straw poll? NickCT (talk) 21:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

There is quite a bit wrong in the article. I'm not sure how much was obviously wrong at the time and how much we might assign to deliberate bending of facts but one doesn't get far into the MJ article before realizing it isn't about the facts so much as the story. Look at the bullet points on the first page (response by bullet number) Warning, wall of text!:

2: Did Ford find in preproducion crash tests that the tank was ruptured extremely easily?

4: Ford waited 8 years. This is a bit misleading. Ford was caught out because they knew new safety regulations were going to be coming out. What they didn't want to do was spend a lot of money to make changes only to find that the new regulations made those changes instantly obsolete. This bullet also contains the claim about 500-900 deaths as of the time of the article. I'm not sure what records were available at the time but given that the total number was found to be grossly over estimated (note MJ actually reads as a statement of "already". Schwartz page 1029 clears this up. At the time of the recall shortly after the MJ article was released, the NHTSA said they were aware of only 38 examples of rear-end impacts which resulted in fuel leakage or fire. Those 38 resulted in 27 deaths. Schwartz noted that of that 27, the NHTSA didn't indicate how many would be saved by the safety features Ford later added and that many fire deaths are associated with very high energy rear impacts. I would say that counts as one example of at best sloppy reporting. At worst, deliberate overselling to create outrage.

5: Ford did wait a number of years before changing the car. However, as explained in Schwartz, Danley and Lee and Ermann, Ford didn't jump on modifying the car because it would take a few years to make some of the changes (auto production changes take more time than many might realize) and they knew that a new set of rules was just around the corner. So the MJ telling is grossly unfair to the company. Where the telling goes from unfair to a basic lie is in this same bullet, "Ford waited eight years because its internal "cost-benefit analysis," which places a dollar value on human life, said it wasn't profitable to make the changes sooner." This claim, which introduces the "memo" is simply not true. There is NO evidence that Ford used a human life calculation to decide what changes to make. Later in the article when MJ talks about the Memo they grossly mistate what it was actually about. It was NOT about rear impact performance. "This cost-benefit analysis argued that Ford should not make an $11-per-car improvement that would prevent 180 fiery deaths a year. (This minor change would have prevented gas tanks from breaking so easily both in rear-end collisions, like Sandra Gillespie's, and in rollover accidents, where the same thing tends to happen.)" Note the mention of roll overs? Well the memo was ONLY about roll overs and was based on a general response to regulators, not a specific car design (see Schwartz starting on page 1020). Danley noted of the memo, "This was NOT an analysis to determine the profitability for Ford, nor did the report include costs of litigation to Ford, or to any other manufacturer." Much of this is trying to create moral outrage in the readers. Lee and Ermann spend a great deal of time looking at what Ford knew and who in Ford knew it as a way to try to answer the question, what took them so long. One of their important points was that the number of actual fire deaths was not out of the ordinary so the company would have no reason to assume there was a significant problem. Danley dove into the issue that people saw the location of the gas tank and reasoned that it was clearly unsafe but such a conclusion ignores that the overall safety of the car is a composite of many different parts. His retrospective view certainly doesn't support the moral outrage MJ was attempting to incite. MJ claims that $5.08 per car could have saved a life (well $5.08* the number of pintos made). However, perhaps for $5.08 Ford could have improved some other part of the car and saved even more lives. Perhaps Ford already spent that $5.08 somewhere else and did save lives. I know that last bit is my OR but the point I'm making is MJ was clearly trying to make it look like it was obvious to spend the money but Ford didn't want to. Danley notes that it isn't simply to estimate the effectiveness of a safety feature before the car is in the wild. Thus what might seem like an obvious "fix" after the fact may not have looked like a problem before hand.

The article starts out describing a rubber-cloth fuel tank that could withstand impacts. What MJ was describing was a race car type fuel cell. The tanks are in fact very puncture resistant. They also degrade over time. MJ makes it sound like Ford had this perfect answer in their back pocket but chose not to use it because of cost. In fact, even today, decades later, those rubberized tanks are not used on street cars in part because they degrade over time.

MJ had a number of passages that really shouldn't pass the sniff test. In the quote below note that they mention Nixon (not a popular guy) and then imply the regulators were heartless. Lee and Ernmann would disagree here [quote from MJ]:

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 homes 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.

I would note that the MJ article seems to clearly want to indite anyone and everyone. Robert McNamera, certainly still unpopular due to his Vietnam involvement, was noted as a former Ford employee and it was implied that he was the origin of the government's use of "cost of life" calculations. MJ calls the NHTSA weak and suggests it is at the mercy of the car companies. That's a bit unfair since the agency was just 10 years old at the time and much of it's early existence was trying to come up with reliable, repeatable tests and measures. Today we take for granted that we have meaningful crash tests. At the time they didn't even know what they should test. MJ claims Ford was getting regulators to kill various regulations. In fact Ford, and the other car companies, were engaged in the usual back and ford negotiations that were part of the system (the act of Congress that created the agency said as much). It's also notable that the final laws were more stringent that Ford was suggesting and that had Ford made the safety improvements they had considered for the early Pintos they would have had to immediately upgrade the car again to meet the later standards.

Finally, we should be clear that MJ went deep off the advocacy end of things with this article. They held a press conference in DC (they are based in San Fransisco) with Nader and included clip out coupons that could be mailed to representatives demanding action against Ford. (Schwartz 1017). Springee (talk) 03:56, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

CRICKETS??????? I've told you the main faults in MJ. here's a longer version deindent for convenience

MJ 1

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.

refutation Schwartz 27

MJ 2

Ford waited eight years because its internal "cost-benefit analysis," which places a dollar value on human life, said it wasn't profitable to make the changes sooner.

No CBA was ever found for Pinto and rear end collisions (not saying it wasn't done)

MJ 3

The product objectives are clearly stated in the Pinto "green book." This is a thick, top-secret manual in green covers

Which MJ then contradicts by saying " The product objectives for the Pinto are repeated in an article by Ford executive F.G. Olsen published by the Society of Automotive Engineers." Highly unusual for a ford executive to print stuff from a TOP SECRET document, unless of course it isn't TOP SECRET at all. Maybe TOP SECRET is being used to make things more interesting.

MJ 4

To everyone's surprise, the 1977 Pinto recently passed a rear-end crash test in Phoenix, Arizona, for NHTSA. The agency was so convinced the Pinto would fail that it was the first car tested. Amazingly, it did not burst into flame.

Comment. I'm not amazed. it is not typical for a leaking gas tank to catch fire, whether in a crash test or anywhere else. It can certainly happen, but in the majority of cases I've seen gasoline pooling on the road, not burning.

MJ 5

Seventy or more people will burn to death in those cars every year for many years to come.

Schwartz 27 total

MJ 6

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.

Comment. Well, there'll be a whole damn lot more of these revealtions since it is standard practice mandated by NHTSA.

Greglocock (talk) 04:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Greglocock and Springee: - Guys. Lots of good thoughts here. I appreciate you've put a lot of thought into this. I would ask that we re-read my original query though; "I've asked to see the specific piece of information we're using which has been proven wrong," (bolding for emphasis). I didn't ask for information in the MJ article which has been proven wrong. You guys have pointed to a lot of questionable information in the MJ article, which we aren't reproducing in this WP article.

My position isn't that there weren't any problems with the MJ article. My position is that we're not reproducing any of that questionable content in this article.

Take for example the death stats Greg mentions. Those stats don't appear in this article, so why do we care?

So again, I'll ask; what information that we are providing in this WP article relies soley on facts presented in the MJ article?

I hate to say this, but there seems to be an obsession to bash the MJ article. Our job isn't to figure out the accuracy of the MJ article. Our job is to relate notable information about the controversy to readers. NickCT (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

We do have a section that talks about what MJ said in their article. If one wasn't familiar with the issues and read just that section they probably would not realize the facts of the article were questioned. As an example, the article says, "The magazine obtained a cost-benefit analysis that it said Ford had used to compare..." That is an attributed claim but there is no up front warning that the MJ claims are wrong/misrepresenting facts. Basically almost every MJ claim in that section was later proven to be false yet that link isn't really clear in the article. I'm hoping to get some time in the next few days to create some proposed edits. It's just a mater of free time. This is more fun but the other stuff is more important. Springee (talk) 14:56, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Springee: - I think we'd both agree that some of what MJ said was accurate and some was inaccurate. I also think we both agree that we shouldn't present inaccurate things MJ said without warning the reader. Do you currently think we are presenting inaccurate things MJ said without warning the reader? If so, what? I don't think you disagree with the cost-benefit thing, right? I mean, there was a cost-benefit analysis, right? So that part of the MJ article would appear to be true. NickCT (talk) 18:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually I do think we should present the high impact, inaccurate things MJ said. The Pinto Madness article, gross inaccuracies in all was HIGHLY significant in forming the public understanding of the issue. To your cost benefit question, well I do agree that Ford did a cost benefit analysis that include a human life calculation (certainly the company did and still does hundreds of cost benefit calculations as part of their design process). However, MJ mislead their readers into thinking Ford did such a calculation as part of the Pinto's design process.

As an example consider the statement, "Tim hit Jim. Jim got a bloody nose". We really don't know much about Tim and Jim but we would reasonably assume Tim hit Jim and that resulted in a bloody nose. We also might assume Tim was trying to cause harm. But consider an extended version, "While playing Football on the Xbox Tim's player hit Jim's player. Jim tripped while leaving Tim's house and got a bloody nose". Well that totally changes things in the reader's mind. Yes, the original story is still "true" but it creates a very misleading impression. The MJ telling of the cost benefit analysis was at best a misleading presentation of facts. At worst it was a deliberate lie.

What I think the article should really do in this section is start with an into paragraph, not unlike the one we have now. Then perhaps follow a shortened presentation of events like Schwartz, Lee or Danley did. This section should start with a statement that it's presenting the "public perception" and can explain where that perception came from (MJ, 60 minutes etc). This can also include some of the time line as well as the history of the NHTSA initially saying no-recall and later Ford's "voluntary" recall. The later subsection can hit on which of the public perceptions were wrong (number of lives lost, memo, Ford's design motives etc). Springee (talk) 20:16, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

re "Actually I do think we should present the high impact, inaccurate things MJ said." - Again, if you reread what I wrote I don't think we're disagreeing here. " I also think we both agree that we shouldn't present inaccurate things MJ said without warning the reader." (bolding for emphasis).

re "MJ mislead their readers into thinking Ford did such a calculation as part of the Pinto's design process." - Maybe so. But we aren't saying in this WP article that the cost-benefit analysis was done as part of the design process, right? So why does it mater if MJ got it wrong? We're not, ourselves, misleading the reader. That's what important. As long as the information in our article is neutral and verifiable, why does it matter if MJ's wasn't?

re "low a shortened presentation of events like Schwartz, Lee or Danley did. This section should start with a statement " - Ok. Sounds interesting. Mock it up. Let's see it.

re "NHTSA initially saying no-recall and later Ford's "voluntary" recall" - Interesting to note that there are a number of sources which seem to qualify the word "voluntary" (e.g. 1, 2). I guess we should be careful how we use it.

re "The later subsection can hit on which of the public perceptions were wrong " - I think that's fine in concept. I was trying to do something similiar with the line starting "A comprehensive analysis looking at road fatalities between...". We could potentially expand on that. Let's see what you're thinking about. NickCT (talk) 20:42, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

There is a great deal of mistaken supposition here that Walter Olson's article in the Wall Journal was A) an Op-Ed piece and B) should be excluded because of this. There is no evidence of A) except for the supposition of an editor here, and there is no direction B) to exclude opinion from an article. Rather the opposite:

Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

In other words, a neutral articled does not banish all opinion. It embraces different points of view. With this, I'd the article to reflect Mr. Olson's profound lack of confidence in the conclusions that were reached regarding the Ford Pinto's fuel safety.842U (talk) 00:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't had time to give the fuel tank section a good work over. I would like to but time is a issue these days. Anyway, I would suggest people take a look at this article [[2]]. We can debate how RS it is but happily it references other articles. I'm not sure the structure is right for our article but it starts with a statement summarizing the public understanding of the topic then goes into the details explaining the facts and the misconceptions. It also extensively uses other references which we can draw upon. As for the Olson work, I see no reason to view it as non-RS. Springee (talk) 02:02, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Outside Help

Can we please get some outside, administrator help on the article. It's turning into a warring match again.842U (talk) 21:41, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Would it be useful to propose edits here before adding them to the article? Springee (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@842U: - Go here to request page protection. Before you do that though, it might be worth considering that our edits are moving closer together. It appears to me like we're moving towards consensus through WP:BRD. NickCT (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@Springee: - re "Would it be useful to propose edits here before adding them to the article? " - Works for me. NickCT (talk) 21:52, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Newly added "other lawsuits" section

HughD, welcome to this article. Please be sure to use the talk section to discuss your changes and their reasons. Your "other lawsuits" section has questionable content. I think lawsuits other than Grimshaw and the Indiana criminal case are probably out of place here as not encyclopedic with respect to the Pinto. That said, the content of this section seems to be either be OR or just in error. The section only has 3 citations, all at the end. It would be more helpful if they were in line. The WSJ article is behind a paywall so I can't verify it's content. However, the other two sources do not support the section. The book cites page 158. that page/section does talk about airbags but does not mention the Pinto. The Pinto is mentioned elsewhere and in relation to the gas tank issues. The same applies for the Pepperdine Law Review article. It mentions the Pinto only in a footnote and not with respect to the car's lack of airbags.

