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Michael says...  (Lack of) Confidence in Government Agencies

Government is often the butt of jokes. Conservatives and many others object to "big" government and its "interference" with business and in the lives of individual citizens. Many of us, however, value governmental protections - beyond constitutional guarantees, to such things as health and safety. Recent news regarding tire recalls is disturbing.

While Firestone tires are not the only ones with defects, and there's been that finger pointing between Ford and Firestone, here's what I find bothersome: a group of personal injury lawyers in Texas, and a top national traffic safety consulting firm identified problems with the Firestone ATX tires on Ford Explorers five years ago, in 1996. They chose not to disclose the pattern they found until last year...  Why? Because they so lacked confidence in federal regulators that they felt telling them would compromise their cases.

How so? Picture this scenario in court - tire company lawyers are questioning the safety consulting firm: "Isn't it true that you reported 30 cases of tire failure last year, including several resulting in fatalities, to the NHTSA and they responded that they could not find a defect?"

Naturally, lawyers and consultants would rather make their own case than be hurt by a cautious government approach to condemning a product. As a result, the government was not informed early; the government database for those tire problems was nearly empty; which in turn helped Ford accept the early reassurances from Firestone that nothing was wrong; and the widespread acceptance that there was a problem was delayed for years.

Not everyone agrees on all the things government ought to be doing;  but if it says it's going to do something, like protect us from food and drug dangers, investment fraud, transportation hazards, and so on, it should be funded to do so effectively, and carry out that responsibilty vigorously.

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posted June 29, 2001 - August 10, 2001