"Pinto Madness"

It was interesting to find out a little about the cars knows as "Pintos". The only thing I knew about them was that they were old cars and many people valued them because of their looks but interestingly, the article gave a little history behind the safety of these cars and an insight of why, unfortunately, safety was not the main concern for the makers of them. The "green book" spoken of in this article, which describes the features of these cars, proved why the cars were attractive to the people who purchased them, but it is scandalous to know that such a huge company was so unconcerned with the lives of innocent people.

I was very surprised to find out that Pintos would sporadically burst upon impact even when hit at a speed of about 35 mph. It seems crazy to hear this was not a major concern to the makers of these cars back when they released them because nowadays we put a lot of concern on safety in our vehicles, and such a major feature as the gas tank would cause all the cars to have to be remade with no questions about it, at the cost of the manufacturer. Nowadays, to hear of such a feature would be a sandal and would cause a lot of instant lawsuits, whereas in the 70s, people still chose to drive these cars as if there was nothing major wrong with them.

It is unfortunate that so many people had to die because of a company's indifference to human life. Some of the changes that needed to be made to make the vehicles more safe were cheap, small changes, but the company decided to not go through with them. I have changed my perspective completely on the company because of this article and am a little surprised that a lot of people still stand behind them, but I also know that millions of changes could be made to many of the products I am using everyday in order to increase safety or better the product, but companies hide those things from consumers.