Also, the "Emergence of controversy" section incorrectly describes the cost benefit analysis. However, that is in a section which needs revision by current consensus. Good call on the dead references and the copyright section! Springee (talk) 20:21, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

The lawsuit mentioned in this section is not encyclopedic with respect to the Pinto. In the case in question a passenger in a Pinto was injured in a severe impact. Unlike the Grimshaw case, this one has not been notably associated with the Pinto. In the case Ford was sued for not including airbags in the Pinto. Unlike the gas tank fire case where there are claims Ford had poor tank protection and made choices to save money, in this case the issue was that the Pinto (like virtually all cars of the time) had no airbags. Since that wasn't a unique feature of the Pinto it makes the Pinto just the car that happened to be there. It is notable that cited sources are from shortly after the incident and from a time when airbags were still not standard. This is much different than the fire cases where articles from just a few years back still discuss the Pinto fires. Because the case is not notable with respect to the car it shouldn't be included in the car's article. It would be more appropriate in an article about the legislative history of airbags in cars. An "also see" from the article to such a topic could be added to this article. Springee (talk) 21:48, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course this content is relevant to the Pinto. In addition to fuel system safety, the Pinto had a key role in the implementation of air bags in modern automobiles. Multiple noteworthy reliable sources make the association, include the front page of The Wall Street Journal, the ABA Journal, another law journal, a book by noteworthy liability experts, and many others, available upon request. Please do not section blank to delete noteworthy reliable sources without proposing an alternative summarization. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for joining the talk page discussion. Can you find any sources that claim it was significant that the Pinto didn't have an airbag? Many sources note the significance of the Pinto's fuel system design. The lack of an airbag in a 1973 Pinto is not a significant fact related to the car. We should ask, "would we create this article to discuss this part of the topic?" I would say no [[3]]. You argue for inclusion based on DUE but I don't believe that applies here since this isn't a case where we are talking about a minority view. It's just a case of is this lawsuit significant to the legacy/history of the car. No, it isn't. Your sources are all old (about the time of the lawsuit) or in the one case mention the Pinto only because it happened to be the car related to the case. None of your sources are claiming Ford was somehow unique or negligent in not including airbags in car made in the mid 70s. Again, I would suggest this could be useful information in an airbag specific article but it is largely off subject here thus removal is the correct editorial action. Previous editorial consensus was too not include a long list of lawsuits and instead stick with the two that have remained significant in the literature over time. The one you added clearly has not. That said, I will let others weigh in. Please maintain a civil tone and remember that it is better to try to justify changes such as this as you make them rather than only doing so reluctantly after the fact. Springee (talk) 22:22, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

The sources are about the Pinto. This article is about the Pinto. The content summarizing the sources is about the Pinto. Of course a Pinto is 95% the same as every other car, your personal interpretation of our project's due weight that this article may only include content that is somehow uniquely related to some unique design feature of the Pinto has no basis in policy or guideline. The content is reliably sourced, noteworthy, and due weight. At 2700 words this article is about half of article length concern guidelines, kindly do not attempt a split without clear consensus. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedic article about the Pinto and should be limited to notable things about the car. Your reference to NPOV doesn't apply. In this case because no one is claiming the material you added is or is not neutral or reliably sourced. It's a question of scope. Furthermore, those articles aren't primarily about the Pinto, at least not the airbag parts. They are about the legal question of any car company not including an airbag given the assumption (at the time) that such systems were ready for use in the 1970s. If you wish to include material covering airbag controversies perhaps it should first be added to the [airbag] article. The Pinto is clearly, associated with the fuel tank fires as well as things like the "Pinto memo". Find any article written after 1990 claiming that the Pinto had a significant influence on the laws related to airbags, tort cases related to airbag etc. The only recent reference you have mentions the Pinto as the car associated with an early airbag case. It doesn't note that it was significant that the car was a Pinto. In short, the lawsuit material you added is not a notable legacy of the car. Springee (talk) 05:51, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

HughD Question about recent changes to the recall section: This recent edit [4] says that it would cost Ford $100m to recall 16 million cars. Ford made ~ 3.2 million Pintos. Were they planning on recalling each car 3 times? Springee (talk) 13:04, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

NickCT, Greglocock, 842U, Aquillion, I'm pinging you to see what you think of the new lawsuit section added to the article. I think aside from HughD and myself you are the only ones to edit the page in the last month. Is this content notable in terms of the Pinto? It seems to me that the case in question isn't specifically about the Pinto but the Pinto, like all cars of the time, had no airbags. Certainly with historical hindsight that airbag case has not had a significant impact on the legal system or the public continence like the gas tank fires have. If we do think the content is notable enough to include then I certainly think it needs to be cleaned up. Anyway, looking for the views of others. Springee (talk) 04:02, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Greglocock and Aquillion, since you have both weighed in, what do you think this airbag lawsuit section? I feel like given the reams of paper discussing the Pinto this one is at best given too much weight in the article. My feeling is that in historical terms the case isn't associated with the Pinto and isn't worth keeping. Springee (talk) 12:44, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

• This section should be cut down or simply removed. It currently contains false claims. The "front page" of the WSJ was actually page 17. (Ford Settles Lawsuit Over Accident Victim For $1.8 Million Total

By AMAL NAG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Wall Street Journal (1923 - Current file); Mar 16, 1984; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Wall Street Journal pg. 17). The ABA article discussed the case only in terms of one of several cases involved in the larger issue of airbags and seatbelt litigation in the late 70s and early 80s. Again, that is was a Pinto wasn't significant, that it was an airbag suit was. The Liability Maze also discussed the case but only in context of the larger supplemental restraint issue. Unlike the fuel tank fire controversy which specifically focused on the Pinto, this is an airbag topic that happens to involve a Pinto. Springee (talk) 15:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://uniquecarsandparts.com/car_info_ford_pinto_v6_wagon.htm). Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 00:38, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Keep material related to the fire controversy in a single section

This article has essentially two major topics. The first is the general discussion of the car which would be similar to other WP articles on cars. Material such as specifications, reviews, sales etc would go into that section. The safety controversy associated with the Pinto is the other major section. Discussions related to the car's engineering, safety etc which are related to the fuel tank fire controversy should be reserved for that section of the article. For example, a California appellate court's opinion on the engineering of the car based on only the testimony allowed into a lawsuit is NOT a reliable engineering opinion. Furthermore, such claims are contradicted by the historical record presented by Schwartz and others.

The controversy section, while increasing in length is actually dropping in quality due to a systematic removal of later sources which have pointed out significant errors in the early accounts and understanding of the Pinto's engineering and real world safety performance. We should not put those same questionable statements in other parts of the article. Springee (talk) 00:03, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

HughD, user Greglocock expressed concerns about editorial bias in your edits to the related Grimshaw article [[5]]. I think those same concerns apply here. Please consider your edits in context of talk page discussions that occurred before you joined this article. Those concerns, especially the ones related to the organizational structure of the fire controversy section and the removal of recent scholarly reviews of the case by Schwartz and others are still valid. Springee (talk) 00:10, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

No sources have been removed. This is an article talk page, other forums are available to you for your editor behavior concerns WP:FOC. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 00:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

HughD, the material you moved is introductory. There is not talk page discussion, and certainly not one that you have participated in, that justified moving a high level general statement about the controversy to the retrospective section. Furthermore, if you followed the conversations that took place before you jointed this article, it was clear that we were not sure of the exact layout of the controversy section. A lead that states that there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation IS part of to the section lead. Springee (talk) 19:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

For most of us, the compromise arrived at above on this talk page 13 February was a turning point in making progress in the editing of this article:

There are really two stories here. 1) The controversy created by the Ford report. 2) The subsequent research suggesting the controversy may have been overblown. If we divide those two stories into two subsections I think it's going to be clearer for the reader. I also think this solution is going to let everyone insert the information they want in there.

We all understand very well you have a favorite source for this article, that you believe your favorite source takes precedent over all others, and requires coverage before all others. However, on Wikipedia a fundamental editorial practice is we strive to present the consensus on facts before we present opinions and commentary. I'm sorry the fine efforts of your colleagues of last month does not sit well with you. Hugh (talk) 20:06, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Hugh, I do not recall you being a party to that conversation. However, as I was adding to the lead of the section it is very reasonable to note the misinformation that exists as part of the lead. Take the lead of Schwartz's article, in the section paragraph of a 50 page article on the subject he states: "that several significant factual misconceptions surround the republic's understanding of the case. Given the cumulative force of these misconceptions, the case can be properly refereed to as "mythical." The quote I used was also from the opening section of a reviewed article on the subject. It makes a great deal of sense to start the section by warning the reader, as these scholars did, that much of the information regarding the fires, lawsuits, etc is muddled and often wrong. That is exactly why that material was put in the lead. I have it in the lead section of my own rework to the article that I was discussing, and working on off line, prior to your edits to this topic. So much of the general Pinto fire story has been shown to be wrong, or at least greatly confused that the only appropirate way to start the section is with such an into. What I had previously discussed was a section with a section lead, then a paragraph that could talk about the public perception of events followed by a section talking about the historic record. However, you have taken off with what were proposed sections. I don't think other editors have agreed those are the correct subsections but perhaps they can be made to work. That doesn't negate the need for a proper intro to the section which is what I attempted to add and you moved without discussion. Springee (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

By any objective measure, the sections in this article on the fuel system design, crash tests, lawsuits, prosecution, regulatory investigations, the cost-benefit analysis, and recalls are all in better shape than they have every been. Most of the content in these sections is sourced to multiple noteworthy reliable sources for the first time. We have been able to thoroughly document several thousand words of highly relevant encyclopedic content that is not in the least controversial: Ford was in hurry; Ford crash tested, cars ignited; Ford performed a cost-benefit analysis; Mother Jones published an article; the NHTSA investigated; Ford recalled; Ford was sued; Ford was indicted; and more. I know this content is very, very controversial in your view. When we find divergent points of view in reliable sources, we summarize them, in proportion; when we find consensus on objective facts and events in reliable sources, we don't diminish them by prefacing them with a minority view controversy. You are of course welcome to make your case for the due weight of inclusion of summarizations of the results of recent scholarship, but not at the expense of other, well-documented content. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Actually in terms of NPOV you have taken the article backwards and I suspect Greglocock would agree. I will grant you that you have cleaned up a number of citations and for that I thank you for that contribution. Now if you would please engage other editors on the talk page so we can agree rather that deal with an edit war.

Your claims about "not in the least controversial" illustrates that you really aren't well versed in the material. Even Becker, a scholarly source you introduced would agree that there is a great deal of misinformation. Let's just hit a few...

1. Ford was in [a] hurry: Well sources disagree here. In particular the 25 month claim seems to be one that has a life of it's own. Schwartz has the project starting in 1967 and first cars off the line in August of 1970. This is consistent with Rossow (a source I haven't added yet) who further specifies that design work began in June 1967 and the first car was produced August 10th, 1970. That's 38 months, yes, faster than the typical 43 of the time but by 5 months, not by 18 months as some sources have claimed. So the "rush" claim is already in dispute.

1. Ford crash tested, cars ignited: This is another area where there is a great deal of misunderstanding. Lee and Ermann discuss this in quite a bit of detail (as does Schwartz). Much of the reason why the industry was doing crash tests in the late 60s and early 70s is because they didn't have reliable, repeatable test methods at the time. They were as much attempting to establish the testing standards as testing the cars. A discussion of the various crash tests without explaining the uncertainty of the time can be misleading to the readers. The claims that cars ignited in the crash tests is VERY misleading. In NO case did a car catch fire during a crash test that was intended to test the crash worthiness of any car. Again, in the scholarly literature they talk about this. The crash tests that resulted in fire, the "secret crash tests", the ones that were discussed last February on the talk page (and likely before that) were tests that were designed to see what happens WHEN a car catches fire. They were setup to generate fire. So again you are wrong to claim no controversy.

1. Cost benefit analysis: To quote Schwartz, "To sum up, the Ford document has been assigned an operational significance that it never possessed" You have made edits that state, " The analysis compared the cost of repairs to the cost of settlements for burn deaths". That again is not true. The memo did not consider tort costs to the car industry. Yet again you have illustrated why my lead paragraph was relevant.

1. Mother Jones: Yes, they published an article. An incendiary article with MANY factual errors. It is significant that MJ got much of it's information from the Grimshaw plaintiff team. Talk about muddying the waters before trial (Danley). We can cite all the ways the media coverage got it wrong but to simply act like MJ published a fair and reliable article is crazy. Mother Jones and Nader's Center for Auto Safety acted in concernt to creat political pressure on the NHTSA to force the recall even though empirical data didn't support it.

1. Investigation and recall: Sorry you again aren't getting the whole picture. The first time around the NHTSA found that there wasn't sufficient evidence. The second time around they manufactured the evidence with a worst case crash test (Lee & Ermann). They were under political pressure and needed to come up with something to justify their action against Ford. Several scholars note that cars that did no better weren't subject to recall. The political pressure wasn't there.

1. Ford was sued: Again, there is quite a bit to discuss here. One of the interesting bits is that Ford didn't seem to take this case seriously enough the first time. When they lost they got hit with a flood of lawsuits. When they won in Indiana that flood stopped because by that time Ford had their defense strategy fixed. Most importantly Ford showed that despite MJ type "firetrap" claims the car's safety record was good for the class. There is also the mater of why the appeals court had to view the evidence against Ford in the most negative light.
2. Ford was indicted. I notice that you don't like to draw attention to the fact that they were also aquitted. Several of the sources I've working with explain why and also suggest that this was a really bad case. The verdict was clearly correct given the law and Ford's actions.

Sorry, the controversy is complex and the intro should indicate that. Furthermore the intro should make it clear that much of what is "popular knowledge" about the case is wrong. Springee (talk) 01:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The article could benefit from more sourcing from peer reviewed academic journals. They are ample. Good idea. I think your problem is you seem to have stopped after you found two that share a point of view in the direction of revisionism and exoneration. Some of the proposed edits above in this thread are best I can tell a minority telling of events, almost pseudo-historical. We have policies and guidelines that deal with this situation. Is the Pinto more or less safe overall than other cars, or other cars in its class, or its closest competitors? If you have sources that say so, feel free to start a section somewhere. It doesn't alter events. Some stuff definitely happened. Hugh (talk) 05:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

[Comments below were nested in reply above - any editor may remove this note] Springee (talk) 12:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

If by "life of its own" you mean it is in multiple reliable sources, yes it does. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

No cars caught fire in crash tests? Wow! Lots of rs is wrong, wrong, wrong. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

You are obviously much impressed with Prof. Schwartz' telling of the Pinto story. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Our article draws no content from Mother Jones. All our article does is note MJ's role in events. There is no controversy here. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

NHTSA manufactured evidence? A govt conspiracy to defame the Pinto? Wow! Everything we know about the Pinto is wrong! Hugh (talk)

Our article says Ford was found not guilty. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Our article does not have a section "popular knowledge." Please be specific about what content is wrong. Hugh (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

In reply to Hugh's points (please number them in the future) 1. Yes, as specifically mentioned by numerous scholarly sources there is a great deal of misinformation that gets retold and thus people assume it to be true. Because of that issue we should rely most heavily on the sources that really investigated the issues rather than ones that repeat what is "known".

2. The cars that caught fire in crash tests were cars that were rigged to catch fire. Please cite your reliable source that says otherwise. I can cite sources to support my statements. It helps that, unlike you, I have been reading about this topic for several years.

3. Schwartz is perhaps the most significant, reliable source on the subject. Sure MJ is significant but not reliable. I know you are a bit of a Chicago fan, perhaps you will take this source as reliable [6] "Gary was one of the preeminent torts scholars of his generation. Many of his articles are staples of the literature. (See, e.g., Gary T. Schwartz, The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case, 43 RUTGERS L. REV. 1013 (1991).) ". The article is also widely cited as reliable, even by Becker, a source you brought to the table.

4. Actually is does. Because we quote MJ without noting that the article has been criticized for poor accuracy and for being inflammatory you are creating a misleading story. You had a similar issue with the Grimshaw article. You wanted to use the appellate court's findings of fact as reliable fact [7] even though procedural rules made this a bad idea. Basically quoting/paraphrasing the source and then failing to note that it has been discredited is the same as treating it as reliable.

5. The NHTSA was under considerable political pressure to find a problem (See Rossow, section 2.7 "Recall" and Lee and Ermann page 41). MJ and the Grimshaw trial lawyers did in fact work together. Danley, footnote 12: "Based on information given to it by lawyers preparing cases against Ford, the Center for Auto Safety petitioned NHTSA in the mid-1970s to investigate the Pinto's rear-end design. According to material presented on the Center's website, Dowie's article is based on that information, made available to him by the Center. ... In an interview with Schwartz, Copp asserted that he was also a major source of the information for the Mother Jones story." It shouldn't be surprising that a litigation team would use the press to generate bad publicity before a trial. The same thing occurred to Audi and GM (saddle tanks).

6. Our lead says Ford was indited, why not say "found not guilty?" Both are true but you picked the more damning language. Why put so much emphasis on the pretrial gory details (Becker talks about this) vs talking about the issues with the case and explaining that because Ford was able to show the real world performance of the car was sound the claims didn't stand. You noted the difference in budgets for the legal teams but you didn't note that public opinion was heavily against Ford because of the bad press coverage. Basically, you seem to want to include only the negative news and ignore the rest.

