Mistake was to buy a Ford with dreadful dynamics and a roof that
collapsed.

Dow Corning is still doing quite well after they settled the case
The decision to continue production of implants despite the evidence
and successfull million dollar award against them in the early 80's
which then led to many more womeen's lives being destroyed has been
put behind them.....well almost, they have a multi billion dollar fund
set aside to pay future claims.

If they are not at fault...they don't lose the cases!

OzOne of the three twins

I welcome you to Crackerbox Palace.

Only in America.

Ford has lost a number of ridiculous cases in the courts, including one in
the 1970's where a class action was taken against them by owners who claimed
that their column auto cars "automatically" shifted from park to reverse,
and usually when the driver got out and slammed the door closed. In a few of
the cases the cars were running on auto choke at the time and took off in
reverse causing damage, and one particular case if I remember correctly
concerned someone either being killed or severely injured when an "affected"
car was parked at the top of a steep driveway and rolled back crashing
through the house down below.

At the trial, Ford was clearly able to demonstrate that there was nothing
wrong with their gear lever system and the only way it could "pop" out of
park against the detent was if it wasn't fully placed into park in the first
place. The prosecution admitted that not *one* of the claimants had applied
the parking brake in conjunction with placing the transmission in park prior
to exiting the vehicle as they were *supposed* to (and as the owner's manual
supplied with every car stated they should), and while a bunch of practical
tests were done to try to make one of Ford's cars fall out of park the
phenomena could never be repeated for the jury.

Still, Ford lost the case, as the argument hinged on the term "park", and
the idea that placing the transmission in "park" meant the vehicle was
secure was a reasonable assumption for anyone to make. Nice to know that
Ford (and others) wasted millions of trees in printing operator's manuals
that no one takes any notice of.

Still, what goes around comes around.

When Ford released the Pinto in the early '70's the car quickly gained a
reputation as a killer, as it had a nasty habit of bursting into flames if
it was hit from behind. The problem stemmed from the fact that the fuel tank
was positioned in such a way that when the car was hit it from behind the
tank was punctured by some suspension bolts that were in less than ideal
positions, and it didn't take much of a hit for that to happen.

A number of people were killed, while many more were horrendously burned.

Still, that wasn't the worst of it. The *worst* of it was that Ford *knew*
about the problem before the car ever went on sale.

Almost unbelievably, Ford never crash tested one single Pinto before
releasing the thing for sale on the market. They were struggling to meet
their target release date and had advance orders and couldn't spare the cars
so they *simulated* it by using a few English Capri's modified in a way to
replicate the Pinto's fuel tank & suspension arrangement. Still, even in
those tests many of the car's split their tanks and burst into flames, and
they knew they had a potential problem on their hands.

Rather than address the issue and make the cars safe, Ford asked the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to put a "dollar value" on a
human fatality so they could conduct a cost/benefit study. The NTHSA arrived
at a figure of $200,725 and Ford used this as their basis in their own
study, the report of which was entitled "Fatalities associated with crash
induced fuel leakage and fires".

Basically, they concluded that the cost of modifying each vehicle in the
Ford range to prevent fires would be $11 per vehicle, which would amount to
137 million dollars over the forecasted total year sales, compared to the
$200,725 they were likely to face each time someone was burnt to death in
one of their cars, it was unquestionably cheaper to sell the cars in a
dangerous state and let people be killed.

And that's exactly what they did.

Still, American laws are pretty f.cking dumb. There's a company in the US
called Simpson who manufactures motorsports safety equipment (things like
Helmets, driving suits, gloves, boots and the like). Their stuff is
enormously popular and they make pretty good gear, but they have to allocate
10% of their turnover to defending lawsuits that result from people suing
them when they're injured in motorsports accidents.

Even though you'd have to be dumber than dogshit to not know that such
activity is dangerous, and every piece of Simpson gear comes with a label
advising such.

--
Regards,
Noddy.