Ford Wins Rory's 2006 Homi Award for Intentionally Weakening the Explorer's Roof: Ford Emphasis on Profitable Homi[cide] Recognized by Roryshock

Rory Shock announces the first Homi award winner: Ford Motor Company. According to documents which were public record for a time, but have now been withdrawn and hidden from the public due to a Florida Judge's slavish pro-corruptco ruling, Ford "made the Explorer's roof treacherously weak ... [and if that wasn't bad enough] Ford had made the Explorer's roof weaker, leaving its roof strength-to-vehicle-weight ratio only a slim margin above the 35-year-old [laughable and pro-industry] federal safety standard." This information is contained in a Public Citizen Press release concerning the ruling in a Florida case in which a young man successfully sued Ford for his wife's death caused by their collapsing Explorer in an all too routine rollover. THE DOCUMENTS WHICH ARE NOW HIDDEN (THEY WERE REMOVED FROM THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD SITE) SHOW THAT FORD HAS HAD EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF HOW STRONGER ROOFS CAN PREVENT ROLLOVER INJURIES AND DEATHS AND JUST DOESN'T GIVE A CAT'S COLON.

Public Citizen Press Release

It's deja vu time in the automobile industry. Back in the 70's Ford marketed the rolling crematorium known as the Pinto. Eventually, they were hit with huge damage verdicts because documents showed that they callously weighed the cost of paying off a few survivors of the incincerated against profits gained by cutting safety corners.


Predictibly they decided that they could still make plenty o' money despite the cost of hundreds of miserable, painful, unnecessary deaths and mutilations.

Mother Jones ran an excellent article about the Pinto back then. Here's a quote: "By conservative estimates Pinto crashes have caused 500 burn deaths to people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into flames. The figure could be as high as 900. Burning Pintos have become such an embarrassment to Ford that its advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, dropped a line from the end of a radio spot that read "Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling.""

Mother Jones article on Ford’s Fabulous Crematorium on Rubber aka the “Pinto” ca. 1977

How many have died and will die in the Explorer, aka "The Bone Crusher?" 10,000 people a year die in rollover crashes on United States Highways. Many of these are single vehicle accidents where the only thing that happens is the rollover itself. It would be kinda nice if the roof didn't collapse, wouldn't it? Nor has Rory gathered the stats on how many are maimed, paralyzed, left in agony for the rest of their days, so that Ford Execs can explore new golf courses around the world, drink multi-malt scotch, and generally speaking have a velvet glove rub and tug time of a life while the consumer crashes and burns.

The other thing that would be nice, and pretty much un-American according to corruptco, would be if the government and the sellers of the bone crushing units would just be frickin' honest and straightforward. Instead, they are completely full of loose ratshit and generally speaking mislead the public. The automotive industry in general and Ford in particular have a giant smoke up the ass machine working here.




Instead of telling the consumer about the dangers associated with driving an explorer, Ford today makes this claim on their Explorer site: "2006 Ford Explorer earns the government's highest safety score." Yeah, well, it did get "Five Stars" for the largely-meaningless-in-most-real-life-situations-side-and-front-impact-tests, but guess what? Its rating on rollover, the way you're probably gonna die in one of these things, is not touted at all on Ford's official site. They got 3 stars for rollover. While a 3 star restaurant might have decent food and a 3 star movie might be worth sitting through, a 3 star rollover rating pretty much sucks. 3 Stars'll kill ya, dudes. 3 stars means up to a 30% chance of rollover in some context that they don't like to make to clear. Ford doesn't tell you that it got a shitass rollover rating. It just says it "earns the government's highest safety score." While that is technically true in corruptco talk, in the world of decent interpersonal communications, that would warrant the equivalent of a red hot knife blade to the tongue as a Saudi-like punishment for being a lying sack of shit. Rory sez: Hello Ford. Ford, you are a lying sack of shit.

Ford Explorer Gets Worst Rollover Ratings

Also, dudes, in case you were worried that the Bush administrative agencies were tightening up the regs here, if not their sphincters, and lifting their shamelessy-greased and cheaply sold ass off the industry's shvantz, Ford points out on their site: "Fact is, the new Explorer meets all known federal frontal- and side-impact crash requirements through 2010." "Damn that's a safe veehickle, Merle. I'm unna get me one uh them. 5 dang stars. That's real safe," Festus said. Wait a frickin' minute Merle and Festus. How about Rory's rating here?

A site that has a vehicle rating system based on truth -- it ain't pretty but then sometimes the truth ain't too pretty