Car Safety Controversy

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31974, 29 April 1969, Page 15

Car Safety Controversy

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright > WASHINGTON, April 27.

Mr Ralph Nader suggested today that the Germanmade Volkswagen was the most dangerous car on the American highway and that every one should be recalled. Later, a Volkswagen executive denied the truth of Mr Nader's statement, which, he; said, was apparently based on a film of a recent test in California, which neither Mr Nader nor Volkswagen had had a chance to evaluate. The film was shown to a Senate committee and on television. Mr Nader said that American cars had become safer in a crash, but no safer operationally since he launched his road safety campaign with the book, “Unsafe at any Speed.”

Interviewed on television. Mr Nader said that recent tests of the Volkswagen by the Federal office of Highway Safety had indicated “some failures that were shocking—-

indeed, possible violations of the law . . . The shoulderharness restraining the dummy ripped out and failed, pitching the dummy through the windshield in a collision between the Volkswagen and a Ford at a mere 30 miles an hour."

In New York, Mr Arthur Railton, vice-president of Volkswagen of America, Inc., said the object of the test had been to determine if the big Ford would intrude into the passenger compartment of the little Volkswagen, and it did not. The Volkswagen passenger compartment was undamaged. The film showed a dummy lin the Volkswagen thrown against the windshield, but Mr Railton said, it was not clear what broke. He said Volkswagen was not permitted to have an engineer at the test, but hoped to examine the safety belts in California. “The forces exerted in this test were at least twice as great as those required by present standards," he added.