GS69

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/23/ford.fires/index.html

Ford owners not told of ways to reduce fuel-tank fire risk

By James Polk and Susan Candiotti
Monday, January 23, 2006; Posted: 12:30 p.m. EST (17:30 GMT)

MOCKSVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) -- The parents of three sisters burned to death in a rear-end crash are asking Ford Motor Co. to install the same gas tank protective devices in regular models as it did for its police cars.

Tara Parker, 29, Mysti Poplin, 24, and Megan Howell, 16, died two years ago inside a Lincoln Town Car limousine that burst into flames after it was caught in a traffic jam and hit from behind by a speeding pick-up truck in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Ford settled out-of-court with the families last week, days before their lawsuit was to be heard. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

In 2002, after a dozen police officers had died in fiery rear-end crashes over a decade's time, Ford created rubber and plastic shields to cover sharp parts around the fuel tank of the Crown Victoria police car to help prevent punctures and fires.

Ford has three civilian models - the regular Crown Victoria, the Town Car, and the Mercury Grand Marquis - that have the gas tank in the same location, sticking up in the trunk area. These are the only American-made automobiles with the tank behind the rear axle.

At the time Ford announced the introduction of the shields - now standard equipment on police cars - its top safety official said civilian drivers do not need them because they do not use their cars like police officers, who often stop alongside high-speed expressways, exposed to onrushing traffic.

Ricky Howell said that when his daughters died their car was "sitting still, just like a patrol car, sitting in traffic."

Ford engineers found the limousine's fuel tank had been pierced by a bolt that would have been protected by the shields on police cars.

In September, Ford notified limousine makers it now would provide the shields free for Lincoln Town Cars turned into stretch limousines.

Howell and his wife, Brenda, said after the settlement, "We know shields have been tested and shown to work in crashes of up to 100 miles an hour." They said the shields should be available in all three of the Ford-made models that have the same tank position and added, "It should not take more deaths to make this happen."

Autopsy reports showed two of the sisters were unhurt by the impact. The third, Parker, did suffer some internal injuries. But the cause of death for each was listed as burns and smoke inhalation.

Parker, the oldest sister, was a heart transplant survivor. She and her husband had recently adopted a baby son. Poplin was also a new mother. Howell, the youngest, was a high school honor student and cheerleader.

Parker had rented the limousine as a surprise to take her two half-sisters to a Fleetwood Mac concert on the night of September 10, 2003. They had just pulled onto an interstate highway, leaving the concert, when the limo was rammed from behind.

Limousine driver James Canady told CNN, "I saw flames shooting past the window and I said, 'Oh my God, we're on fire.' "

He kicked his door open and escaped, but he could not reach the sisters trapped in the back. "I heard one of the ladies scream, 'Oh my God!' And that was all I heard, and that was it," Canady said.

Ford has blamed the North Carolina deaths on the driver of the pick-up. He was drunk and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The driver was sentenced to almost five years in prison.

Last October, in a deposition that was part of the North Carolina lawsuit, Ford's safety vice president, Susan Cischke, said this about the shields: "When I made the decision to put them on limos, nothing else had changed my thinking regarding the civilian population so that was not recommended."

While Ford has never mailed anything to car owners about the shields, motorists can go to dealers to ask for them to be installed at their own expense. This covers every model year for the three regular car types going back as far as 1992.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is watching the matter, a spokesman said, but has no plans to begin any investigation. He said this is considered a consumer issue between the car owner and the manufacturer.

Ford says all its cars are safe and are required to pass rear-end crash tests at 50 mph, the highest standard in the industry. All of the known fatal fires and crashes in these models, both police and civilian, have happened at 60 mph or faster.

Ford's police cars, now with the shields, have passed crash tests at even greater speeds. Since the shields were made available to the police more than three years ago, there was not been a single patrol-car death in a fire blamed on the puncture of a gas tank.

At the same time Ford came up with the shields, it offered police the option of buying a reinforced storage pack for items in the trunk to keep them from piercing the tank in rear-end crashes.

Last April, in Wood River, Illinois, a jury awarded a woman $43.7 million in damages after her husband died when the force of a rear-end crash pushed a wrench through the tank of their Town Car sedan. She was badly burned in the fire.

The jury foreman, Edward Friedel, said Ford should have given civilian drivers the opportunity to buy the same storage pack.

In deliberations, Friedel said, "One juror just blurted out, 'Does anybody feel that Ford did something wrong?' and that's when, unanimously, everybody said yes, they withheld the truth."

Ford is appealing the verdict, arguing it did not get a fair trial.

Ford says all makes and models can have fires in collisions, not just their own. What safety critics say is significant, though, is that Ford has found an answer for this particular problem and has not shared it with most of the public.

mmarshall

I myself have served on an auto-accident jury....as the foreman. Ford is not totally without blame here but I'm basically with them on this one.....IMO they have grounds for an appeal. Yes, Ford could have handled the fire-safety problem a little better or maybe spent a little more money on better gas tank isolation, but none of this would have happened in the first place if it was not for irresponsible people driving with their heads up their a - - es and plowing into them from behind. While there is such a thing, of course, as responsibility in auto design, ( and I don't mean to suggest otherwise ) there is just as much, or more, responsibility involved in actually DRIVING vehicles as well. Yes, sometimes you can be momentarily blinded by a bright sun or other problem on the windshield, but you should be driving in a manner that allows you to deal with it and keep control of the car.

TheRupp

I thought they fixed this after the Pinto..?

Seriously, get it together. That's just ridiculous. I agree with mmarshall, but when I'm driving, I expect everyone else to drive like a **** and never really let my guard down. It's possible to drive safely, really.

rheiy

I'm with you on this one. My very 1st new car was a ford pinto. It was basically a POS.. It spent more time in the shop than on the road. If lemon laws had existed in Illinois back then, ford would have been forced to take it back. I got rid of the car after 1 year of ownership and it was about a year or two later that I found out I was driving a potential bomb. After I got rid of the pinto, I vowed never to buy a Ford product again. Reading about current day troubles with ford and their unsafe gas tanks makes me wonder what is going on in their heads.

Lil4X

Ford engineering must have some sort of a deal with the fire departments of America. This marks the FOURTH really stupid engineering oversight in recent memory that involves catastrophic fires resulting from their lack of safety thinking.

An engineer must always think "what if" when developing a potentially dangerous component. Most do, but it seems to be a completely neglected procedure at Ford.

First, was the first and second generation Mustang and several other late 60's mid-sized Fords that used the top of the fuel tank as the bottom of the trunk. The tank simply bolted into a large hole in the middle of the trunk floor. If you laid something sharp in the bottom of your trunk, then dropped in something heavy, the tank would be punctured and occasionally the fuel would be ignited with tragic results.

Shortly after, as TheRupp recalls, in the early 70’s, the late, unlamented Pinto had a fuel filler neck that would be guillotined in a rear end collision, dumping the contents of the fuel tank under the car, where it would often be ignited by the engine of the second car..

Next would be the faulty cruise control disconnects on full size sedans and F 150 pickups that allowed brake fluid to flow into the switch, setting a large number of engine compartment (garage and house) fires. My late business partner lost one Town Car, severely damaged another, and very nearly lost his house to this little “engineering oversight”.

Now the gas tank issue rears its ugly head again - this time being placed behind the rear axle with long bolts facing the tank, where they act as spears, puncturing the tank in a rear-end collision. After all the negative publicity, all the lawsuits, you have to wonder just who's minding the store at Ford Engineering?

Given their lack of response to these issues, it's a wonder that insurance companies will still cover their vehicles for fire losses. Maybe if they are re-badged as Zippos . . .