For More Safety: Vision For The Common Good In Our Time


For More Safety: Vision For The Common Good In Our Time

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Citizens Call for More Safety

Latin NCAP, the South American equivalent of EuroNCAP and IIHS, has held a meeting in Washington with other members of road safety agencies. Among the guests and speakers stood American safe-car advocate Ralph Nader, author of the famous “Unsafe at any speed.”  Mr. Nader criticized General Motors’ quest for profit in South America, where it sells cars that have been deliberately stripped of safety features developed for them.  The assessment comes from knowing that GM manufactures the same models for other markets with airbags, ESP, and other driver aids as standard, but these do not receive the same amenities for the Mexican market, for example. Ralph Nader even said that General Motors commits “willful manslaughter” by manufacturing cars without modern safety gear beside vehicles that feature these systems, all in the name of more profit on the South American market.

Vision For The Common Good In Our Time 

“As Pope Francis made powerfully clear last year in Laudato Si’, we have the technology and know-how to solve our problems – from poverty to climate change to health care to protection of biodiversity. We also have the vast wealth to do so, especially if the rich pay their way in fair taxes rather than hiding their funds in the world’s tax and secrecy havens- as the Panama Papers have shown.

The challenges facing our planet are not mainly technological or even financial, because as a world we are rich enough to increase our investments in skills, infrastructure, and technological know-how to meet our needs and to protect the planet. Our challenge is mostly a moral one, to redirect our efforts and vision to the common good. Centesimus Annus, which we celebrate and reflect on today, and Laudato Si’, are powerful, eloquent and hopeful messages of this possibility. It is up to us to learn from them, and to move boldly toward the common good in our time.”

 

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