On the other hand, standard operating procedure for claims departments is to stonewall as long as possible, even when there’s real risk..

I share your feeling on this. One side of me says that misinterpreted data can do harm to the manufacturers when it is not justified. People often panic and act irrationally when presented with something they do not easily understand.

But, because of the distrust that people have for many corporations, this knee jerk reaction may well be justified. Since the profit over all mentality has become so pervasive, there is real risk that a company will know about defects early on, but either ignore or minimize them.

I guess my suspicious side wins…more information is better. If a given company knows that early data is going to be known, they may be more likely to do something about it sooner rather than later. If you look at how Ford handled the Bronco II rollover risk, it seems to justify my position.

In many cases of automotive and product safety, the accusations are in and the issue remains outside of public scrutiny. Case in point: SUV’s in general are responsible for roll-over fatalities at a rate far in excess of that for passenger automobiles. Although we don’t know all of the attendant engineering, it is apparent that people have a far higher probability of dying in an SUV rollover than in an automobile. In the case of the Explorer, tire inflation was found to be a part of the equation. Yet because of tort laws which are designed to point the blame, no one ever seemed to ask if people who drove the Explorer were more prone to underinflating their tires than any other segment of the population. We were left with the impression that only on the Explorer would tire inflation be a key safety issue when in fact the tire and its inflation are a key safety factor in any vehicle.

This system needs overhaul and the way to do it is to turn the lights on.

There’s some merit to holding back this information. Remember the whole Audi 5000 unintended acceleration issue that turned out to be, well, bogus?

On the other hand, standard operating procedure for claims departments is to stonewall as long as possible, even when there’s real risk.

As an aerospace engineer that has had the pleasure of being deposed twice regarding various company products I’ve seen first hand how data can be twisted if you already have a conclusion in mind – and plaintiff lawyers typically do.

When performing a Root Cause Analysis, Failure Mode Effects Analysis, or System Safety Analysis a good engineering team is going to put everything on the table; no mater how remote the possibility, and then start quantifying the probabilities.

I’ve seen first hand how lawyers, (and activists for that matter) latch onto anything that might even remotely back their position (“You wrote an email about this! I have a copy right here…!”) while ignoring higher probability or proven data sets (“…what about the test data that shows this theory was not correct…? Was I wrong to be thorough and look at all possibilities…?”)

Bottom Line: If a company is not ethical, raw or final data is probably suspect. Rules like the one proposed above only hurts engineering dept’s that play by the rules.

All I wanna know is, HOW??!?