7. The "popular understanding" section was being discussed prior to your arrival. Unlike you, I was working on a set of changes off line that could be rolled out with just a few article edits. I hope you understand that 200+ edits in 5 days means you are doing something wrong! Anyway, since that section appears unlikely now, it makes sense to include discussions of misinformation in each subsection. Please note that I don't necessarily support your updated subsection headings. Springee (talk) 16:13, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I now understand how important the integrity of your walls of text are to you. I will not intersperse comments in the context of your bullet points, even 7 item lists. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 20:14, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• Replies such as the one above do not show good faith. Please retract such statements if you want to engage in discussions. Springee (talk) 21:14, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

1. ...we should rely most heavily on the sources that really investigated the issues rather than ones that repeat what is "known".

Let me guess, the real sources are Schwartz and Lee & Erdman? The truth is out there? Hugh (talk) 20:14, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

2. The cars that caught fire in crash tests were cars that were rigged to catch fire.

Yikes. With that comment it is clear to me that this particular proposed editorial direction is more than I can deal with alone; kindly requesting de-lurking guys, you know how you are. Help! Of course all crash tests are "rigged" in the sense that they are all by definition simulations. If you believe the NHTSA was motivated by anything other than concern for public safety, that is an extraordinary claim that requires multiple extraordinarily strong noteworthy reliable sources, and even then may be undue weight here as a minority view. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 20:14, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

3. Gary was one of the preeminent torts scholars of his generation

The Mother Jones article was later awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Schwartz said the Mother Jones (magazine) article won a Pulitzer Prize for their Pinto article. Would you support adding that to our article, sourced to Schwartz? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:27, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

4. ...we quote MJ without noting that the article has been criticized for poor accuracy and for being inflammatory

Please drop the stick and back away from Mother Jones (magazine). You seem obsessed with the Mother Jones (magazine) article. Our article does not quote from Mother Jones (magazine). Our article notes the key role of the article in events, and has a one sentence, neutral paraphrase summarization of the article, which seems to me due weight. You have largely succeeded in your crusade to exclude Mother Jones (magazine) as a source for content for this article. Uncontent with that, you are crusading to make sure our readers are aware that everything that everyone knows about the history of the Ford Pinto was polluted by Mother Jones (magazine) until a few courageous scholars like Schwartz set us right in the 1990s. Hugh (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

5. The NHTSA was under considerable political pressure to find a problem

Our article says merely that the NHTSA initiated an investigation, and made a determination. Our article makes no claims about the NHTSA motivations. If by political pressure you mean letters from the public, that is well document and due weight. However, if your theory of events is that the NHTSA was manipulated by Mother Jones (magazine) or lawyers or motivated by anything other than concern for public safety, that is an extraordinary claim that requires multiple extraordinarily strong noteworthy reliable sources, and even then may be undue weight here as a minority view. Again, forgive me for repeating myself, our project has policy and guideline regarding due weight of minority views. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:48, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

6. Body 1st, then lede. Thanks. Hugh (talk)

Summarization of characterization of design process by the appellate court

According to the California appellate court in Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., the Pinto was a "rush project," and while standard automotive industry practice was that "engineering studies precede the styling," in the case of the Pinto project "styling preceded engineering and dictated engineering design to a greater degree than usual."

• Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 119 CA3d 757 (Cal. App. 1981) ("Ordinarily marketing surveys and preliminary engineering studies precede the styling of a new automobile line. Pinto, however, was a rush project, so that styling preceded engineering and dictated engineering design to a greater degree than usual.").

The source highly reliable and extraordinarily neutral. The content is relevant to the design process as a whole. The design process is noteworthy for its record pace. We are asked to include all significant points of view WP:YESPOV. The claim is not in Wikipedia voice. The content is clearly attributed in-text for possible bias WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Hugh (talk) 00:23, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The views of the appellate court are not those of engineering experts. The claim that the court is reliable or neutral in the way you are attempting to use the material is laughable. WP does not consider court opinions to be RS for things other than the opinion of the court. It is a significant point of view as it relates to the Pinto fire controversy and thus would potentially have a place in that section of the article. It would also be balanced by the historic record (Pinto's overall safety record was slightly better than similar cars and the rear impact fire performance was only slightly worse. All of the differences were in the range of statistical noise. Ford was not allowed to present this information in court and thus the appellate opinion was based on incomplete information. See Schwartz and Lee and Ermann for the supporting information and information that is critical of the lower court decision. The court opinion is clearly important to the discussion but it is NOT a reliable view. It does not have a place in the fact based portion of the article. Springee (talk) 00:34, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Schwartz has a critically important statement that is highly relevant to instances when we wish to present appellate court findings as fact:

For reasons quite beyond the court's control, its opinion must be treated cautiously as a source of actual facts. Because the defendant was appealing a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the court was under an obligation to view all the evidence in a way most favorable to the plaintiffs and essentially to ignore evidence in the record that might be favorable to the defendant. See id. at 773, 820, 174 Cal. Rptr. at 359, 388. In fact, Ford's basic position at trial-which the court's opinion at no point mentions-was that the approaching car (a Ford Galaxie) had not slowed down at all, and had struck the Gray car at a speed in excess of 50 miles per hour. There was an enormous amount of evidence at trial supporting each of the parties' factual claims as to the Galaxie's closing speed. Had the jury accepted Ford's speed estimate, there would not have been much of an issue of crashworthiness: for the plaintiffs' position throughout trial was that even a state-of-the-art fuel system could not maintain integrity in a 50 mile-per hour collision.

The above is an example why we can not treat the appellate court finding of fact as a RS and for example we should avoid claims like the impact speed was 27 mph (a claim made my Nader's Auto Safety organization) vs the Ford claim of 50 mph. It is clear the impact speed is in dispute. Springee (talk) 04:18, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I think the best thing to do is to survey other sources and see what they say. I'm fairly certain I've read about the issues with the Pinto's production history elsewhere (and given the attention to the car and especially the series of decisions that lead up to the lawsuit, I would expect really, really detailed studies of the history to exist), but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Some of the business-ethics studies have to go into it, though, since they'd want to discuss what decisions were made, what pressures were behind them, etc; so we could probably find something by searching those, letting us avoid relying so heavily on opinions of the court. --Aquillion (talk) 08:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Exactly right, the sense of the contended content in this thread was easily approximated using other reliable noteworthy sources. Thanks again for your engagement on this article. Hugh (talk) 16:51, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Reviewers that put the car on a "worst" list

I condensed the list of "worst" lists that were mentioned in this section [[8]]. My condensed version is here [[9]]. The exact quotes from the sources are not particularly important given that none of the sources are automotive press. Forbes and Time are saying essentially the same thing. Business Week is offering an opinion on the styling of the car but I think it would be reasonable to say Business Week is not a notable opinion with regards to vehicle styling. What is significant is that the car made it to several "worst" lists, not the details of why. It is sloppy work to have each reference as a separate paragraph. There is certainly no reason for WP:PEACOCK material such as adding "Pulitzer-Prize winning" [[10]]. HughD, please consider your edits more carefully before adding. Speaking of that, please work on your edits in a sandbox then roll them out all at once. It's crazy that that you have added 150 edits (!) to the article in just 4 days [[11]]. Please take time to consider your edits, discuss them here then roll them out. I'm seeing the same disturbing pattern of ignoring the concerns of other editors here that resulted in sanctions against you on other topics. Springee (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Again, I repeat myself, forgive me: please take your editor behavior concerns elsewhere WP:FOC, this is an article talk page where editors discuss content and sources and policy and guidelines. Very obviously, the sources do not say the same thing. Very obviously, the Time source is by a Pulitzer Prize winning automotive critic. Very obviously, Ford is a business and the Pinto is commercial product. Very obviously the Time, Forbes, and Bloomberg Businessweek sources are reliable and very obviously noteworthy and due weight. Very obviously the reasons why the subject of this article was included in the sources is highly noteworthy and due weight. Your contention that only the automotive press is eligible as a source for this article has no foundation in policy or guideline. Very obviously, a "reception" section may contain some content which you may feel is unflattering to the subject; I'm sorry you feel that way. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 01:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm pleased that you understand that this is a page to discuss edits. The next step is for you to actually discuss your editing plans and discuss the concerns raised by other editors. It is PEACOCK to note "prize winning". Businessweek is not at all a qualified source for views on automotive style and design. Your claims of "very obviously" ring hollow because you haven't shown how a business news source would be a place that say, auto enthusiast or designers would turn for opinions on auto design. I can certainly find examples of car enthusiasts being dismissive of "auto design" articles from such sources. More often than not they are click bait articles. But let's move beyond that. We now have a long time editor of the page, myself, suggesting that perhaps this is not a reliable or reasonable source. I understand that you have basically never edited an automobile page in the past and probably followed me here for some reason. Regardless, it would be good to read what others have said and take those views into PROPER consideration. It is VERY clear that you haven't bothered to read much of the previous talk page discussion regarding the direction of the fuel tank fire controversy.

You claim that I've contented that only the automotive press is eligible as a source. That is a ridiculous claim that suggests you again haven't bothered to read what I have said. Certainly sources like Schwartz, Lee and Ermann etc are not automotive. However, when you are discussing how a car looks, drive, etc then automotive writers and press are the qualified sources. Your Time magazine article was, as you point out, written by a qualified writer and was also looking at these cars from a higher level POV (social and cultural impact). Businessweek was not. Springee (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

• HughD, please use honest edit justifications. This reversion [[12]] reason is dishonest. You reverted changes to another section (the review section) which were NOT section blanking. You also have not justified the "other lawsuit" section's existence in the article. At best it is given undue WEIGHT. At worst it is plain outside of the article SCOPE as it relates to airbags. Regardless, please restore the other edits as those changes were not in the scope of your reversion statements. Springee (talk) 03:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

HughD, please review WP:PEACOCK. You may disagree with me regarding the Businessweek as a RS (you have not attempted to justify that source) but you also restored obvious peacock language that you previously added. I've now had to remove it twice. If you don't start cooperating with other editors your editor behavior will have to be reviewed. Springee (talk) 17:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course you know who Dan Neil is, but he is hardly a household name. Please see WP:LINKSTYLE. This article is not so long that it cannot afford a very few words of explanation on the 1st introduction of a proper name. Please see WP:READERSFIRST. WP:PEACOCK is misapplied here. I know you are unimpressed with Pulitzers. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Article Lead

HughD, you are correct the lead is supposed to summarize the article. However, your recent edit to the lead contains errors. The NHTSA did not say the Pinto fuel "defect" resulted in fires. They don't use that sort of phrasing. They said "linked". Your edit claiming a causal relationship is simply wrong. Please show some care with such edits. Springee (talk) 02:16, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Please see article body and excerpt from source and source. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 21:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Not all recalls are encyclopedic...

HughD, I'm sorry you are not familiar with some of the discussions regarding automobile pages. Not all recalls are considered worth noting on the article page. For example, the one you just added [[13]] is not significant enough to make it to the page. Please show some sense of judgment when adding material. Springee (talk) 05:12, 7 March 2016 (UTC) HughD, since you are not using good judgment regarding which recalls are worth mention and you refuse to engaged in talk page discussions, please review this Automobile Project page proposal [[14]]. It makes it clear that the material you added is not encyclopedic. Springee (talk) 05:32, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

"you refuse to engaged in talk page discussions" Page contribution metrics are available, including talk page contribution metrics. Of course you are the leader in talk page verbosity, but your accusation on an article talk page regarding editor behavior is unfounded. Please forgive me if I do not match you wall for wall. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Yesterday's recall, one of the largest in automotive history, was not the first involving the Pinto - a car introduced in 1970 as a crossbreed of American and European technology that was designed to battle small imported autos. More than 2.5 million have been sold. Soon after the Pinto was introduced, 26,000 were recalled because accelerators were sticking. Later, 220,000 Pintos were recalled for modifications to prevent possible engine compartment fires.

• Jones, William H. (June 10, 1978). "Ford Recalls 1.5 Million Small Cars. Ford Recalls 1.5 Million Pintos, Bobcats, Pintos, Bolcats Face Alteration To Cut Fire Risk". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 4, 2016.

The recall you are concerned with is referenced to two highly reliable noteworthy sources, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. Of course in the context of article on a particular automobile that was notable primarily for one of the largest and most notorious recalls in history, other, earlier recalls achieve noteworthiness. I'm sorry you do not feel it is due weight. Hugh (talk) 15:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

It is obvious you didn't read the Automotive project page discussion in question. From the project page discussion "This does not include single MSM articles mentioning them as they are announced. " So while the fire related recalls are important, and they are covered in great detail later in the article, the recall for a stuck throttle and carb problems are not. Just because the earlier recall was mentioned by an article at the time of the fuel tank recall controversy, does not make those early recalls significant 4 decades later. Also, please engage in more forthright talk page discussions. You are trying to use, and have been warned about, using slight of hand presentations of information in the past. Springee (talk) 16:07, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

The Washington Post is main stream media; the Washington Post source is from 1978; the Washington Post is not announcing the recalls of 1971 and 1972; it is exactly the exception the discussants at WP:Auto talk were careful to identify. Hugh (talk) 17:08, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and the view of the project page is that mentions at the time of the recall are not encyclopedic. Also, the mention in passing in an article that was actually about the fuel system recall. Just like the airbag recall you want to add, this is just not a historically notable aspect of the car. Springee (talk) 17:16, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

A single MSM source at the time of recall is not due weight; each of the two recalls 1971 and 1972 is sourced to multiple MSM sources, including national newspapers and an Associated Press report; and to contemporary sources and to later sources. And of course the context of this particular automobile, notable for the fastest development in history, obviously adds due weight to 2 recalls in the product's 1st 6 months; and of course notable for one of the largest recalls in history, and notorious for the delay in that recall, obviously adds additional weight to prior recalls. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

memo confusion

HughD has removed many referneces in this article, specifically ones demonstrating that the design was not unusual and that the memo DID NOT APPLY TO PINTO or even rear end collisions. if he chooses to disagree with those revisions and has any integrity then he can should put the cites back in, because he removed them in the first place. Greglocock (talk) 09:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

No references were removed. Hugh (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

That isn't exactly true. No references were removed from the article. You have removed a number of important specific facts from the article. For example, you significantly altered the already too limited retrospective review. Last month it contained this sentence, "A comprehensive analysis looking at road fatalities between 1976 and 1977 showed that accidents in the Pinto were more likely to cause fire deaths, but that the overall number of fatalities in the Pinto was comparable to or lower than similar cars in its class." You removed the part that showed the Pinto wasn't less safe, "but that the overall number of fatalities in the Pinto was comparable to or lower than similar cars in its class." The way you have described the memo in the article is simply wrong with respect to the most reliable sources on the subject (Schwart and Lee and Ermann in particular). Springee (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

• With respect to sources, any source that states as fact that the Pinto was uniquely unsafe or prone to fire should be considered an unreliable source or questionable source of fact. Both the NHTSA data and scholarly review have shown that the car's overall safety record and safety record with respect to fires was typical for the time. To quote Schwartz:

Moreover, when all vehicle fire fatalities are considered, the Pinto turns out to have been less dangerous than the average subcompact and only slightly more dangerous than the average car. Indeed when occupant fatalities from all highway causes are considered, the Pinto performed respectably.

