Fathers of Safety Creativity
June, 2014
Two Fathers of Safety Creativity are described – Ralph Nader and his father Nathra Nader.
I met Mr. Nathra Nader in the early 1970’s and asked him if he had any advice on raising my young boys, He said he taught his children to never look down on anyone and never look up to anyone — which I thought was good advice.
A personal auto safety story of mine is that for my first new car we bought a new 1961 VW Beetle. As we drove it out of our driveway in Connecticut early Mondaymorning it was a little icy. The VW Beetle spun out of control so suddenly that in a shockingly split second we found our selves with the rear end of the car up an embankment. I realized that the rear engine vehicle had a weight distribution imbalance problem — too much weight in the rear relative to the front where the trunk was. I went to a hardware store and purchased a bag of sand to add weight to the front. Over the next decade of driving we never experienced another such rear spin out — but we did witness several other Beetles spin out of control.
We need to apply more humanistic safety creativity at the corporate, governmental, and individual levels to build a Safer America.
Lou