Unsafe at Any Speed

I think maybe they got regulated.

It was Ralph Nader, right? He wrote that book called Unsafe at Any Speed.

And that would have been a good schtick name for you.

Maybe next time.

Mandatory features like seatbelts, shatter resistant windshields, strong door latches, forced recalls for dangerous defects.

Why? Well, because people were dying in the 60s, and consumer pressure due to Ralph Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed, made Congress force the issue.

That sounds about right, Ralph Nader writing a book, Unsafe at Any Speed.

No, speed is safe.

I think we can be safe.

Mm-mm.

So it was famous for inspiring Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965.

So it was considered one of the most unsafe cars on the road and caused a bunch of accidents, was super unsafe.

And Ralph Nader was a consumer advocate who championed seatbelts, among other things, but just basically worked to get this car taken off the road because it was unsafe.

Yeah.

It's like, it's like Ralph Nader never wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, and they just kept making murderous interiors until now.

It's brilliant, actually.

But this is actually the same car they showed like 10 years ago, right?

There were, you know, there was the hippies, the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement.

And then Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, which started a consumer movement or, you know, a safety movement, you know, a consumer safety movement.

And Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring, which started the environmental movement.

All of that had happened in the 10 years prior to 1971.

or Rachel Carson's success in the 1960s.

Nader published a report, Unsafe at Any Speed.

It collected all the research that he had done, kind of showing the safety failures of American automobiles and making the recommendations.

The book, when it first came out, sold mildly.

General Motors hired private detectives who were intimidating his friends, tapping his phone, following him around, and so on.

And this led to a a famous set of congressional hearings that threw light upon this.

And then Unsafe at Any Speed became a bestseller.

And so Carson's initially an excerpt from her book was published in the New Yorker magazine.