RALPH HOAR
IN MEMORIAM

Raging Hoar Moans
Chrysler Deserves Something to Really Whine About

Once again, DaimlerChrysler is whining about the common sense American jury system. Remember those drivers' ed classes where you learned to hold the steering wheel with your right hand at the 3 o'clock position and your left hand at the 9 o'clock position? Well, Chrysler thought it would be a neat idea to vent 300 degree airbag gases at those same spots.

Now that a Philadelphia jury has ordered DaimlerChrysler to pay 75,000 Pennsylvania Chrysler owners $730 in replacement costs, DaimlerChrysler is refusing to acknowledge its poor design judgment and wants this to replace McDonald's coffee as the icon for a legal system run amuck. These DaimlerChrysler people are a piece of work. They exhort people to obey the rules of the road, drive safely and do what they're told. Then they sell those people airbags that explode in crashes where they're not needed. As an extra added benefit for following "the rules" by putting your hands where you've been told, you get a blast of burning hot gas on your hands and arms.

As if that weren't enough, you're expected to endure and, I suppose, agree with Chrysler's bellyaching about being held accountable for its dumb-assed design.

Chrysler's clucking aside, that jury's decision is small potatoes compared to what's waiting in the wings. The denizens of Detroit have got to be watching closely the steady march toward holding industries financially accountable for the public burden posed by the deaths and disabilities associated with their products. First came the tobacco industry settlement. Now major cities are training their sights on the fire arms industry. The auto industry, whose products produce more mayhem than any other, must realize that it cannot escape this inevitable reckoning. Then you'll hear some whining.

OPTSF252

2/24/99