The above is given further context by several authors who note that designers have to balance all aspects of design safety during the engineering process. During the late 60s it was not obvious that placing the gas tank behind the rear axle was inherently problematic. In fact it was cited as a better location in terms of side impact protection and because it kept the tank further from the passenger compartment. Isolating the car's performance in one aspect of a rare set of crash circumstances (rear impact --> fire --> fatality) is seen by most of the authors as a questionable way to judge the quality of the safety engineering of a car. Lee and Ermann discuss this in some detail when they explain why it wasn't obvious to either the NHTSA nor Ford that there was a problem with the Pinto. Basically the stats that made the car look bad were a needle in a haystack. One of the big issue with Pinto sources, again noted by several authors including Becker et al, is that the incorrect information is so widely "known" that it is often used without question. Hence Time says the car was a firetrap or deathtrap when the actual record does not support this claim. Furthermore, the exculpatory evidence was available to Time when they wrote their "worst" article but why look up what is "known"? Springee (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there is at leat one ref that has been removed (the memo itself), and all discussion of the fact that the memo did not apply to Pinto or rear enders, including refs and excerpts. Greglocock (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Do you mean the so-called "Pinto memo"? It is currently ref #42:

• Grush, E.S.; Saundy, C.S. Fatalities Associated With Crash Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires (PDF) (Report). Ford Environmental and Safety Engineering. Retrieved March 2, 2016.

Thank you. Hugh (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes you are right, that ref is still there, sorryGreglocock (talk) 18:22, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, some of the older references are easy to lose since they were added before people used more formal citations. However, a number of key facts have been removed in the flurry of edits (almost 190 in 5 days!).Springee (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

No key facts have been removed. Hugh (talk) 21:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Who removed, referring to the memo paper trail quote ", ignoring the fact that it was not about rear end collisions or the Pinto." and "former head of the N.H.T.S.A. testified on Ford’s behalf, stating that in his opinion the Pinto’s design was no more or less safe than that of any other car in its class"? Space aliens? Both ar key pointsGreglocock (talk) 07:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Your comment in article space "...ignoring the fact that it was not about rear end collisions or the Pinto." was unsourced and removed as original research. Do you have a source? If it is a key point it will be in multiple reliable sources. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 07:31, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Sure, Gladwell, Schwartz, both make the same point (not surprisingly, if you actually read the memo itself). http://www.pdhengineer.com/catalog/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2283 is another, whether it is a RS I don't know but it is an engineer's ethics course. http://www.ridgepoinths.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Pinto-Case1.pdf discusses the memo at great lengthGreglocock (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The former NHTSA administration head testimony is in the Indiana trial section. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 07:31, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

They aren't reffed because YOU removed the refs. Greglocock (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

No references were removed. I did not remove any sources to my knowledge. Please provide a diff. Your editorial comment in article space "...ignoring the fact that it was not about rear end collisions or the Pinto" was unsourced and removed as original research, please see WP:OR. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 14:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

No, I can't be bothered to do diffs. You are wasting my time. I had put in quotes in particular places in the article, to balance statements that were made. Putting those refs elsewhere diffuses the argument and allows for selective reading.Greglocock (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Providing diffs at article talk is a fundamental collaboration tool on Wikipedia, I'm sorry to hear you feel it is not helpful. Anyway, may I summarize your point, to see if I understand it? Thanks. You feel the testimony of a former head of the NHTSA, testifying in defense of Ford, in a criminal trail in Indiana in 1980, regarding a general statement about the overall safety of the Ford Pinto compared to other cars, is such an important key fact, that its inclusion in the subsection on the Indiana trial is not sufficient weight in our article, that it should be repeated elsewhere, if anything impugning the safety of the Ford Pinto comes up, even to subsections covering earlier events? Have I got that about right? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 20:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

HughD, please stop dancing around legitimate concerns. Perhaps a way for you to show good faith would be to voluntarily pull back from the article for a week and give others adequate time to respond to the edits you have made. When that time is over they we can discuss editorial direction. You have changed so much in the a crucial part of the article in a very short time. Congrats on the Bold part of the BRD cycle. Now please allow others a chance to review and respond to your work. Springee (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

By now, I am very sure everyone on the project knows you wish I would go away, you need not repeat yourself. I have done nothing to prevent anyone from "reviewing and responding." I'm sorry I did not better respect your expertise and strong feelings of ownership of this article. Do you figure it will take you about a week to recast the article to conform to your preferred Schwartz/Lee/Erdman-based narrative? The talk page is open, why not start now, propose some improvements? Hugh (talk) 22:19, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps a better question to ask would be is it correct to use WP to propagate material that has been shown to be false? Do you agree the "Pinto Memo" was not about the Pinto and did not discuss the cost of settling lawsuits against Ford (or any car company) vs the cost of production changes? Springee (talk) 15:21, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

This thread lacks focus. I am reluctant to enable a wall of text, especially in a thread that is mostly personal attacks. Focusing on content if we can, our article has three sentences about the Grush & Saundy cost-benefit analysis memo in the subsection "Fuel system design". The content is well-sourced to multiple reliable sources. Those 3 sentences are a reasonable summarization of the sources. Our article makes no claim regarding Grush & Saundy's intentions in writing the memo. Regardless of the original intention of the Grush & Saundy, we have a sentence in the next paragraph clearly states how Mother Jones (magazine) interpreted the memo. With that, I think it would be due weight to add that the memo was originally intended as a regulatory response, if we bring in the context of Ford's and other automaker's multi-year ongoing effort to stall more stringent fuel system standards, and if we make more clear that the Pinto team affirmatively rejected design changes. Regardless of the primary intent of the Grush & Saundy memo, as a secondary purpose it helped the project team reject fixes. We have multiple reliable sources that document that the Pinto project team management met and considered and decided not to add any fix or fixes to Pintos in production. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I would like to add much of what you are suggesting. Perhaps if you gave others a chance to review your work and make their own changes we can address the concerns of you and others. In the mean time I would suggest you read Schwartz's article. You have read it right?

I will repeat my earlier question, please provide a yes or no answer. Do you agree the "Pinto Memo" was not about the Pinto and did not discuss the cost of settling lawsuits against Ford (or any car company) vs the cost of production changes? Springee (talk) 16:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

From your question, I take it your preference would be for our article to state in Wikipedia voice that the Grush & Saundy cost-benefit analysis memo was "not about the Pinto," without any context, without any explanation of what it was about, that is, just one volley between Ford and NHTSA in Ford's well-documented multi-year campaign to stall more stringent federal regulation of fuel systems? Hugh (talk) 17:18, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

You are avoiding my question and replying with more red herrings. Springee (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Is the Center for Auto Safety a RS?

Information from the Center for Auto Safety [[15]] has been cited several times in the article for fact. The actions and information provided by the center should be viewed skeptically. The organization is not impartial. They worked with Mother Jones to create a political storm around the Pinto issue. They worked together on the discredited "Pinto Madness" article. One specific claim cited to C4AS is that between the time the NHTSA recall had been issued (June 9, 1978) and repair parts were available (September 15, 1978) 6 more people had died in Pinto fires after rear impact. That is an interesting claim given that the NHTSA said that only 27 people had died as a result of rear impact fires over the 6 years from 1971 to 1977 (Schwartz, page 1030). The article contains a number of other questionable claims. Given the group is an advocacy organization, not a reliable new service nor a peer reviewed source it should not be treaded as reliable. WP:RS, [16] wou;d apply.Springee (talk) 03:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The Center for Auto Safety is an advocacy organization? um, because they advocate for, auto safety? so they are not a reliable source??? Hugh (talk) 06:03, 8 March 2016 (UTC) The Center for Auto Safety, Mother Jones (magazine), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conspired to discredit the Pinto? Have I got that right? Hugh (talk) 06:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

After the recall, but before parts were made available, six more people died in Pinto fires.

• "Ford Pinto Fuel Tank". Center for Auto Safety. November 13, 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2016. Recall notices were mailed in September, 1978 and parts were to be at all dealers by September 15, 1978. However, between June 9, 1978, and the date when parts were available to repair the estimated 2.2 million vehicles, six people died in Pinto fires after a rear impact.
• Spear, Gillian (June 18, 2013). "Take that back: Famous recalls, from Tylenol to Toyota". NBC News. Retrieved March 5, 2016. Three people died before the recall and six died in Pinto fires during the time following the recall but before the parts to repair the vehicle were made available.

Our article's claim of 6 more fatalities during the recall is sourced to multiple reliable sources. Is NBC News also wrong? Do you have a source that contradicts this? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 07:38, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• Hugh, you should know better. C4AS is an advocacy organization and the "article" to which you refer it self published. That means it's reliability should be considered suspect, especially if it conflicts with other reliable sources. Do you deny that it seems odd that the NHTSA found only 27 examples of rear-impact fire deaths in Pintos yet Nader's group, claims 6 in only 3 months? That rate would suggest 24 deaths in 1978 alone. That seriously conflicts with the NHTSA numbers. Remember that at the Indiana trial both the defense and prosecutor agreed with the NHTSA's numbers. That NBC offered the same numbers (no source cited) means little. Becker, the scholarly source you brought to the table, and one that cites the quality of both Schwartz and Lee and Ermann's work notes the degree to which the media got things wrong. In fact one of the central issues of the Pinto fire story is the degree to which misinformation has taken over the story and clouds the truth. If you bother to read Becker it becomes clear that there is a lot of misinformation and the press gets much of it wrong.

Here is another example of C4AS getting it wrong. They claimed their original Pinto petition (1974) "languished". That wasn't the case. In fact it was investigated and the NHTSA found that there was no cause of action based on the data. (Graham chapter in "The Liability Maze: The Impact of Liability Law on Safety and Innovation"). This is a very reasonable conclusion given that the Pinto's overall safety record turned out to be better than average for small cars and average for the industry. As Schwartz and others say the recall was in response to a wave of consumer complaints promoted by the media attention. It was not based on real numbers.

The C4AS article also is presenting the MJ article, an article it had a hand in creating, as reliable fact.

In 1977, Mark Dowie of Mother Jones Magazine using documents in the Center files, published an article reporting the dangers of the fuel tank design, and cited internal Ford Motor Company documents that proved that Ford knew of the weakness in the fuel tank before the vehicle was placed on the market but that a cost/benefit study was done which suggested that it would be "cheaper" for Ford to pay liability for burn deaths and injuries rather than modify the fuel tank to prevent the fires in the first place. Dowie showed that Ford owned a patent on a better designed gas tank at that time, but that cost and styling considerations ruled out any changes in the gas tank design of the Pinto.

It has been shown that without a doubt the Pinto Memo was not a memo used during the design of the car (the car was already in production) and that it was generalized to the industry and in response to the NHSTA. It was not used to make engineering design decisions (Schwartz and other show this). To claim the memo discussed tort payments is flat out false and one of the examples of Mother Jones inventing material to create controversy.

The RS rules already say we should question a self published source and now we have highly questionable statistics and false claims. Basically it isn't a reliable source and thus can only be used as an opinion in the article. Springee (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Too long, didn't read. Focusing on content, are you saying you do or do not have a reliable source which contradicts the above content in our article sourced to the Center for Auto Safety and NBC News? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry reading is hard for you. Yes, the NHTSA disagrees. The rest of the material which was too hard for you to read went on to point out other inaccuracies in the article. Anyway, RS rules say we can only use it for opinion, not fact. Springee (talk) 15:38, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Please provide a citation and excerpt which contradicts the above contended content. Thank you. What is your basis in policy or guideline for saying we can only use NBC News for opinion? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:04, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

No, we can't use NBC News either since it contradicts reliable sources (ie NHTSA data). Springee (talk) 16:19, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't see the contradiction. Please provide a citation and an excerpt of the source that you feel contradicts NBC News. Is it your original research that contradicts NBC News or a reliable source? If there is in fact a contradiction, perhaps we can accommodate both sources. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry that such an obvious contradiction escapes you. The A4CS source is not reliable per WP:RS. The NBC article is a short blurb and also should not be treated as reliable. The fact that so few sources support the claim and the fact that it would conflict with the well establish 27 over half a decade is too much to overlook. We can simply give the claim no weight or we can include it with a note that it conflicts with the reliable sources on the mater. Remember, this is the same group that claimed 500 people will die because of this defect. A claim that proved to be grossly inaccurate. Springee (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Please provide a citation and an excerpt from the source you feel contradicts the Center for Auto Safety and NBC News. Is there some problem? It seems like a simple request. Did you notice how above in this thread when you challenged content I copied the content and references and excerpts to the talk page for the benefit of talk page participants? Thank you in advance. As I understand it, your assertion that the Center for Auto Safety and NBC News are incorrect is based on your original research, a sort of probabilistic reasoning, your assessment of how likely it is that the Center for Auto Safety and NBC News might be correct. Have I got that right? Help yourself: please provide a citation and an excerpt with sufficient context that your colleagues may assess their level of agreement with your conclusion; maybe the community will agree with you. Thank you again. Hugh (talk) 18:56, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I think that this is a case where we'll have to document the disagreement in the sources rather than obviously siding with one or the other. I can sympathize with the "this says that those sources are wrong!" issue, but the fact is that it's a huge part of the Pinto's reputation and history (as we can see from the fact that most of the sources disputing it are clearly written from the perspective of refuting the conventional wisdom or mainstream narrative -- which shows that the narrative they're disputing is mainstream and high-profile, and clearly can't be entirely excluded.) What we can do is try to document what each of the conflicting sources say in as neutral a tone as possible. --Aquillion (talk) 21:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps the best way to handle it is to drop the claim. As you said, when we zoom out it's not a big deal, that is it isn't an encyclopedic sort of statement. Most sources say nothing about these "6" victims. What value do it add? Lee and Ermann do note that the June to September delay is quite understandable as Ford had to try to compile a list of owners. An issue with the goose chase HughD has created is many strong sources won't bother with some of the lesser claims. Also, since we have no way to date the claim we can't tell if it was made after the strong sources were written. The NBC article was written in 2013. The C4AS article page has a 2009 copyright date but no article specific date. If we assume the article was written in 2009 then it post dates the strong sources. It is very questionable to include such an unimportant claim, one that flies in the face of accepted evidence just because a biased source and a click bait article mention it. I would pose that this would be a great time for HughD to show he is interested in a reasonable discussion and let this factoid drop from the article.

The problem with accepting the "mainstream" is that the mainstream view isn't well researched or documented. Rather there is strong evidence that it was sensationalized. The actual scholarly work that attempted to answer, what really happened, doesn't support the mainstream narrative. That is very important. That is why NickCT and I had discussed the idea of a two part controversy section. One part would discuss the case as it is generally understood, the other would focus on the scholarship that has said the general understanding of the case is wrong and here is the evidence. I was working on such a change off line.

As for C4AS, I stand by the view that they can not be treated as a RS. Remember they are a party to the issue and we have evidence that their claims conflict with scholarly sources.

We understand you do not like the content. We understand you feel it would be best to exclude it. Everything in every Wikipedia article is not in most sources. Why is it so hard for you to lay out for your colleagues why you feel the source is contradicted, or are you off of that? Now NBC News is click bait? Is it your proposal that mainstream media sources be excluded from this article, in favor of peer reviewed journal articles, or in favor of just Schwartz, Lee, and Erdman? Your impression of scholarship is based on your impression of a small selection of sources with an aligned viewpoint. Ford is a party, should we also exclude from this article all statements by Ford? How about

According to the Center for Auto Safety and NBC News, after the recall, but before parts were made available, six more people died in Pinto fires.

