RALPH HOAR
IN MEMORIAM

Raging Hoar Moans
With Litigation the Truth Will Out!

It may happen all the time. A cynic would insist that it does: The government conspires with industry to keep the truth from the public about a public health menace. 

If it is true, seldom are the fingerprints so clear as they are on the conspiracy to hide from the public--for as long as possible--the dirty little secret that NHTSA considered Chrysler's minivan latch to be "a safety defect that involves children." The Chrysler documents that are just now finding their way into the public domain, thanks to some fine products litigation, make it clear that in the Spring of 1995 men at the highest levels of Chrysler and NHTSA entered into a conspiracy. They decided to pretend that it was an honorable thing to keep from the public the results of publicly funded tests in a publicly funded investigation run by a publicly funded agency charged with the responsibility of protecting public health and safety.

Let's not concern our citizens and customers with the truth. Let's just tell the American people that they had allowed themselves to be whipped into a frenzy over nothing. Chrysler, the poor but benevolent victim of media hysteria, shares their concern, if not their pain, and is willing to replace a few minivan latches. Never mind that according to NHTSA, which stopped counting on July 13, 1995, more than 37 people, mostly children, had died when latches failed, latches that Chrysler knew were flimsy as far back as 1990. People get hysterical about the damnedest things.

And besides, now we have Lewis Goldfarb, Chrysler's lawyer-bashing lawyer, telling CNN that the people at NHTSA who made this agreement "are honorable people." As a friend of mine once said: "It's enough to make Goebbels blush."

Read Chrysler Minivan article.

OPTSF408

10/31/97