Highway Safety.
Concern over automobile safety was heightened by Ralph Nader's 1965 book alleging that unsafe automobile design (particularly the Chevrolet Corvair) was the major contributor to highway accidents. This led to the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1965 and the Highway Safety Act the following year. Together they required safety features (seat belts, for example) installed in all motor vehicles and the development of comprehensive traffic safety pro-grams. Much like the government's regulation of air quality, these new safety standards made auto travel safer and led to a decline in highway fatalities.
End of an Era.
By the late 1960s foreign manufacturers—largely Volkswagen, Toyota, and Datsun—were once again putting pressure on Detroit. While the recession at decade's end hurt American auto firms because people delayed purchasing new domestic cars, it helped the foreign...
Source: American Decades: 1960-1969, ©1994 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 267 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
