Ford Pinto Ethics

There are a few concerns about harmful behavior of the FMC that should be discussed. A behavior is harmful when it wrongfully sets back the interest of others and has a high risk of harm. Obviously, the gravity of harm in this case is very high being that it is life threatening. Once a consumer has purchased the Pinto and drives it off the lot he is at risk to getting rear ended, and burned to death by a car fire or explosion. Since the weight of this harm is very severe, the low probability of the consumer having an accident doesn’t discount Ford’s unethical behavior. Indeed, driving a Ford Pinto would place a consumer’s life at risk. Also at stake are the interests of Pinto passengers and drivers of other vehicles who certainly are not willing to risk their lives so Ford can make an extra buck. Everyone has an interest in not getting injured or killed. Setting back the interest of consumers isn’t the only thing Ford Motor Company was responsible for.

When crush tests revealed that the weakest part of Ford Pinto was the gas tank that would be punctured by the bolts on the rear axle during the rear impact crash, there was no time to change the tooling. Another obstacle for Ford Pinto's safety was negative position of the General Manager, Lee Iacocca, on importance of the safety. He was known for saying ."..safety doesn't sell" (Dowie, 5) and that only meaning of that phrase was that he did not

Six month following the controversial Grirnshaw verdict, Ford was involved in yet another controversial case involving the Pinto. The automobile's fuel system design contributed (whether or not it was the sole cause is arguable) to the death of three women on August 10, 1918 when their car was hit by another vehicle traveling at a relatively low speed by a man driving with open beer bottles, marijuana, caffeine pills and capsules of "speed."4 The fact that Ford had chosen earlier not to upgrade the fuel system design became an issue of public debate as a result of this case. The debate was heightened because the prosecutor of Elkart County, Indiana chose to prosecute Ford for reckless homicide and criminal recklessness.

Under current Ford leadership the production cycle was cut down from 43 months to 25 months. This would be the gap closer needed in order to keep up profits. This led to some design oversights in placement of components like the gas tank. In the 1971 Ford Pinto the gas tank was located directly behind the bumper of the car . By the time Ford had discovered the flaw in the gas tank placement the equipment was already created and now they were stuck with what was originally set up. The Pinto was designed around the 2000 pounds and under $2000

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has established guidelines for all automakers to fallow. The guidelines were made to reduce fire during automobile collision. In 1972 and 1973 , the standard was 20mph and 30 mph of a rear end accident without any spillage of fuel (, Shaw & Barry). On the other hand, Pinto could not withstand such impact spilling fuel on passengers inside the car. Between 1971-1978, Ford statistics on death by Pinto to 13 lives while critic put it at 500 (, Shaw & Barry). Several lawsuits were initiated by the victims and fines were paid by Ford motor. Even though, the organization claimed they were following established rules, but the ethical and moral position would have been to acknowledge the fault of the car and apologized for the fatality. Nevertheless, the executives stood by their product and never waiver the fact that the product was not safe to be on the road. Several families sued Ford Motor and received compensation for their lost, but it is not like having the alive and well. Through the years, the company survive all those obstacle and remained in business. An apology to the families who have lost love one would have been seen as repentant to one action. The situation would not bring back those individuals, but earned a bit of respect from

(Leggett, Christopher 1999). The crash tests raise concern, since they revealed that the Ford Pinto was not able to safely tolerate collision tests ranging from 20 mph without the fuel tank being punctured. The unprotected rim and the bolts on the differential housing were enough to damage the fuel tank with the assistance of a relatively small force (Dowie, Mark 1977). The engineers designing the process were told that the car was not to way over 2000 ounces and not to cost over $2000. In response to the profit maximization goals at the time, the company pushed for the sale of the car.

In essence they considered it the car of the future available today. Unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been worse. With [the American Motors Company] in the beginning stages of a financial crisis they had to make some compromises.

Dennis Gioia had taken part in making a decision based off of a cost benefit analysis regarding whether Ford should conduct a recall for the Ford Pinto or should they do nothing. In this situation, Ford's cultural values play a big role on how they approached this issue. The organization beliefs of everyone was to make sure Ford was losing the minimal amount of money regardless if people are in danger or not. The cost benefit analysis indicated that they did not think people's safety was as important as retaining money within the company. The rationalization tactics that was used was social weighting. In Gioia's article, he mentioned that they compared the Pinto to other cars of that class and decided that the Pinto was not in a bad enough

Ford Motor Company knew about the Pinto hatchback defect in the car throughout the time of design nonetheless decided that it was too expensive to resolve the problem noted by the Ford engineer Harley Copp.

If Ford would have chosen to move forward with redesigns and alterations of the Pinto, they could have added safety as a key feature of the vehicle. Though Ford may have lost initial profits, they may also have sold an increased amount of cars after the fixes were made. However, even if Ford were to lose profits, it is better to lose money than to lose human lives. By taking lives away from innocent people, you are riding the world of what could have been the next scientist to make a breakthrough discovery, the next writer to influence millions of people, or the next President to help fix foreign relations. Ford should have had more consideration for the people that could potentially be harmed and killed, and also the families of those victims.

The vice president and general manager of Ford wanted to make the Mustang. It was a car that could seat four people with bucket seats and a floor mounted shifter. It wouldn’t be any longer then 180 inches, it’ll weigh less than 2500 pounds, and sell for lower than $2500.00. After months of meetings, discussions and market surveys, the funding was finally approved for the Mustang. On March 9, 1964 the first Mustang made. The Mustang was approved for production after 18 months . A lot of the ideas used for the Mustang were from the Falcon. There was a large number of different interior, exterior, and Drivetrain options. Ford wanted to make a car that everyone would like and can customize it to there liking which was known as "the car to be designed

Shortly after, in 1977 the newspaper called Mother Johns published an article talking about how dangerous Ford Pinto actually is and how they introduced it to the market knowing of its flaws with the gas tanks, they also accused Ford Corporation of lobbying, and supplying false information for more than 8 years, which would result in preventing the new 301 safety standards to be implemented into the car productions. The new 301 safety standards require any car gas tank to withstand a hit of 20mph without exploding and bursting into flames. The accusations are based on the information gathered by the NHTS (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the agency found out that every year 3000 people burn and die in their cars. The important statistic to know is that in that time 24 percent of all the cars driving on the American roads where Ford cars, and 42 percent of all the cars accidents resulting in the gas tank explosions involve a Ford brand car. Ford hired some very expensive lawyers that defended the company in various ways, they admitted that the safety tests were only performed on the front of the car and not on the rear, they also admitted that the improvements on the gas tank would cost them a fortune and would result in a loss of catastrophic proportions. But since the 301 safety standards were not yet

In August of 1978 three teenage girls were driving a Ford Pinto and were struck from behind. The three girls died because the Ford Pinto’s fuel tank ruptured from the collision and burst into flames. There was a big debate about the safety of the Ford Pinto to its proneness to its fuel tank catching on fire in low-speed rear-end

Ford has argued for over three decades that The Ford Motor Company is not at fault, but rather the other motorists who happened to rear end the Pinto drivers. Many accuse Ford of rushing the Pinto into production without proper testing leaving a faulty

Originally this was an idea that Ford had to provide consumers with a unique product when, where and how they wanted it and at an affordable price. This was an attempt on Ford to become a consumer based business. The costs should have been paid by Ford themselves because