In-text attribution as per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Let's trust our readers to decide whether or not to trust the Center for Auto Safety and NBC News. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Please justify the addition based on WP:WEIGHT given there is clear evidence that the number of deaths has been wildly overstated by groups associated with A4CS and Nader. Springee (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

You see the invisible hand of Ralph Nader everywhere in this story, including NBC News? Hugh (talk) 00:05, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

"we can't tell if it was made after the strong sources were written" Let me guess, the "strong sources" are Schwartz 1990 and Lee & Erdman? All sources before 1990 on the Ford Pinto are unreliable, since they could not possible benefit from Schwartz' scholarship? Hugh (talk) 00:13, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Please keep the hyperbole in check. It doesn't make your case stronger. It's a simple question. Why, if this is such an important fact, do we not see it in any of the news articles, even the inflammatory ones, from 1978 or 1979? No, the first time we see such a claim in 2009 and then a few years later when a lazy NBC editor copies the claim from the C4AS. It's a dubious, inflammatory and yet insignificant claim, why include it? You were bold in adding it. Now accept that others are not happy with it's inclusion and move on. Perhaps we should rewind... do you accept the ~27 deaths number from the NHTSA as correct. If no, do you think the actual number was over 100? Springee (talk) 00:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

NBC News is one of the world's most prestigious news organizations; what is your evidence that the NBC source was due to a lazy editor copying from the Center for Auto Safety? Please share. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 01:05, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Do you agree that 27 is a reliable estimate for the number of Pinto deaths (at the time the estimate was made)? If not, what source should we consult for an alternative value? Springee (talk) 02:40, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The broader question of death and injury numbers coverage in Wikipedia

Our articles has so far managed a reasonable telling of the Ford Pinto events, conspicuously without death or injury numbers. To that extent the post-recall fatalities number "6" lacks context. I suspect the numbers may be controversial. Minimally, we should have one or two sentences, summarizing the widely-reported numbers from the NHTSA determination, a government agency report which consolidates figures from Ford and the NHTSA, as a sort of base jumping off point, in the NHTSA subsection. I ask we please not interrupt the chronological narrative of events with more recent disputation of the numbers at that point in the article. Further, I would suggest we do not present forecasts or extrapolations from anyone, not NTHSA, not Ford, not lwyers, not academics; not worth it, stick to actual numbers. No numbers in Wikipedia voice; all numbers attributed in text. Later, in the "subsequent analysis" subsection, one or two sentences summarizing more recent post hoc analysis of the numbers. Thank you. Hugh (talk)

I think we should present the scholarly accepted value, 27 as of the time it was estimated. I think it is worth noting the other estimates that have been offered. Certainly the wildly overstated claims from Mother Jones should be mentioned because they impacted the public understanding. Springee (talk) 02:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Now HughD, imagine if you had tried to do some research on the subject. Here is half of the 6. They were the 3 girls in the Indiana case. [[17]], [[18]]. Rather than use low quality sources such as the ones you currently have, I would suggest searching for high quality sources. Note, I'm not convinced this factoid is important to the article. The Indiana part, yes, not the 6 during the period. Anyway, I will see if I can get a copy of the latter from my law library. An interesting point about the 3. As Schwartz points out the NHTSA, in concluding 27 fatalities as of 1977 did not note how many of those were in rear impacts at speeds faster than 30 MPH. As of 1973 all Ford cars met the original 20 mph proposal. Impacts over 30 mph may not have been survivable regardless of the design changes. Speed of impact was a critical point in the Indiana trial since a speed over 30 MPH (there is good evidence that the impact was at 50 mph) would mean the recalled parts had no impact on the outcome. This is a point that we should add to the article when discussing the 27 number. From Schwartz:

Evidence that does count against the Pinto was compiled by NHTSA in considering the recall. In crash-testing, NHTSA compared the Pinto to the Chevrolet Vega, often regarded (along with the Gremlin) as having the least safe gas tank of the other subcompacts for sale in America. In this process, the Pinto consistently flunked tests that the Vega was able to pass.61 Yet, even if this comparative crash-testing is acknowledged, the question of the flammability of the Pinto remains ultimately empirical.62 According to the Mother Jones article, as of 1977, somewhere between 500 and 900 persons had been killed in fires attributable to the Pinto's unique design features;63 Jack Anderson, in a column about the Pinto that had appeared several months before the Mother Jones story, had referred to "thousands of people" either killed or "horribly disfigured."64 In the 60 Minutes segment on the Pinto, Mike Wallace expressed the view that he found it "difficult to believe that top management of the Ford Motor Company is going to sit there and say, 'Oh, we'll buy 2,000 deaths, 10,000 injuries, because we want to make some money or we want to bring in a cheaper car.' "65 These are, indeed, numerical estimates that give statistical substance to the claim that the Pinto was a "firetrap." The NHTSA investigation, however, lent no support to such estimates. Relying on a variety of external sources (including Ford), NHTSA indicated that it was aware of thirty-eight instances in which rear-end impact on Pintos had resulted in fuel-tank leakage or fire; these instances, in turn, resulted in twenty-seven deaths and twenty-four nonfatal burn injuries.66 The NHTSA report also incorporated the data internally provided by NHTSA's own Fatal Accident Reporting System ("FARS"), which had begun operation in 1975. FARS data showed that from January 1975 through the middle of 1977, seventeen people had died in accidents in which Pinto rear-end collisions resulted in fires. 67 In comparing NHTSA's figure of twenty-seven deaths for 1971~77 with the FARS figure of seventeen for 1975-77,68 one should keep in mind that the number of Pintos on the road was increasing every year in a cumulative way.

The NHTSA figure of twenty-seven fatalities hence seems roughly in the ballpark by way of suggesting the number of people who had died in Pinto rear-end fires. In setting forth this number, however, NHTSA made no effort to estimate how many of these deaths were caused by the Pinto's specific design features. Many fire deaths undeniably result from high-speed collisions that would induce leakage even in state-of-the-art fuel systems;69 moreover, cars in the subcompact class generally entail a relatively high fatality risk.70 Yet the NHTSA report did not compare the performance results of the Pinto to the results of other cars then on the road, including other subcompacts.

This information SHOULD be in the article. It is very significant that the large number of predicted deaths never materialized. It goes against a popular misconception about the car. I'm open to suggestions as to how to incorporate it but it's very significant that the high death tolls attributed to the Pinto design did not pan out. The deaths that were recorded, possibly including those in the Indiana case, may not have been survivable even if the pre-1977 cars met the 1977 30 mph standard.

I know you want to discount and even belittle the Schwartz article but I would suggest you read all 50+ pages and the footnotes. It will help you understand why the article is widely cited and perhaps the most authoritative work on this subject. Regrettably Lee and Ermann is not readily available to those who don't have research library access. I don't recall if Danley was available without access or not. Springee (talk) 03:46, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

We don't need a list of the 6 names before we can include the content. NBC News said 6. That's good enough for Wikipedia. We don't need to recreate NBC News' work. We are not investigative reporters, we are editors. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I was surprised to hear you would now like to draw more content from your nemesis Mother Jones. May I ask, were you perhaps planning to rebut Mother Jones in this article, perhaps at some length? If so, I'm not sure it's worth it. Hugh (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I have read Schwartz and Lee & Erdman. I agree they have their place. I used Schwartz for some citation of facts. I also used other peer reviewed articles, and you should, too. I strongly agree with earlier commenting editors on this talk page that Schwartz and Lee & Erdman are not central and they do not rise to the weight of pushing out other content or sources such as those published before 1990. Hugh (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I would like to hear your views on the editorial discipline I proposed above, that we endeavour not to interrupt the concise chronological telling of facts and events with more recent analysis and commentary; the basic idea of facts and events first, then opinions. The lengthy preface you insisted on inserting in the lede of the "fire safety" section, the sense of which is: "by the way, everything you are about to read has been shown to be incorrect" has me concerned that you plan to recast each subsection in Schwartz/Lee/Erdman approved terms. Schwartz and Lee and Erdman are subsequent analysis and the place for modest content drawn from Schwartz and Lee and Erdman is the "subsequent analysis" subsection. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Might you be willing to propose some hopefully concise content on the death/injury counts? Right now all we have is the 6. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

But you do need to show that the content is worth including wp:weight. "Nemesis"? When did I say anything as stupid as that? Deliberately presenting the statements of others out of context is WP:UIC Since you claim to have read Lee and Ermann do us all a quick favor, tell us what the quote on the bottom of page 32 says.

Anyway, as for the MJ rebuttal, I would have assumed you read my posts here prior to following me to this article. The basic flaws have already been covered.

I did consider, independent of your suggestion, a chronological telling. I don't think that is the best way because many of the important events are occurring at the same time but don't come together until, for lack of a better term, later in the story. Instead I suggest we follow the pattern of much of the scholarship. Start with noting that there is a great deal of misinformation and misunderstanding then go forward with a structure not unlike the one we have.

Since the degree to which popular understanding of the Pinto controversy so great, one of the most important facets to cover is the myths and misunderstandings. That is exactly why I put the L&E quote in the section lead. The lead needs to make it clear that much of the popular understanding is wrong. That doesn't mean there aren't origins to the material but the way the material has been presented created a false narrative of events. Why should we draw heavily on the information presented by Schwartz and Lee and Ermann? Rossow offers a good answer (emphasis mine):

The paper draws on many sources but most heavily on 1) an article by the late Gary Schwartz [1], a former law professor well-known in the legal profession as a leading scholar of tort law (his Pinto article has been cited as a “staple of the literature” [2]), and 2) a publication by Matthew Lee and David Ermann [3], professors of sociology. Unlike many people writing about the Pinto case, Schwartz, Lee and Ermann carefully examined the factual claims of the conventional account. They read trial transcripts, NHSTA documents, and related books, newspapers, and magazine articles. They interviewed NHSTA managers and engineers, Ford executives and engineers—including harsh critics and whistleblowers who had publicly criticized Ford—plaintiffs and defense attorneys, and safety consultants. They found that, in Schwartz’ rather dry description, “several significant factual misconceptions surround the public's understanding of the case.” The purpose of the present paper is to describe the Pinto case and point out commonly held factual misconceptions, so that the reader can make an informed judgment about the accuracy of the conventional account of the Pinto case.

Do you agree that there are several significant factual misconceptions surrounding the public's understanding of the case?

If you want a concise death count proposal go ahead and propose it. Springee (talk) 06:32, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

"That is exactly why I put the L&E quote in the section lead. The lead needs to make it clear that much of the popular understanding is wrong." In the subsections under "fire safety," we shouldn't say anything that was later proven wrong, and we won't, and we don't, so there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to having a warning label going into this section. Sources may have a "false narrative," but our article may not and does not. We are not here to correct false narratives in sources, sorry. There is nothing in our article that justifies a warning label preface. No Wikipedia article section should have a preface that says to our readers, "btw, this stuff was thought correct historically but is now known to be wrong." If something is wrong, I say, let's not say it. Simple! From your comments it seems to me you have a narrative in mind that you really, really want to write, based on your preferred sources. It sure seems to me like you want to right the great wrongs of Ralph Nader and Mother Jones. Schwartz, Lee, Ermann, and you all have in common the same tone, which is, roughly "this whole Pinto thing is overwrought, but I'm your guy to straighten it out, listen to me, I'll tell you what really happened." This tone may be acceptable in an academic paper but not in Wikipedia. For example, we can paraphrase extensively from Mother Jones, and then rebut it with scholarship, or we can simply agree not to emphasize wrong stuff, or at least not say wrong stuff in Wikipedia voice. For another example, we don't need to go into a detailed explanation of how Ford never actually decided to deliberately market an unsafe car, because we don't say the Ford deliberately decided to market an unsafe car. We are not obligated to summarize the back and forth of all the controversy in all of the hundreds of books and papers written on this product and the trials. Don't waste our reader's time. I am grateful to you for explicitly stating your intention to junk the chronological narrative for a compare and contrast, popular mythology vs. facts, point/counterpoint organization, but that is not an improvement. I am saddened that you decline to take the opportunity of this edit lock to propose more specific content proposals. Hugh (talk) 07:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

1. Do you accept that the 27 number is the best estimate?

2. You said you have read Lee and Ermann, an article not available openly on the web, what does the quote on the bottom of page 32 discuss?

3. Why is it important to include trivial negative factoids in detail such as the styling opinions of a financial news source yet we should avoid mentioning that the facts of the Pinto case are largely misunderstood even though the MOST significant scholarly works on the subject note the key importance of such misunderstandings? Those misunderstandings not only affect what people think today but also impacted the course of events we are discussing! Many sources emphasize the misunderstanding hence it should have significant WEIGHT in this article. Sources that emphasize the misconceptions: Schwartz, Lee and Ermann, Danley, Becker, Rossow, to some extent NPR [[19]], to some extent Gladwell [[20]], Finley [[21]], since you like click-bait list articles, [[22]], to some extent NYT [[23]]. I'm sure I can find more. There are PLENTY of articles, and certainly the most important ones on the subject that note the misconceptions. Thus it absolutely is an important part of the discussion. I'm sorry you wish to suppress such information. Springee (talk) 13:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course many sources emphasize misconceptions; so much has been written about the Pinto story, and no one is going to publish as article that says "my co-authors and I agree with everything in prior literature." When sources express controversy, we summarize the controversy, but later. Our first priority is to not say anything in our article that the consensus rejects later. Sure, sources differ, but let me ask you: what does our article say in Wikipedia voice that is later contradicted? Best I can tell, nothing. And if there were, what say we simply fix it. Therefore, I believe there is no justification for your warning label in the section lede of "fire safety." We shouldn't come out of the gate screaming "controversy!" It's a poor organization. Some stuff happened. First, let's say what happened. Hugh (talk) 17:24, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

When the most reliable scholarship on the subject starts by saying the general understanding is flawed we start our section the same way. I'm sorry you "don't like that". Springee (talk) 17:42, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

• Summing objections: The Center for Auto Safety link should not be used as a RS in this article for the following reasons. First, it is a PRIMARY source as the center was directly involved with events surrounding the Pinto Controversy. This does not according to policy eliminate the source as RS but it places great restrictions and comes with cautions. However, this primary source is offering a narrative of events, that is an interpretation, not a list of facts thus I don't believe it falls under the policy exclusion for primary sources. Second, it is a self published source offering an interpretation of events and offered with out naming an author. Thus [WP:UGC] applies. Together these should exclude using the Center for Auto Safety as a RS. This shouldn't significantly alter much of the article content as in most (all?) cases where the Center is used as a source, other secondary sources are available. Springee (talk) 14:36, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Primary documents are not excluded as sources from Wikipedia. Please see WP:PRIMARY. Hugh (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The Center for Auto Safety source is not a primary source. The Center for Auto Safety source is not "close to an event." The Center for Auto Safety source is an essay written by the Center for Auto Safety summarizing events of decades ago. Hugh (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Ford is also "directly involved with events surrounding the Pinto controversy." Would you also support not using any statements by Ford?

The Center for Auto Safety source includes facts and events. Hugh (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The Center for Auto Safety is not a blog and it is not user-generated content, it is a page on an organization website. The Center for Auto Safety is a recognized expert in automotive safety. WP:UGC does not rule out this source. Hugh (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The content may be attributed to the Center for Auto Safety in-text in an abundance of caution and in recognition that some may have concerns of possible bias as per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Hugh (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The content is also sourced to NBC News.

Thank you Hugh (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Was the Center for Auto Safety a participant in the Pinto Controversy? Yes, they petitioned the NHTSA, they worked with MJ to write the article, they helped drum up public outrage that put political pressure on the NHTSA. That makes them a participant and thus Primary.

Is the article using Ford as a source? No. Statements by Ford are relayed by secondary sources.

