EXHIBIT 107 United States Patent Office 2,827,321 Patented Mar. 18, 1958 2,827,321 DOOR LATCH FOR A PILLARLESS AUTOMOBILE James D. Leslie, Birmingham, Clyde H. Schamel, Royal Application January 19, 1955, Serial No. 482,772 This invention relates to automobile door latching means, and more particularly to a latching system and to a novel latch for a pillarless 4-door automobile. One feature of the invention is that it provides improved door latching means; another feature of the invention is that it provides an improved motor operated latch; still another feature of the invention is that there are automatically operable means associated with the latch for disconnecting it from the motor operator to provide for manual operation of the latch without operation of the motor; still a further feature of the invention is that it provides an improved electro-mechanical latching system for a pillarless automobile; a further feature of the invention is that it provides novel means for latching the front and rear doors to each other and to the automobile sill or rocker panel; another feature of the invention is that it provides a latching system for a pillarless automobile wherein the front and rear doors are latched to each other, which system can be electrically operated by a motor ram device through control means on the front and the rear door, and in which the front and rear doors are latched to the sill by subsidiary latches which are released mechanically by control means on each respective door; yet a further feature of the invention is that mechanical means are provided for releasing the main latch in the event of power failure; still another feature of the invention is that it provides an electrical interlock to prevent the motor ram from moving the bolt to latched position unless both front and rear doors are closed; and still another feature of the invention is that it provides a novel mounting means and limit switch actuator for the motor. You see, this is one feature that is quite feasible to compensate somewhat for the stylistic deterioration of door-latch performance that arises when you put a hardtop model into production. And I can supply this committee with other patents and examples of innovation in this field. It is not only the companies that do it. There are many individual innovators and inventors who have contributed in this field. And while many of them obviously are not practicable and so forth, they define important safety problems, and they raise a challenge of refining them as soon as possible to productive hardware. Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator RIBICOFF. Will you please supply the committee with some examples of those patents. That is all, Senator Nelson? Senator NELSON. Yes; thank you. EXHIBIT 108 WINSTED, CONN., February 24, 1966. Hon. ABRAHAM RIBICOFF, Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Senate Government Operations Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR RIBICOFF: I am enclosing, as per your request, copies of patents dealing with aspects of auto safety which have been issued to individual inventors or to employees of automobile manufacturers to which they are assigned. These patents represent only the briefest search of the patent literature. A more thorough search will undoubtedly uncover more and better examples. I do not mean to suggest that these patents constitute end point production designs-although some appear to be immediately applicable thereto. What is important is that these and many other patents in the automotive safety area embody one or more of the following utilities: (a) They define an important, unmet safety deficiency in automobiles that could be avoided; (b) They indicate how long ago the problem (s) was recognized by the auto companies (note references to patent history in attached patents); (c) They indicate how laggard the process of refining and applying innovations has been in the auto industry; (d) They reveal that company expressions in their patents are considerably more candid than those made in public forums or in their promotional literature and technical papers; (e) They point to a serious problem of obstacles to the use of inventive activity which auto producers array before the lone inventor who has little leverage and no assistance in seeing that his innovation is fairly evaluated. During my testimony, I did not have an opportunity to reply to an inquiry by Senator Javits as to how I would account for the fact that South Carolina has a death rate, per hundred million miles of vehicle travel, more than twice that of Connecticut, in view of my "case that the heavy blame *** is borne by the automobile manufacturing companies." First of all, let me underline my assertion that in terms of ease, cost, and speed of an enduring remedy, the design of the automobile is the cost culpable cause of casualties once accidents occur. In the engineering sense, the design of the vehicle is the most intimately related to the nature and severity of the injuries incurred in collisions-the second collision problem. Turning from death and injury cause to accident cause, it is obvious that other factors beside the vehicle are contributors to the accident. The highway environment and the driver are prominent along with the vehicle, given the persent applied state of automotive technology. But there is another factor which, while having nothing to do with the accident, does contribute to disparities between States in their death rates. That is, the promptness and quality of emergency care after the accident. Thus, in 1964, 325 people died in traffic deaths in Connecticut and 870 in South Carolina. In Connecticut, one is never more than a few miles from a hospital, while in a more rural State like South Carolina, one can lie by the roadside after an accident for hours before rescue and hospitals are more distant. Generally, rural States have higher death rates in traffic than urban States. Given an injury-death ratio of over 90 to 1, it is not unreasonable to expect that people would be saved in Connecticut because of quicker medical care while in similar accidents they would die in South Carolina, or Nevada, or Wyoming. Modern emergency medical care, blood transfusions, etc., have made time of the essence in saving lives. In South Carolina, migrant workers traveling in grossly unsafe vehicles, treacherous shoulders on many highways, and undoubtedly older vehicle mix in this relatively low income State are other differences from Connecticut which have a relevance for the death rate. It is important to point out that comparative death rates are a highly restricted measure to establish the respective safety of motor vehicle travel. For every death, there are about 90 