You might be scratching your head with the reference, but it wasn’t long ago that Ford was embroiled in a tiff with Firestone. The long-time corporate pals ended up severing their relationship a bit more than 10 years ago due to issues with bad tires or bad Explorers, depending on whom you talk to. It was bad, but Ford’s former PR guru Jason Vines feels that General Motors’ issue with ignition switches should eclipse the Ford/Firestone controversy.
Appearing at the Automotive Press Association to promote his new book, What Did Jesus Drive? Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity, Vines said, “Somebody did not put the safety and the satisfaction of the customer first. It looks like it far down the line. I think someone is going to jail for that. I think it will cost them billions in the end. In the book near the end, I say, ‘Is this going to be worse than Ford Firestone?’ I think the answer might be, ‘Yes.’”
Automotive News says that Vines is bothered by GM’s supposed attempt to make people believe the ignition switch recall crisis is mostly already over. “I don’t think they’re even halfway through because the plaintiffs’ attorneys really haven’t had their way.”
Vines added that companies should be vigilant because the next crisis can happen tomorrow. “There are a lot of high profile crises in our midst. The most glaring error [companies make] in a crisis is not being prepared for it. A couple of years ago, two companies on the top of their game, BP and Toyota were not ready for the crisis that hit.”
Comments
Vines is obviously pro-Ford and biased. Ford and Firestone spent a lot of time pointing fingers at each other while the consumer sat waiting. GM owned up, took the blame and set about addressing the customers’ needs.
Not knowing how an Explorer would handle in an emergency maneuver, was far more unsettling than recognizing that you needed to get excess junk off your key ring.
Well the fact is in most of the deaths in GM vehicles the drivers had mitigating circumstances as in Drunk, Drugs, Medical emergency, Speed, No Seat Belts that all contributed to a situation that most times is not fatal. Out of the first 12 deaths reported 7 alone did not have a belt on. Also the car is very drivable even with the defect as the steering does not lock and is very steerable also it still has full power brakes even with the engine off for several pumps of the pedal.
Now to be fair to Ford too the many tires that blew out were well under pressure and the owner or driver were responsible to keep them at recommended levels as they are in any car. If the pressure was up no one would have died. Sure the car was top heavy but at that time most 4×4’s were top heavy also the tires were not the best but most OE tires are never the best because MFG do not want to pay anything for them.
The sad fact is these both were saturations where the MFG produced a defect that normally is not fatal if the driver is performing as they should be. In this case both the MFG and owner/drivers contribution takes a bad situation an takes it to the next level and someone died.
To be both parties in most but not all were culpable in the deaths and both share responsibilities.
Now I find other vehicles like the Crown Vic where it has numbers showing up to 35 law officers alone were killed when rear ended and the cars caught fire. This is not even counting the Mercury and Lincoln deaths on the same platform or even 2 civilian death. Why is difficult to find info on this? well because the media did not care.
Even Ford recalled the Pinto after 28 deaths but not here. In these cases the defect ended in death not because of the driver doing anything wrong. It was a pure defect that did end in death. Big difference here. Not just picking on Ford as all MFG have made this kind of design error and should be held responsible.
The difference in the ignition case is GM is at fault but the combination of driver failure or incapacity to properly reacts to the GM defect in my eyes a contributing factor in most cases. It is like taking a substance that normally would not kill you and mixing it with another that just very well could.
So to be honest in the case of both of these there is enough blame to go around for everyone Driver, owner and MFG. But yet there are defects out there that are much worse like the Crown Vic fires that got so little play in the media that killed more and had nothing to do with the actions of the driver contributing.
The problem here is yes we have a problem but the media fails to cover this in a complete way and often fails to provide all the facts.
GM should be held responsible for their part in this but if the driver was drunk, speeding and not wearing a belt they should share in partial responsibility for their death. Odd are they would not have crashed let alone died if they were not doing just one of the three. Yes more than one died this way.
In cases like this you need to take in all the factors and not just the ones the Ambulance chasers want in the press.
But also remember the fires started by Fords cruise control switch. And how many of those GM airbags that did not go off contain pieces of metal.
Any one remember Dateline news program that showed GM pickups that caught fire after getting hit in the side? They had to use a igniter to make it happen. You can never be sure with the media. I always say want ever gets put down on print becomes a fact for life the next day.