The Ford Pinto, one of the worst cars

In 1978, three teenage girls were driving in their Ford Pinto on the Highway 33 in Northern Indiana. Suddenly, a van rammed their car from behind. Their car burst into flames and all the three teenage girls died. This fatal crash was one of a series of Pinto accidents. The Ford Pinto is a car produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1971-1980. It was a small and cheap car. In 1974, rumours began to circulate inside and outside the company about the Ford Pinto. The car had a tendency to catch fire in a rear-end collision. Tests results showed that the tank of the car was inclined to crack in a rear-end collision at the impact speed of 20 mph with causes a fire and explosion. At that time, the Ford Motor Company decided to change nothing. People say that this is because of a cost-benefit analyse that the Ford Motor Company prepared. It would cost more to recall all the cars and repair them, than pay off the lawsuits. So Ford Motor Company decided to do nothing. But is it ethically responsible to perform cost-benefit analyses when lives are involved? The manager of Ford Motor Company used a cost-benefit analyse, therefore he must have focused on the utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the balance between pain and pleasure. In this case the Ford Motor Company saw the pleasure more as financial consequences. These financial consequences ensured that the pleasure of themselves would grow. So they choose for the money. But these financial consequences does not contain the real pain and pleasure of the accidents for the customers. The Ford Motor Company had a price tag for human live, but this money does not cover the emotional consequences. Besides it is impossible to measure an humans live, because it is different for everyone. If the Ford Motor Company wanted to grow the pleasure, they should have looked at the costumers. First because the group of customers is larger than the employees of the Ford Motor Company. Utilitarianism says that the greatest number of people the most pleasure ensured. Because the group of customers is larger than the employees of the Ford Motor Company, they should have change the Ford Pinor and made the customers happy, not only themselves. According to one of Kants formulations of categorical imperative, you must act in such a way that you never treat humanity only as a means, but also at the same time as an end. If you look with this formulation at the Ford Pinto case, then the Ford Motor Company did not act as well. They knew that the cars where unsafe but still they produced and sold the cars. They neglected the consumers rights by accepting there where worthy price for profit. The Ford Motor Company used the humanity as a means to a profit, not as an end of itself. In total, there were 180 fatalities due to a design flaw of the Ford Pinto. The operations of the Ford Motor Company are morally not acceptable. Luckily, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration forced the Ford Motor Company to recall the Ford Pinto.