injuries incurred in traffic. Before comparisons can be made, even on the tenuous basis of miles traveled as a measure of exposure (hours traveled would be a better unit), it is necessary to know not only the death rate but also the injury rate, especially the serious injury rates. Connecticut, for example, may have a lower reath rate than South Carolina but a higher serious-injury rate. The death rate is simply a subdivision of the injury rate and without the one, we know little of the significance of the changes in the other. Yet, this country has very poor statistics on the number of injuries and their range of severity; what does exist comes from samples, rather than aggregate compilations. The misleading analogies between States-as far as accident causative factors and death rates are concerned-recalls the statement before this subcommittee on March 25, 1965 (pt. 1, "The Federal Role in Traffic Safety," pp. 250-277), by Daniel P. Moynihan, Assistant Secretary of Labor. Mr. Moynihan concluded his remarks on death and injury rates as follows: "If there is a generality to be made, it would probably be that death and injury rates have an inverse ratio: the highest death rates are associated with the lowest injury rates, and vice versa. I expect this is primarly a function of vehicle density, and access to medical care. * * * In any event, even a casual scrutiny of this subject makes clear what a fraud is perpetrated in the annual antics over which State has the lowest death rate." In 1965, Connecticut experienced a 20 percent increase in traffic fatalities. Enforcement was stricter than ever with arrests up 70 percent, according to State police sources. Highways, if anything, were improved. No one knows the specific reasons for this jump. What is clear, however, is that whatever contributed to the accidents, crashworthy automobiles which we know how to build economically would have prevented at least 75 percent of motorist deaths and serious injuries. This proportion of serious casualties now occurs at impact speeds under 50 mph. Sincerely yours, RALPH NADER. 2,872,539 STEERING WHEEL Phillip J. Berner, Dayton, Ohio, assignor to General Motors Corporation, Detroit, Mich., a corporation of Delaware Application July 12, 1956, Serial No. 597,452 4 Claims. (CI. 200—61.56) Patented Feb. 3, This invention relates to a steering wheel and is particularly concerned with a safety type steering wheel including a resilient covering thereover. It is the main object of the invention to provide a safety steering wheel including a soft rubber covering coextensively enveloping the metal parts of the wheel wherein the wheel includes a horn blowing mechanism which mechanism cooperates with portions of the soft rubber covering to operate the horn. In carrying out this object, it is a further object to use portions of the soft rubber covering on the wheel as a resilient means for maintaining the horn blowing switch in open circuit position and against which compressive forces may be applied for closing the switch. 2,784,006 CHEST CRASH PROTECTOR FOR VEHICLE Edward R. Dye, Orchard Park, and Norris E. Shoemaker, Application September 10, 1954, Serial No. 455,243 4 Claims. (Cl. 280-150) Patented Mar. 5, 1957 This invention relates to safety devices for automotive vehicles and, more particularly, to protector arranged at the driver's end of the steering post of the vehicle to protect the body of the driver against injury incident to a sudden deceleration of the vehicle which causes the driver's body to be thrown forwardly against the steering post. Accident surveys have disclosed that one of the main sources of serious injury to the drivers of automobiles involved in accidents is the steering wheel post. The steering wheel, while often helping to protect the driver under low deceleration conditions by effectively restraining movements of his body, becomes an extremely lethal item for high decelerations. The rim of the steering wheel, supported by one or more spokes generally de flects downwardly along the steering post when impacted by the human body with any appreciable force, thus leaving the end of the post protruding. Such post end so exposed then becomes an effective spear upon which the driver can impale himself or otherwise cause severe bodily injury. Broken ribs, punctured lungs and throat wounds occur quite often from this cause. Generally speaking, the present invention is directed toward providing a solution to this problem of protecting the driver of the vehicle from injury resulting from impact of his body with the steering post. 3,016,764 SAFETY STEERING WHEEL Robert H. Fredericks and Roger P. Daniel, Dearborn, Mich., assignors to Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Mich., a corporation of Delaware Filed May 9, 1960, Ser. No. 27,911 7 Claims. (Cl. 74-552) Patented Jan. 16, 1962 This invention relates to steering wheels and more particularly to safety or impact energy absorbing steering wheels for automobiles. The energy absorbing concept in the design of safety steering wheels, first used on a large scale on motor vehicles of the 1956 model year, was the result of observations which indicated that many fatal injuries sustained from driver contact with the steering wheel during collisions were caused by the crushing or penetration of the chest by the small area, rigid hub. The recessed hub wheel design was developed to provide collapsible distance between the rim and its supporting spoke structure and the hub. The substantial area of the rim opposing the driver's chest was relied upon to distribute any impact load to prevent localized high-pressure concentrations. Statistics gathered since the introduction of the energy absorbing concept in safety steering wheels show that the recessed hub steering wheel has reduced the incidence of chest crushing injuries by half when compared to the previously used small hub, flat wheel design. However, the same data indicates that the less severe injuries have not been reduced. The conventional recessed hub steering wheels have a rigid hub area and a stiff rim which is supported by comparatively rigid spokes. With this design, lacerative or bruising injuries can be inflicted on the chest, face, neck or abdomen of the driver when the wheel is impacted at moderate speeds. The flat type wheel had a rim support which could be easily deformed and thus provided a measure of energy absorbing capacity when impacted at low to moderate speeds. As a result, unless the present safety-type steering wheel is evaluated only on the basis of reduction in critical-throughfatal injuries, its injury reducing advantages are obscured since the preponderance of steering wheel injuries are in the range of minor-through-severe degrees. |