The facts and claims of the Center for Auto Safety are not readily verifiable by others or in cases where they are the other source should be cited instead. Per PRIMARY

The center is not a blog but it is still a self published source. WP:UGC does apply.

Rather than attribute to the center, the preferred option is to find other sources. This is not hard in the case of any of the references currently in the article. I've already provided a better source for the 6 death claim. NBC News isn't it. Springee (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Limit the number of edits per day

HughD, when the article lock is lifted I would ask that you limit your edits per day. Currently you are average 40 per day. In just 5 days you have almost as many edits as the top page editor added over 8 years! This and your limited discussion and consensus building on the talk page may be [WP:DE]. Please use your sandbox for making a series of changes that can then be added to the article at one time. Please discussion what you see as good content and scope for the various sections on the talk page. Remember that others have a voice too. Springee (talk) 16:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

What is your basis in policy or guideline for this request? Why are you making it here? Once again, forgive me, I feel I must repeat myself, this is an article talk page, where members of our community discusses article content and sources and relevant policy and guideline. Please see WP:FOC. As you well know, other venues are available to you for your concerns regarding editor behavior. If you feel it is in the best interests of our project to take WP:BOLD away from me, kindly do it elsewhere. The record is clear, I have been extraordinarily patient with you on this talk page. Admittedly, I am a far distant second in terms of talk page contributions. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

If the pace of edits makes it too hard to consensus to emerge, another option is to place the article under full protection for a longer time such as one month. During the period of protection, edit requests could be used to make updates (after proper discussion). EdJohnston (talk) 17:39, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary (especially since I expect it will slow down naturally.) I think that overall, while there are some areas of concern -- parts that might need elaboration, more coverage from other perspectives, etc -- the article is in a better state now than it was before HughD started editing. It's indisputable that the Pinto is most well-known for its safety issues, and the section on them (which previously relied on a small number of sources which we tended to just churn back and forth over ad-infinitum) was badly in need of expansion. It's gone from ~30 sources to ~90, most of which I think we can all agree are decent sources (even if there are a few being disputed back and forth above.) I would encourage HughD to be a bit more receptive to people who want to add other perspectives on various aspects on those (provided they're well-sourced), but ultimately the dispute over eg. exactly what the Ford Pinto memo was used for is not that high-profile relative to the overarching history of the car (look at the article as it is now -- the memo itself only gets three short sentences, and is just one point of many in a much longer timeline. We could add another sentence or two clarifying perspectives on it, but it wouldn't dramatically change the tone or structure of the article.) As I see it, most of the other recent disputes above, while they're hotly-contested, are actually relatively minor now -- things like exactly how we describe the Pinto's inclusion on so many worst-ever lists or whether to mention other recalls are, if you zoom out and look at the overarching history, not going to dramatically change the article much either way (this is why I've mostly avoided weighing in on them, because I don't think they're decisive and I suspect the article will end up fine either way, compared to what I felt were much more glaring issues I had with some versions of it in the past.) Most of the sources you object to are saying things that I suspect can be found from other sources, too; the Pinto's history is really well-documented from every angle at this point... as the fact that the number of sources for this article tripled in the past few days shows. --Aquillion (talk) 21:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree HughD has helped the article in some ways. However, I actually think it is worse in terms of NPOV. But perhaps the best way to deal with that is to ask HughD to take a voluntary break (this is not a break that implies any wrong doing) and let others have a chance to make their changes. If Hugh still has more edits in mind then take another day or two to finish what he wants to do and THEN let others have the article for a bit. I'm perfectly happy to step back from editing for say a week to let HughD finish what he thinks should be done. I would ask that when he is finished he lets others do the same for a time. I do think there is a LOT of good material that has yet to make it into the article. Finally, I would ask that HughD put our editorial conflicts aside and engage in productive back and fort discussions on the talk page. I'm more than willing to do the same. Springee (talk) 22:27, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The talk page is open, why not start now, propose some improvements? Instead of planning for the expiration of the edit lock, why don't you take this opportunity to showcase some of your preferred edits here on article talk? Show your colleagues what a modern neutral no-spin balanced well-referenced telling of the Ford Pinto story looks like when informed by the best recent scholarship. May I say, based on your prelude you insisted on inserting before the well-referenced, reliably sourced facts and events, and based on your comments above regarding "rigged" tests, political influence at the NHTSA, the invisible hand of Ralph Nader, and other comments, I have some concerns about what seems to be your editorial direction. Our community can work through it now or we can work through it later. On Wikipedia, short of a ban, you can't pick your collaborators, you sort of have to work with whoever shows up, sorry. Hugh (talk) 00:33, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The above is a clear example of WP:Incivility. Please assume good faith. Springee (talk) 00:48, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel it is not civil to invite you to share your ideas at article talk during this edit block. It is a sincere request. I sincerely want to see your ideas. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 01:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed editorial direction: set the record straight on false narratives in popular sources

@Aquillion: Thank you very much for your engagement in this article. Thank you very much for your kind words. I'm proud of my contributions to the progress in the organization and sourcing of a difficult section of this article, the fire safety.

I agree we should hope the section on "fire safety" should stabilize, but I anticipate an attempt at a major rewrite once the edit lock is removed. The edit lock has been helpful in that through talk page discussion above we now have a clearer idea of a proposed editorial direction. The major evidence for this proposed editorial direction is in article space, please see the preface inserted into the lede of the "fire safety" section, immediately before the edit lock, warning our readers that much of what they think they know about the Pinto story is incorrect, inserted with an edit summary "Restoring section lead material to the top of section. This material highlights what the section does/will contain:"

Scholarly work published in the decades after the Pinto’s release have offered summations of the general understanding of the Pinto and the controversy regarding the car's safety performance and risk of fire. Lee and Ermann summarized the popular yet largely erroneous understanding of the issues surrounding the Pinto and related fires.

Conventional wisdom holds that Ford Motor Company decided to rush the Pinto into production in 1970 to compete with compact foreign imports, despite internal pre-production tests that showed gas tank ruptures in low-speed rear-end collisions would produce deadly fires. This decision purportedly derived from an infamous seven-page cost-benefit analysis (the "Grush/Saunby Report" [1973]) that valued human lies at $200,000. Settling burn victims’ lawsuits would have cost $49.5 million, far less than the $137 million needed to make minor corrections. According to this account, the company made an informed, cynical, and impressively coordinated decision that "payouts" (Kelman and Hamilton 1989:311) to families of burn victims were more cost-effective than improving fuel tank integrity. This description provides the unambiguous foundation on which the media and academics have built a Pinto gas tank decision-making narrative.

Additional misunderstanding surrounds the actual number of fire related deaths related to the fuel system design, "wild and unsupported claims asserted in 'Pinto Madness' and elsewhere",[31] the facts of the two most significant Pinto related legal cases, Grimshaw vs Ford Motor Company and State of Indiana vs Ford Motor Company, the applicable safety standards at the time of design, and the nature of the NHTSA investigations and subsequent vehicle recalls.

References

Other strong evidence for this proposed editorial direction is here at talk above in article talk:

I did consider, independent of your suggestion, a chronological telling. I don't think that is the best way because many of the important events are occurring at the same time but don't come together until, for lack of a better term, later in the story. Instead I suggest we follow the pattern of much of the scholarship. Start with noting that there is a great deal of misinformation and misunderstanding then go forward with a structure not unlike the one we have.

It is clear that the preface material was the first instalment of a planned major rewrite of this section, which abandons a chronological organization and abandons a neutral telling of dates, facts, and events in favor of a popular mythology v. scholarship, point/counterpoint organization. The consensus of multiple reliable sources is to be abandoned for a very few, select "scholarly" "strong" sources with an closely aligned point of view.

As we know, righting great wrongs is not an appropriate editorial direction for a Wikipedia article. The role of a Wikipedia article is not to address false narratives in sources. Our job is to make sure there are no false narratives in our article, that's all. Neither is the role of this article is to exoneration the Pinto.

Last month above on this talk page, you and NickCT eloquently advocated for the basic principle of Wikipedia editing in which we endeavour to present facts first, and significant points of view later. NickCT added a "subsequent analysis" subsection. I thought we had a consensus on this approach. I believe the appropriate place for a brief summarization of recent scholarship is the "subsequent analysis" subsection, not the lede of the "fire safety" section. Some stuff definitely happened, no matter what recent "scholarship" says.

This article needs the support of you and others on a neutral, chronological organization of dates, facts, and events, followed by points of view and opinions and analysis. Please comment on this proposed editorial direction. I know well walls of text can be exhausting. An occasional very few words from you and others could make an impact. Thank you again. Hugh (talk) 16:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I think I'm going to have to wipe my feet. I just stepped in a lot of BS. It's funny that now that you have changed the content you demand that we freeze it. You did this without consulting with other editors. When I asked you to discuss I was given blow off answers. The article was locked because of your 3RR violation (6RR in one day!). I think it makes more sense to follow the lead of the best scholarly sources on the subject in terms of presentation. You are free to present what you think are the best. While you are at it, please let us know if you agree that 27 is a reliable figure (per the question you have dodged several times) and please prove that you have actually have Lee and Ernmann by answering my previous question. Springee (talk) 17:31, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Lee and Ermann material that relates to the recall and NHTSA

I'm going to copy some sections from this article for people to read. Please ask if you have questions.

