Critical assessment of social and economic implications of safety cars.

In 1969 NHTSA established the Experimental Safety Vehicle Program. The goal of the ESV is to reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities by designing cars to be crashworthy in a range covering the most prevalent collision circumstances. This paper evaluates safety vehicle planning and design for eventual mass production. The first safety vehicles built to meet the ESV crashworthiness specifications are limited in their ability to fulfil the needs of a broad transportation and social system.