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Author: kholvoe Add to my Favorite Fools Ignore this person (you won't see their posts anymore) Number: of 18189  
Subject: Re: Good PR vs. Covering Your Butt Date: 8/24/2000 6:01 PM
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Hmmm...I've owned 4 fords. The next to last one was a ranger I rolled when I was run off the road buy a fsking hit and run driver into a train track. (Bought an escort with the insurance: handles a lot better, better gas mileage, and a world of a lot harder to roll.) Gotta say, the tire thing is a scape goat. The fact is, the people died because the SUVs rolled, not 'cause the tire blew / seperated / shredded. I think the rollover problem is the most serious defect in all SUVs, not just the explorer. It's a shame the gas prices won't stay high enough to convince people to buy smaller cars...anyway, I hope ford makes it through this because I think, in general, they make good vehicles.

Regarding some of the "internal documents" obtained by news agencies and reporters, all I gotta say is what is said in side a family (and company) is often in a language unsuitable for public consumption. What I mean is, engineers try very hard to explicitly detail risks. It is part of our the professional code of conduct. Media types (and marketing, for that matter) pretend like every warning is a china syndrome meltdown waiting to happen. Professional Engineers believe that if the possibility harm exists, it must be documented. But it doesn't always legally, or even morally, create an obligation to change a design. Is that the case here, I don't know. But the knee jerk media reaction that the big, bad corporation wants to kill all our children is repulsive.

How many years are include in the 62-100 deaths? How many people died in that time from drunk driving? Running red lights? Speeding? Hitting deer? My fiance is a statistician (with a Ranger that has Wilderness AT tires, btw.) And, yes, it is certainly valid to do a failure rate anaylysis, with even <<1% of tires failing, given the sample size (say ~12.5 million tires.) The question I have is, what level of failure is acceptable? i.e., how many people are allowed to die without it becoming a major news story? If it had been 48, or 32 is that okay? Or is it like art, I don't know how many is okay, but I know how many is too much?

Personally I think the government has been letting all manufacturers get away with too much, with regards to safety. And this is also pushed by the unions: more safety increases cost, reduces sales = fewer hours worked / jobs. So the claims by the firestone union workers that it was those dirty scabs is disingenuous at best.

I own ford stock, and will buy more, so don't think my criticisms are driven by my hatred / fear / loathing of the company, but as a concerned share holder.
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