Long quote from Lee and Ermann article

Technical Core Beliefs and Actions (1967-1973) To explain what employees in Ford's technical core subunits believed, when they believed it, and how corporate structures influenced them to communicate and act on their beliefs, we separate design from marketing stages. During the design stage ( 1967-1970), Ford technical core employees did not view their actions as taking calculated risks with consumers' lives. Even Harley Copp, the outspoken Ford safety whistle-blower, never asserted that informed Ford participants believed the car was unsafe. Furthermore, they were not thinking about potential lawsuits when making design decisions (Feaheny 1997; Gioia 1996). And they did not refuse to correct perceived problems because settling lawsuits would be cheaper (NHTSA C7-38; Strobel1980). Although technical core work groups were not informed by explicit cost-benefit analyses (we explain these analyses below), they did recognize that unavoidable cost and time constraints make safety trade-offs inevitable for all product designs (see Lowrance 1976). For the auto industry, with its long history of subordinating safety to styling (Eastman 1 984; Nader 1965), implicit safety compromises were particularly common. In the Pinto case, Lee Iacocca and others wanted to compete with foreign imports with a car that weighed less than 2,000 pounds and cost less than $2,000 (Camps 1997; Dowie 1977; Strobel1980). Other car manufacturers were building cars under similar or more stringent guidelines (Davidson 1983 ). Commentators on the Pinto case (writing in a later era with different beliefs) assume that fuel tank leakage in rear end-crash tests must have alarmed both engineers and managers. They didn't, because the tests were not sufficiently convincing at the time (or even today). Crash tests during that era were novel procedures. Both the auto industry and NHTSA were more concerned with the reliability and validity of the tests than with safety data generated by a particular car's tests. Harold MacDonald, the engineer in charge of the Pinto's design, and every other engineer charged with interpreting crash-test data at the time-all of whom whistleblower Harley Copp considered "safety-conscious individuals" (Strobel 1980:183)-doubted that the tests accurately represented real-world conditions (Feaheny 1997). After all, they reasoned, a car slamming backwards into a wall at twenty to thirty miles per hour in a crash test is only a rough approximation of a real-world car-to-car crash. Results that seemed "troubling" (Schwartz 1991:1028) to later writers seemed less problematical at the time and were neutralized by participants' background assumptions about small cars and crashworthiness. NHTSA validated the engineers' skepticism by asking the auto industry to help develop reliable and cost-effective ways to approximate real-world conditions (Strobel1980). Thus, engineers in the design stage were still trying "to find out how to conduct crash tests" (Feaheny 1997; see also Lacey 1986:613). For example, an internal Pinto test report dated November, 1970 listed as its objective "To develop a test procedure to be used to provide baseline data on vehicle fuel system integrity" (NHTSA C7-38-Al.5, Final Test Report #T- 0738). In this test, a Pinto sedan exhibited "excessive fuel tank leakage" when towed rearward into a fixed barrier at 21.5 miles per hour, considered roughly equivalent to a car-to-car impact at 35 miles per hour. Nothing in this, or any other, Ford test report indicates that participants felt cause for concern or organizational action. Although some Ford engineers were not especially pleased, they felt that the data were inconclusive or the risks acceptable (Feaheny 1997; Strobel 1980), or they kept their concerns to themselves (Camps 1997). Some felt that cars would rarely be subjected to the extreme forces generated in a fixed-barrier test in real-world collisions (Feaheny 1997; Devine 1996). NHTSA apparently agreed and ultimately replaced the proposed fixedbarrier test with a less-stringent moving-barrier test in its final standard (U.S. Department of Transportation 1988). Occupational caution encouraged engineers to view many design adjustments that improved test performance as "unproven" in real-world accidents (Devine 1996; Feaheny 1997; Schwartz 1991; Strickland 1996; Strobel 1980). Engineers, who typically value "uncertainty avoidance" (Allison 1971:72 ), chose to stick with an existing design rather than face uncertainties associated with novel ones (Devine 1996; Strobel 1980). One series of tests, for instance, showed that Pintos equipped with pliable foam-like gas tanks would not leak in 30 mile-per-hour crashes. But some engineers feared that such a tank might melt and disagreed with others who felt it was safer than the existing metal design (Devine 1996, see also Strobel 1980). Other engineers believed that rubber bladders improved performance in tests, but anticipated problems under real-world conditions (Strobel 1980). 3 Ford whistle-blower Harley Copp's argument-that the Pinto would have been safer had its gas tank been placed above the axle rather than behind it-is often cited in Pinto narratives as an example of safety being sacrificed to profits, or at least trunk space, in the design stage (Cullen, Maakestad and Cavender 1987; Dowie 1977; Strobel1994). Yet Copp did not reach this conclusion until1977 (Strobel1980). And other engineers were considerably less certain about it, even though the above-the-axle design did perform better in one set of crash tests. The engineer overseeing the Pinto's design, Harold MacDonald (whose father died in a fuel tank fire when his Model A Ford exploded after a frontal collision with a tree), felt that the above-theaxle placement was less safe under real-world conditions because the tank was closer to the passenger compartment and more likely to be punctured by items in the trunk (Strobel1980). Additionally, after making a judgment that the Pinto was acceptably safe, most participants readily devalued subsequent competing definitions (Feaheny 1997). Lou Tubben, an engineer Nwith a genuine concern for safety" (Dowie 1977:23), did not press his concerns until1971-after the car's release. Frank Camps (1981, 1997), another concerned engineer, did not formally object to the Pinto's windshield and frontal-impact fuel tank design problems until1973, and never objected to rear-end fuel tank integrity. Tom Feaheny (1997) was worried about the lack of safety glass on all Ford models, and viewed the Pinto gas tank as a "nonissue" by comparison. In sum, the design stage was not characterized by an engineering consensus that the Pinto was Nunsafe." The value of crash tests was unclear. The Pinto's specific "problem" (e.g., frontal fuel tank integrity, safety glass) varied among those few engineers troubled by the car's safety performance. A "safe" placement of the gas tank was not identified, and the safety value of potential design changes was subject to disagreement. Additionally, engineers believed that the crash test performance of other small cars, particularly imports, was "terrible" (Feaheny 1997). Given this background and the host of other safety issues confronting engineers as a result of the recently passed MVSA, it is not surprising that many Pinto engineers and their family members (e.g., the chief systems engineer's wife) drove Pintos (Strobel1980). In the design stage (1967-1970), no company or government standard on rear-end fuel tank integrity existed to guide the engineers, but their actions were consistent with the takenfor- granted, industry-wide tradition of building lower levels of crashworthiness into small cars. This situation changed in the marketing stage (post 1970). Shortly after the 1971 model year Pintos were released, Ford adopted an internal20 mile-per-hour moving barrier standard for the 1973 model year-the only manufacturer to do so (Gioia 1996; Strobel 1994). The extant legal/regulatory environment reinforced engineers' beliefs that this standard was Nquite reasonable" since it was the "same one recommended at that time by the federal General Services Administration; the Canadian equivalent of the GSA; the Society of Automotive Engineers; and a private consulting firm hired by NHTSA ... " and by NHTSA itself in 1969 (Strobel 1980:205). This standard would constrain future debates by certifying the Pinto as "safe" to Ford's subunit charged with evaluating potential recallable safety problems. Most Ford technical core personnel became less involved with Pinto safety during the marketing stage. One exception was Dennis Gioia, who began a new job in another part of Ford's technical core in the summer of 1972. A self-described Mchild of the '60s," Gioia ( 1992:379) hoped to change an industry he saw as insensitive to safety concerns. Within one year, this inexperienced recent MBA graduate was promoted to Field Recall Coordinator and charged with coordinating all active safety recall campaigns and identifying potential safety problems. Thus Ford had at least one individual in its technical core with the inclinations and authority, though little experience or organizational power, for taking a stand on the Pinto gas tank issue. When Gioia became Recall Coordinator, he inherited about 100 active recall campaigns, half of them safety-related. As with most jobs, the enormous workload required him to use Mstandard operating procedures" (SOPs) to organize and manage information for decision making (d. Kriesberg 1976:1102). SOPs increase organizational efficiency by operating as cognitive scripts that transform decision-making opportunities into largely predetermined action patterns. Existing SOPs required that, to be "recallable," problems needed either high frequency or a directly traceable causal link to a design defect. When reports began to trickle in to Gioia that Pintos were "lighting up" in relatively low speed accidents, and after viewing the burned wreckage of a Pinto, he initiated a meeting to determine if this represented a recallable problem. His work group voted unanimously not to recall the Pinto because the weak data did not meet SOP criteria (Gioia 1996). The work group was unaware of any cost-benefit analyses or Pinto crash test results. Reports of Pinto fires continued to trickle in, and eventually Gioia did become aware of, and concerned about, the crash test results. Again he wondered if the Pinto had a recallable problem, so he initiated a second meeting to convince his co-workers that crash tests showed a possible design flaw. But others again saw no design flaws-after all, the Pinto met internal company standards, and no contradictory external standard existed. The work group conceived the tank leak "problem" not as a defect, but as a fundamental and unalterable design feature: the car's small size, the use of light metals, and unibody construction produced a tendency for Pintos (and others in its class) to "crush up like an accordion" in rear-end collisions (Gioia 1996). In light of what they believed, work group members felt they would become the "laughing stock" of the company if they recommended a recall (Gioia 1996). But fear of ridicule did not motivate their vote. They doubted a recall's legitimacy, or its chances of approval. NHTSA's Role In The Landmark Narrative We now consider NHTSA's often contradictory contribution to the Pinto landmark narrative. Two issues are of primary importance: the selection of the Pinto for recall and NHTSA's use of cost-benefit analysis. NHTSA ultimately recalled the Pinto, but this outcome was far from predictable given the agency's record on the issue of fuel tank integrity. NHTSA's top administrator even testified on behalf of Ford in the Pinto's criminal trial (Strobel 1980). While NHTSA's actions appear Mrational" from a distance, like Ford's they were the product of compromise, conflicting organizational interests and routines, and environmental pressures and constraints. Before we examine NHTSA's actions concerning the Pinto, some background is necessary. Most accidents involve multiple factors contributing to the crash itself or the resulting death and injury. In detailed studies of specific accidents (see NHTSA C7-38), NHTSA employees made numerous recommendations for tougher standards regarding driver behavior (e.g., drunk driving laws), road safety (e.g., guardrails), and vehicle design (e.g., airbag standards). Outside parties (e.g., consumer groups, insurance companies, state government agencies) lobbied NHTSA to take action on particular problems. Therefore, deciding which problems to address was far from clear, given the blizzard of information and cross-pressures (Mashaw and Harfst 1990). Following two fuel tank burn deaths when a large truck rear-ended a Pinto in 1976, for instance, Pennsylvania's Bureau of Traffic Engineering pleaded with NHTSA for tougher truck braking standards, not auto fuel tank integrity standards. As early as 1968, the year of its creation, NHTSA had attempted to adopt a fuel tank integrity standard. The specifics of the standard were subject to much disagreement. In addition to dealing with industry claims that NHTSA's fuel tank integrity proposals would prove ineffective, NHTSA had to son through a fog of ambiguous data on vehicle fires. An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study (NHTSA C7-38), for instance, reported that only 72 (out of a sample of 1,923) fires in 1973 resulted from collisions. Of these 72 fires, only 24 originated in the fuel tank-most began in the engine compartment and were caused by electrical shorts. Additionally, a number of factors affected the likelihood of vehicle fires, including make and age of the vehicle. The Pinto landmark narrative describes unique design features that purportedly made the Pinto less crashwonhy than other cars: for example, bolts on the differential housing and a fuel filler pipe that easily pulled out in collisions. Yet these same issues had been identified much earlier with other cars. For example, a 1970 NHTSA report (C7-38), along with a 1968 Society of Automotive Engineers report, found that pre-1967 Ford sedans exhibited "gross fuel spillage [in crash tests] arising out of the detachment of the filler spout" and tank punctures caused by a "poorly located track-bar bolt." NHTSA did not recall these cars to fix this acceptable risk. Forcing a "Voluntary" Recall In September, 1974, NHTSA crash-tested a number of vehicles, including the Pinto, Mto verify the [Department of Transportation's] rear-end moving barrier procedure ... " (NHTSA C7-38). Several cars, including the Pinto, exhibited significant fuel loss in 30 mile-per-hour tests. A 1969 Plymouth station wagon exhibited a Msteady flow of fuel." Like the Ford crash- test reports discussed above, NHTSA's report expressed neither shock nor concern, concluding only that "The tests indicated that the procedure would produce repeatable test results." None of the cars were subjected to follow-up studies or recall proceedings. 5 Also in 1974, Ralph Nader's Center for Auto Safety asked NHTSA to investigate Pinto fuel tank integrity. NHTSA beliefs and procedures were similar to Ford's: not enough evidence existed to warrant a full defect investigation (Graham I 991). The Pinto had no "recallable" problem, even though people were dying in Pinto fires. By 1977, the social context had changed. Dowie's (1977:18) article had labeled the Pinto a "firetrap" and accused the agency of buckling to auto-industry pressure. Public interest generated by the article forced a second Pinto investigation and guaranteed that NHTSA would be under a microscope for its duration. NHTSA engineer Lee Strickland was assigned to determine if Pinto (and Chevrolet Vega) tank problems warranted a mandatory recall. Strickland's work group held the Pinto and Vega to a higher standard than other cars (Strickland 1996). It dispensed with the usual moving barrier. Instead, it intentionally selected a large and particularly rigid "bullet car" to hit the Pinto's rear end. It weighed down the bullet car's nose to slide under the Pinto and maximize gas tank contact. It also turned on the bullet car's headlights to provide a ready source of ignition. And it completely filled gas tanks in both cars with gasoline rather than the non-flammable Stoddard fluid normally used. Strickland justified these actions as approximating real-world worst-case circumstances (Davidson 1983; NHTSA C7-38; Strickland 1996). For NHTSA, the tests seemed an unqualified success: two 1972 Pintos burst into flame upon impact. In the summer of 1978 NHTSA announced that the Pinto gas tank represented a safety defect, leading to the largest recall campaign in automobile history at that time (NHTSA C7-38; Strickland 1996). Ford agreed to "voluntarily" recall 1971-1976 Pintos. Other small cars sold during the 1 970s were not recalled, even though most were comparable, or in the case of the AMC Gremlin probably less safe (Schwartz 1991; NHTSA C7-38; Swigert and Farrell 1980- 81:180). Their manufacturers successfully defended them as acceptable risks (see Wallace 1978). When we asked why NHTSA forced a Pinto recall for failing the 35 mile-per-hour test, although most small cars could not withstand such a test, Strickland ( 1996) analogized that, "Just because your friends get away with shoplifting, doesn't mean you should get away with it too." Selection of the Pinto Beginning in the late 1970s, claims consistent with "Pinto Madness" readily gained public acceptance, but credible contradictory claims did not (e.g., Davidson 1983; Epstein 1980). For instance, Dowie's "conservative" estimate of 500 deaths (1977:18) was accepted, while NHTSA's report that it could document only 27 Pinto fire-related deaths (NHTSA C7-38; Frank 1985) was ignored. A transmission problem that also caused 27 Pinto deaths (and 180 on other Ford products [Clarke 1988]) never became a social problem. Similarly, publics accepted claims of safety errors leveled by Harley Copp, a Ford engineer who was apparently overseas when early crucial decisions were made (Camps 1997; Strobel 1980), but ignored other safety-conscious Pinto engineers who believed windshield retention was a more important safety problem (Camps 1997), and lack of safety glass caused more deaths (Feaheny 1997). Ford's cost-benefit analysis, a normal product of an interorganizational network, also facilitated the selection of the Pinto for inordinate attention. The year Ford sent the Grush/Saunby document to NHTSA (thus making it available to outside audiences), General Motors conducted a similar cost-benefit analysis (Nader and Smith 1996). Like Grush/Saunby, this analysis used the government's $200,000 figure as the value of a human life. Unlike Grush/Saunby, which addressed static rollover for all cars and light trucks, the GM analysis looked specifically at rearend collisions on its own cars. These facts suggest that GM would have made a better target for Dowie's analysis, but the GM document did not enter the public record until 1988. Contingencies led to the identification of Ford as deviant, while other auto makers escaped scrutiny. By the time of its Pinto investigation, NHTSA had essentially abandoned its original mission of forcing industry-wide safety improvements, in favor of investigating and recalling specific cars (Mashaw and Harfst 1990). NHTSA had two primary incentives in reinforcing the extant Nfocal organization" imagery of the Pinto narrative. First, NHTSA was pressured by specific organizations in its network (e.g., the Center for Auto Safety) and members of the public (see NHTSA C7-38) to take action on the Pinto's gas tank. Second, other network actors (e.g., courts, the Nixon administration, the auto industry) had increasingly limited NHTSA's ability to address systemic auto safety issues.

The above both discusses why it was reasonable that Ford's design team wouldn't have found the crash tests unacceptable. It also discusses how public pressure resulted in teh NHTSA creating a questionable test to ensure the Pinto would fail. The rigged test is an important detail. Yes, the car caught fire in a non-standard test but that was because the test was setup for that purpose. When people say the Pinto failed a crash test or caught fire during a crash test it would only be one where that was the intended outcome. Note that the standard crash test doesn't use gasoline hence no fire in the standard test.

While from a less reliable source, this article is well cited and worth a read. It's a much quicker read that Schwartz. [24] I would also suggest reading the one Greglocock added as both have a large number of citations to support what they say and both are offered as part of courses. Springee (talk) 04:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. There's a lot of useful detail in that. I'm not keeping up with this article at the moment, it does not mean that I have lost interest, merely that I lack the time, and to be honest energy, to keep up with the 40 posts a day guy. However, tortoise and hare.. Greglocock (talk) 05:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the fatigue bit. Springee (talk) 06:34, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Safety Issues section as it stands

Just a list of the most obvious problems in the frozen version, ranging from structure to content to typos. I'm doing this from memory so refs may be wrong.

intro

Typo lies->lives

Fuel tank design

The Pinto's vulnerability to rear-end collision was exacerbated by reduced rear "crush space," a lack of structural reinforcement in the rear, and an "essentially ornamental" rear bumper. These are of course typical for designs at the time. NHTSA chief quote belongs here as a direct rebuttal.

This content has numerous reliable sources and needs no direct rebuttal. The content is about rear-end collisions and the 1980 former NHTSA head testimony in defense of Ford is about overall safety so it is not a direct rebuttal. The former NHTSA head testimony in defense of Ford is in our article in the "criminal prosecution" section where it has context. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 18:59, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Nonsnse as usual. GL

Third para has nothing to do with Fuel tank design, it should have a separate title something like The Pinto Memo or less helpfully Cost Benefit Analysis.

We agree we should not imply that the CBA was a design document through the section organization of our article. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 18:59, 9 March 2016 (UTC) We agree the CBA is due a subsection. Thanks. Hugh (talk)

So you agree, it needs a separate section. GL

Widening public awareness Terrible title. The final sentence spin needs an observation that this notoriety is based on the MJ narrative.

We agree the consensus of vast RS is that the MJ article was the key event in the notoriety. We can move Time's characterization of the CBA to the CBA subsection. We agree on the section heading. Rather than rename this section, may I suggest we collapse this section under the subsequent "NHTSA investigation" and the CAS petitions and the MJ article will read as events leading up to the NHTSA investigation. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 19:12, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Agree that is a better place for it. Disagree with collapsing sections. GL

NHTSA investigation cn for transmission thing, it's in L&E I think. first sentence needs sorting "The next day" needs to be changed to "The day after Nader's press conference..."

Recall Add Gladwell analysis showing that the recall action had no significant effect on safety.

We agree a brief post hoc characterization of an evaluation of the impact of the recall would be a good addition, perhaps here, or in "Subsequent analysis." I'm not sure Gladwell is the best source for this. Can you please be more specific about where in Gladwell? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 19:24, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

No, because you are not going to waste any more of my time. GL

Lawsuits First sentence needs numbers not 'some', and how many failed, etc Second para - goes on far too long about the jury's punitive damages, which were massively reduced on appeal.

Yes, the jury's punitive damages award was later reduced, by the trail judge, and the reduction was upheld on appeal. Plaintiffs never get the full jury award. The jury's punitive award is highly noteworthy as widely reported as the largest jury award of its kind in history. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 19:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

More nonsense GL

Criminal prosecution Nothing obvious

Subsequent analysis ref 82 does not support the sentence as written, if the excerpt is correct. ref 32 is broken, and from memory does not support the sentence as written either. Gladwell makes the point that fires in pinto were about average, it was only by drilling down to rear enders +fire that Pinto stands out.

With your kind leave I will intersperse for convenience, thank you. Thank you for your careful read and for proposing concrete edits during this edit lock. We agree this section needs work. We agree that the article needs a clear statement, easily supported by multiple rs, that the Pinto overall may not be more or less safe/unsafe than, say, other passenger cars, its class, and/or close competitors; and makes the distinct from rear end impact fires. I agree the current refs in this section maybe are not best for this. Ref 32, to Schwartz, is broken because I was in the midst of converting it to Harvard in anticipation of facilitating drawing more content from this ref; it is an easy fix, but maybe needs to be removed. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be polite but largely incapable of answering a straight question or making a coherent point. Thank you Greglocock (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not saying that everything else is fine, but those are the obvious points. Greglocock (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Adding to the above:

The previous section title was more appropriate, "Fuel tank controversy". The current title implies a significant safety defect which is at best a point of contention. It also downplays that there is a lot of controversy related to the fuel system. I think something related to "Fuel System Integrity Controversy" might be better but I'm open to suggestions. Remember that anyone looking at the Contents block will see the subheadings so there is no reason to have a heading that just combines several subheadings.

