Has the automobile industry learned a lesson from Ford’s experience with the Pinto? During a time period in which the government safety standards of today were not in place, Ford was not obligated to stick to the safety standards in question regarding the Ford Pinto. The Ford Pinto’s design and development period was the shortest in automotive history (Trevino, p. 115). On August 10, 1978, eighteen-year-old Judy Ulrich, her sixteen-year-old sister Lynn, and their eighteen-year-old cousin Donna, in their 1973 Ford Pinto, were struck from the rear by a van near Elkhart, Indiana. Perhaps the most illuminating data comes from NHTSA fatality rates per million vehicles for 1975 and 1976. They are not unethical or immoral; rather, they are amoral insofar as … Testing proved the Pinto was not the safest vehicle however Ford lobbied and argued that accidents and … FORD PINTO OUTLINE • INTRODUCTION • STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM • FACTS OF THE CASE • CASE ANALYSIS • CASE RESOLUTION The Ford Pinto is a front-engine, rear-drive subcompact car manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company for model years 1971-1980. There were various ways of making the Pinto’s gas tank safer. CASE STUDY “FORD PINTO” 1 2. The lawsuit involved the safety of the design of the Ford Pinto automobile, manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. The company also points out that in every model year the Pinto met or surpassed the government’s own standards. 29/07/13 MVBE AmritaSchool of Business, Coimbatore Group 1 AGroup 1 A Managerial Ethics &Managerial Ethics & Business ValuesBusiness Values II MBA 2012-14II MBA 2012-14 2. A particularly well-known story of product safety is that of the Ford Pinto. Ford Pinto Case Study and Executive Summary. Between 1971 and 1978, the Pinto was responsible for a number of fire-related deaths. Testing proved the Pinto was not the safest vehicle however Ford lobbied and argued that accidents and fatalities were an assumed risk of driving. Not only did Ford strongly disregard the industry safety standard for rear-end impact testing on the Pinto, but willing to prefer to issue its customers to the possibility of injury or death in their quest for a share of the small car market. NHTSA finally adopted a 30-mph collision standard in 1976. But given that number, how can the value of those individuals’ lives be gauged? htm, referenced March 31, 2011 SarbansOxleylaw. The Ford Pinto case is today considered a classic example of corporate wrong-doing and is a mainstay of courses in engineering ethics, business ethics, philosophy, and the sociology of white-collar crime. Ford Pinto Fires Case Study and Executive Summary During the Late 1960’s the Ford Motor Company was one of the leading auto manufactures in the United States. Although the estimated price of these safety improvements ranged from only $5 to $8 per vehicle, Ford evidently reasoned that the increased cost outweighed the benefits of a new tank design. In fact, few imports could match their domestic counterparts, the proud products of Yankee know-how. At the trial, company officials attempted to paint Elwell as a disgruntled employee, but his testimony was supported by videotapes of General Motors’ own crash tests. On March 13, 1980, the jury found Ford not guilty of criminal homicide. © Michael Matteson and Chris Metivier 2021, Reading: Friedman – The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Friedman’s Justification for Stockholder Theory, Reading: Freeman – Managing for Stakeholders, Module 3: Social Responsibility, Professionalism, and Loyalty, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Triple Bottom Line, Reading: Davis – Some Paradoxes of Whistle-Blowing, Reading: Duska – Whistle Blowing and Employee Loyalty, Reading: Arnold & Bustos – Business Ethics and Global Climate Change, Reading: Desjardins – Sustainability: Business’s New Environmental Obligation, Reading: Maitland – The Great Non-Debate over International Sweatshops, Reading: Arnold and Bowie – Sweatshops and Respect for Persons, Terrible Working Conditions and the Costs of Improvement, Module 6: Privacy, Property, and Technology, Reading: DeGeorge – Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Drugs, Case: Patents and the African AIDS Epidemic, Conflicting Rights and Ethical Intuitions, Reading: Arrington – Advertising and Behavior Control, Reading: Brenkert – Marketing and the Vulnerable, Case: Kraft foods Inc.: The Cost of Advertising on Children’s Waistlines, 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100 burned vehicles, $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle, (180 X $200,000) + (180 X $67,000) + (2,100 X $700) =, 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks. 83-86). ? Likewise in the Pinto case, Ford’s management whatever its exact reasoning, decided to stick with the original design and not upgrade the Pinto’s fuel tank, despite the test results reported by its engineers. Ford not only pushed ahead with the original design but stuck to it for the next six years. Can a dollars-and-cents figure be assigned to a human being? Ford officials faced a decision. In my opinion, Ford was making a cheap automobile to be on top of the small car industry over all other automobile makers, domestic and foreign. People wanted small, cheap cars, and the Pinto was a small, cheap car. Ford’s mission consists of the company relevant and profitable in the future. Case Examined with the Period Eye There is a term in art known as the period eye, referring to how an image is viewed during and after the time in which it was created.Looking at the Ford Pinto case using a Period Eye makes it more difficult to judge whether Ford was wrong in manufacturing the Pinto knowing that there would be serious issues if it were involved in a rear … It was supposed to be the car that kept Ford abreast of the times. soxlaw. However, in my estimation, Ford management endangers the integrity of its own safety practices for the small sake of profit. Also Ford felt the public wanted to maintain an inexpensive product and that extra safety features, though only an additional $11 per car, would inflate the base price substantially. This standard would have required that by 1972 all new autos be able to withstand a rear-end impact of 20mph without fuel loss, and that by 1973 they be able to withstand an impact of 30 mph. Ford puts the figure at 23; its critics say the figure is closer to 500. However, Ford was charged with criminal homicide. Case Study Of Ford Pinto. Thus, Ford knew that the Pinto represented a serious fire hazard when struck from the rear, even in low-speed collisions. A 1979 landmark case, Indiana vs. Ford Motor Co., made the automaker the first U.S. corporation indicted and prosecuted on criminal homicide charges. In 1972, it estimated that society loses $200,725 every time a person is killed in an auto accident (adjusted for inflation, today’s figure would, of course, be considerably higher). Business is concerned primarily with profit. If you need this or any other sample, we INTRODUCTION • Demand for sub-compact cars • Designed in May of 1968 by the vice-president of Ford Motor Company, Lee Iacocca • Weighed 2000 pounds, cost $2000 and manufactured in 2 years 2 3. “Ford made an extremely irresponsible decision,” concludes auto safety expert Byron Bloch, “when they placed such a weak tank in such a ridiculous location in such a soft rear end.”.