Safetyforum.com Issues Holiday Safety Warning: Regulators for Hire May Be Hazardous to Your Health

    ARLINGTON, Va., July 3 As Americans take to the highway
for this Fourth of July holiday, they will have renewed questions about
whether Federal vehicle safety regulators are representing the public interest
or just waiting to cash in with the auto industry when they leave government.
    The question is heightened by Ford's announcement that former NHTSA
administrator Sue Bailey, after months as the most visible NHTSA official in
the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire controversy, has gone to work for Ford Motor
Company.  "This will further erode whatever confidence the public has left in
NHTSA's ability to be an unbiased and independent arbiter in serious questions
of public safety when the auto industry is involved," according to Ralph Hoar,
director of Safetyforum.com, a product safety research firm.  The firm is a
longtime chronicler and critic of senior NHTSA officials who have left the
regulatory agency to work for the auto industry.
    "Dr Bailey's deal with Ford comes just when the country needs assurance
that NHTSA will be an honest broker in addressing lingering concerns about the
safety of the Explorer and Firestone Wilderness tires.  This will undermine
public confidence," Hoar said.
    At least twenty (20) senior officials have left NHTSA in the last decade
to work for the auto industry, Hoar pointed out. (Go to Safetyforum.com for
the names of those NHTSA officials, the agency positions they held and the
industry jobs they took.) Bailey is at least the third NHTSA administrator who
has worked for Ford after leaving the agency.  Former administrators General
Jerry Curry and Dianne Steed have also worked as consultants to the auto maker
defending Ford's other rollover-prone vehicle, the Bronco II.
    "At a time when Ford is seeking to increase its credibility, it does
nothing but call its credibility into question by hiring former government
officials who can't wait for the ink to dry on their last government paycheck
before going to work for the industry they once regulated," according to C.
Tab Turner, Safetyforum.com's attorney of record for tires and vehicle
stability.  Last week, in addition to hiring Bailey, Ford announced that it
has also hired former NTSB Board Chairman Jim Hall as a consultant.
    Safetyforum.com, the Tire Action Group, Turner and numerous other
attorneys have provided volumes of information to support NHTSA's defect
investigation, including 19 confirmed deaths not reported to the agency by
Ford or Firestone.
    Further details are available at http://www.Safetyforum.com .

    CONTACT:  Ralph Hoar of Safetyforum.com, 703-469-3700.