The "Fuel tank design" title should probably be made a bit more general since technically the issue had more to do with crush space and the fuel filler neck. The issue wasn't the tank per se. The content of this section could probably be split into two sections. One would discuss the proposed regulations and Ford's response to comment vis-a-via the regulations. This would also be a good time to discuss the crash test work Ford and others were doing to establish reliable crash test standards and things like Ford's voluntary, internal goal of meeting the original 20 mph proposed standard by 1973. As either a second section or as the later part of this section the actual design of the Pinto and the Pinto specific crash tests could be discussed. If all this is in one section then the section heading would have to indicate both relevant standards and fuel system design. I will review the articles I've printed to see if they offer an answer. Memo can be discussed here to say what it was and how it didn't impact the car's design. The section should also mention that cost benefit analyses were standard and expected when dealing with government regulations.

The "Widening" title should be changed back to the earlier title. The old title accurately captured the point that this became a controversy, not just the public gaining factual knowledge of the subject. I'm not sure about putting the 1974 NHTSA petition in this section. That wasn't really public knowledge. It is good information but I think I would add it to a NHTSA + recall section. It also is significant that the actual accident data of the time didn't support a recall action. The current section just says the NHTSA was petitioned. OK, to what end? The C4AS says the NHTSA let the request languish. That isn't the case as it was reviewed and found to not be actionable (that might not be the exact term). The MJ article is clearly the flash point of public awareness. The fact that MJ and the C4AS coordinated a DC press conference is important as is that this and other follow on reports (60 Minutes for example) created a public outcry and pressure on the NHTSA. Also worth noting is the comment by L&E that articles allied with the alarmist views gained traction while those that were credible but contradictory did not (L&E pg 41). This is significant because 1. many of the alarmist views have since been shown to be wrong or overblown, and 2. because it helps to explain why there is so much misunderstanding of the subject. Memo should be mentioned here to note that it was widely misrepresented as part of the design decision process.

NHTSA section -> merge with recall section. This is where we should cover both the 1974 investigation and the 1977 investigation. The results of the investigations go here of course. It is also important to note that there was a great deal of pressure on the NHTSA to do something given the public outcry and the accusations from MJ and others that the NHTSA was in the pockets of the industry. The "fiery" crash test was setup to ensure failure. Rather than testing the car to the newly established 1978 standard, a non-standard "worst case" test was conducted (L&E provide details). The way the deck was stacked against the Pinto is significant and should go here. The above supplements the material already in the section.

Recall section -> merge with NHTSA: The "6 people died" one liner either needs to be given context or removed. A single inflammatory comment has no place in an encyclopedic article. The retrospective Time article comment really seems like a throw away. It doesn't need to be given much weight and should be better integrated in the narrative. I may have more thoughts on this later.

Closing for now, more thoughts on the subsequent sections later. Springee (talk) 19:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Continuing:

Lawsuits This section is actually not too bad. The first sentence is an appropriate opening but the last phrase mentioning compensatory and punitive damages is unnecessary given the next paragraph. I think the discussion of the large damage awards, etc is appropriate for this section. The section does have some examples of OVERCITE. The opinion of the appellate court as presented is prejudicial as is. We either need to remove it or include the comment that Schwartz made noting that the appellate court was required to view the evidence in a light most detrimental to Ford [25]. The wording could be cleaned up a bit. No one cares that it was the 4th circuit appeals court, just that it was a CA appeals court. The impact of the bad publicity on the case has been noted by Schwartz, L&E. Becker, Danley and others. It should be mentioned here as well. That Ford was not allowed to present the car's overall safety record has also been mentioned by a number of sources and thus should be given WEIGHT. Finally, the logic of the court should be clearly in the voice of the court, not WP.

Criminal Trial Again we have OVERCITE issues here. No reason to note that Ford was found not guilty 6 times. The background is a bit wordy and the word "explode" should not be used. The credible accounts of the accident to mention fire but no explosion. The mention of the budget difference is perhaps inflammatory but probably not. The problem is it implies Ford only won because they could spend more. It doesn't review the merits of Ford's case. Epstein and others did address the merits of the actual legal case and note that, given the burden of "beyond a reasonable doubt" the odds of getting a conviction were always a long shot (my summary of his views, not his words). Also it should be noted that some of Ford's legal team felt they didn't bring their A game to the Grimshaw case. They weren't going to take that risk this time (Becker is the source here). A Ford manager (forgot name, it's in Becker) noted that in this trial Ford was able to do a better job presenting their case. When the trial was over the Pinto lawsuits also ended (according to the interview in Becker). Finally, since we mention the case is a landmark case (it was) we also might include opinions on the outcome. Becker seems to view the long term impact of the case as mixed. That material may be worth including. I'm not sure that the low point statement is worth keeping. If kept it should not be the closing of the paragraph given that Ford was found not guilty.

Subsequent: Since much of the material that might have been put here when this section was discussed in February may be moved to other sections now, I think this is a work in progress section. Springee (talk) 20:42, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

May I ask, what do you mean when you say "much of the material that might have been put here when this section was discussed in February may be moved to other sections"? What material? What other sections? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 21:31, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Before you came here we had discussed a way to organize the controversy section. It was going to start with a "popular understanding" section then have a "retrospective" section. NickCT setup the current setup. The issue I have with the current setup is IF all of the retrospective material were confined here then I have the same concerns as Greglocock. So material such as "people thought the memo meant X but it was actually about Y" should probably just be put in the various sections (see my proposals above). Thus there is less content for this section. Perhaps this section is best used to sum up the views of the significant scholars who have studied the case. I don't mean used the case as a back drop for an ethics discussion, but really studied the thing. So, for example, we could summarize the Schwartz, L&E, Becker etc conclusions in this section. Springee (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Please review Talk:Ford_Pinto#Sectioning_Compromise.3F. In February, most of us thought it a breakthrough when a consensus was achieved on this talk page on what is actually a very fundamental idea on Wikipedia: we are careful to separate facts & events from opinions & interpretations; further, we endeavour to neutrally present facts & events before opinions & interpretations. Our colleague NickCT, working on behalf of the consensus, introduced some subsection headings, including significantly a "Subsequent analysis" section. This principle is so fundamental that it is actually surprising that experienced editors might dissent. Do I understand from your comments you dissent from this consensus? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:47, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Unlike you, I was a party to the discussion with NickCT. If he has an issue with my edits he is welcome to tell me. As for the rest of your comment, we will have to agree with Greglocock. Springee (talk) 00:41, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

May I clarify, your understanding of consensus: a completely non-controversial consensus, concerning the basic editorial principle of the segregation of facts & events from opinions & analysis, a consensus developed on this talk less than a month ago, in your view only applies to you, if the parties to that consensus are willing to continuously remind you of it? 05:46, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

If you have a suggestion, make it. Springee (talk) 12:47, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

HughD please do not interleave comments it is deprecated behavior and you can and will get pulled up for it, as I have in the past. I can rarely understand your logic at the best of times. Greglocock (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Subsequent analysis: proposed summarization of Schwartz

University of California Los Angeles law professor Gary T. Schwartz, writing in a review of the Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co. verdict in 1990, said the "core of the Pinto story' was

Consider now, however, the combination of a stronger bumper, a smooth (bolt-free) differential, and the addition of both hat sections and horizontal cross-members. This combination of design changes clearly would have improved the Pinto's safety to some appreciable extent. According to the evidence, the overall cost of this combination would have been $9; and it makes sense to assume that these items were turned down by Ford in planning the Pinto primarily on account of their monetary costs. It is plausible to believe, then, that because of these costs, Ford decided to not to improve the Pinto's design, knowing that its decision would increase the chances of the loss of consumer life.

• Schwartz, Gary T. (1990). "The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case" (PDF). Rutgers Law Review. 43: 1013–1068.

Thank you. Hugh (talk) 20:15, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

• Do you mean for this to be the full content of the subsequent analysis section? It would seem you are selectively quoting if so. You certainly left out a lot of material when limiting Schwartz's extensive discussion down to just that little bit. In short that would be a grossly poor summary of Schwartz. The subsequent section should also include L&E, Danley, Becker and any other source that reviewed the controversy in hind sight. Springee (talk) 20:46, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

The block quote above makes it sound like Schwartz thinks Ford should be condemned for their design. Danley notes the problems with assigning moral blame based on judicial blame. Beyond that, Schwartz clearly does not see the car as dangerous or defective by the standards of the day. From the article conclusion:

Schwartz Conclusion

CONCLUSION From what I have been able to learn, as for safety the Pinto was a car that was neither admirable nor despicable. Its overall fatality rate was roughly in the middle of the subcompact range; its record was better than the subcompact average with respect to fatalities-with-fire; yet for the quite small category of fatalities-with- rear-end-fire, its design features apparently gave it a worse-than- average record. Hence, there was nothing clearly wrong in subjecting Ford to liability for harms resulting from that latter category of fires. The punitive damage award in the Ford Pinto case is, however, much more difficult to justify. To a large extent it rested on the premise that Ford had behaved reprehensibly when it balanced safety against cost in designing the Pinto. However, the process by which manufacturers render such trade-off design decisions seems not only to be anticipated but endorsed by the prevailing risk-benefit standard for design liability. Accordingly, the Pinto jury's decision that punitive damages were appropriate- a decision that was affirmed by the trial judge and the court of appeal-raises serious questions about the operational viability of the risk-benefit standard itself.202 The questions relate to the way in which that standard requires that a monetary value be placed on life itself. More precisely, it requires the jury to review the adequacy of the valuation that was implicit in the defendant's design decisions. For Calabresi, a tragic choice is one that requires that "we put a price 'On things we desperately would like to treat as priceless."203 The problem of manufacturers' design liability is not, as a matter of first-order determinations, inherently tragic. Tort law could endorse a rule of no design liability (so long as proper warnings are given) or even a rule of strict design liability (as several scholars have recently recommended). 204 Neither of these rules would raise any issue of life value. It is only because tort law has chosen a negligence-oriented risk-benefit test for design liability that the law seemingly requires the jury to place a monetary value on life. Of course, as a practical matter the· jury can avoid this tragic choice: it can neglect the manufacturer's defense of monetary-cost justification and rule that the manufacturer's design is in fact de- fective. The prospect of such rulings builds a strict liability tilt into what is otherwise a negligence liability standard. At first, this tilt seems so inconsistent with the theory behind that standard as to suggest a crisis of sorts within the administration of design defect law. It proves possible, however, to characterize that administration in a somewhat more charitable way-as an implicit technique for combining certain advantages of negligence liability with certain advantages of strict liability. The current situation, then, is not especially satisfactory; neither, however, is it necessa- . rily deplorable. In further considering the jury's response to the liability issue in cases like Grimshaw, it is tempting-and not necessarily wrong-to interpret that response as embodying in part a populist (or pre-populist) public distrust of major corporations. In fact, however, the jury's instinct in favor of liability is in a way consistent with a basic market analysis, which indicates that the sale of products like the Pinto does not fully comply with economic norms, inasmuch as purchasers generally lack knowledge of specific 'hazards that inhere in the products' designs. Furthermore, the confidentiality of Ford's life-affecting design choices is an important part of the ethical dimension of the Pinto case myth. This assessment suggests approaching the case from the perspective of the products liability doctrine of failure to warn. Indeed, the warning idea seems implicit in the consumer expectations standard that the Grimshaw jury applied. It turns out, however, that under current products liability practices many manufacturers are not obliged to give informed-choice warnings. This Article therefore advimces for purposes of discussion a regulatory proposal that could provide auto consumers with the aggregate safety information they most clearly need while avoiding the practical problems that have understandably discouraged implementation of a tort-oriented warning duty. To wrap up, it makes sense to say if the Ford Pinto case did not exist, law professors would need to invent it: for the case raises essential issues about both the form and the substance of modern products liability doctrine.

There is a lot more than can be taken from Schwartz but to use just one subsection as the retrospective conclusion is not at all correct given that Schwartz starts by saying that thanks to the misunderstandings of the case it has reached a mythical status. Additionally, the follow on work of Lee and Ermann points out some issues with Schwartz analysis. They note that going into the design and even after the early crash tests the Ford engineers didn't see any issues with the design, and not for willful ignorance. Given the car's overall performance it's clear that the engineers made a reasonable set of social trade-offs in the design process. However, as Prof Viscusi noted in a Stanford Law Review article, when it comes to juries it's hard for them to balance the victims they see before them with a rational design trade off [26]. Springee (talk) 21:07, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed edit: remove off-topic, undue section epigraph from "Safety issues, recalls, and lawsuits"

Content proposed for removal or relocation:

Scholarly work published in the decades after the Pinto’s release have offered summations of the general understanding of the Pinto and the controversy regarding the car's safety performance and risk of fire. Lee and Ermann summarized the popular yet largely erroneous understanding of the issues surrounding the Pinto and related fires.

Conventional wisdom holds that Ford Motor Company decided to rush the Pinto into production in 1970 to compete with compact foreign imports, despite internal pre-production tests that showed gas tank ruptures in low-speed rear-end collisions would produce deadly fires. This decision purportedly derived from an infamous seven-page cost-benefit analysis (the "Grush/Saunby Report" [1973]) that valued human lies at $200,000. Settling burn victims’ lawsuits would have cost $49.5 million, far less than the $137 million needed to make minor corrections. According to this account, the company made an informed, cynical, and impressively coordinated decision that "payouts" (Kelman and Hamilton 1989:311) to families of burn victims were more cost-effective than improving fuel tank integrity. This description provides the unambiguous foundation on which the media and academics have built a Pinto gas tank decision-making narrative.

Additional misunderstanding surrounds the actual number of fire related deaths related to the fuel system design, "wild and unsupported claims asserted in 'Pinto Madness' and elsewhere",[31] the facts of the two most significant Pinto related legal cases, Grimshaw vs Ford Motor Company and State of Indiana vs Ford Motor Company, the applicable safety standards at the time of design, and the nature of the NHTSA investigations and subsequent vehicle recalls.

References

Discussion

1. The content is off-topic in this section lede of "Safety issues, recalls, and lawsuits" The topic of the section is a neutral, chronological telling of the facts and events of the history of the safety of the Ford Pinto, with an emphasis on fire safety. The content and references are about the "popular understanding" and the "conventional wisdom" of the story. On Wikipedia, the popular understanding of events is a separate topic from events. Our first priority is a neutral telling of events. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to correct great wrongs in the conventional wisdom. WP:RGW
2. The content is non-neutral and undue, given entirely too much weight to just three sources with a shared, revisionist, apologist point of view. These views may be due weight in the article, but not as the epigraph of the "Safety..." section. WP:DUE
3. The content does not summarize content in the body of the section. MOS:LAYOUT
4. The content is contrary to a talk page consensus of a few weeks ago, 13-14 February. Please see Talk:Ford_Pinto#Sectioning_Compromise.3F above. The consensus was a very straight-forward re-commitment to the fundamental editorial principle that we endeavour to keep facts and events separate from opinions and interpretation, and present facts before analysis. Working on behalf of the consensus, a subsection "Subsequent analysis" was added to the "Safety..." section. WP:CONS

The "Safety..." section is of course one of if not the most important sections of this article for us to get right. This is probably the most important outstanding editorial issue at this time.

This proposed edit is basically an undue of this edit performed immediately before the current edit protection, with an edit summary of "Restoring section lead material to the top of section. This material highlights what the section does/will contain."

Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2016 (UTC)