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Date Posted: 05:22:58 12/27/02 Fri
DALLAS (Dec. 26) (Reuters)- The city of Dallas sued Ford Motor Co. on Thursday seeking information on the automaker's Crown Victoria police cruiser after a deadly fuel-tank fire killed a Dallas police officer, city officials said.
The city filed suit after Ford refused to provide information on its testing on gas-tank technologies.
In October, Dallas police officer Patrick Metzler was killed when his Crown Victoria burst into flames after it was rear-ended at high speed by a drunk driver.
"I really think that when you talk about the safety of law enforcement officers, I can leave no stone unturned," City Attorney Madeleine Johnson said at a press conference. She added that in the past two months two police officers were killed in fires in their Crown Victoria cruisers, the most popular police vehicle in North America.
Johnson said the suit against Ford is aimed at gaining sworn testimony from Ford engineers and receiving information from the company's testing on gas-tank technologies that are supposed to minimize the dangers of an explosion.
Last week, Johnson told reporters that Ford had refused her request for sworn testimony on the tests, saying the company told her office the information was confidential.
Ford officials were not immediately available for comment. Ford said on its company Web site its Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is a safe vehicle.
"The CVPI is a safe, effective and reliable vehicle for police duty. But Ford Motor Company is always looking for opportunities to improve its performance, even in the most unusual circumstances," it said.
The company said that over 80 percent of the police vehicles in North America are Crown Victoria Police Interceptors.
At least 14 police officers have been killed and 11 others hurt in fires triggered by fuel tanks that ruptured in rear or side collisions in the past 10 years, safety advocates said.
REAR-ENDED
A Dallas city investigation showed that the October accident that killed Metzler caused the car's gas tank to be punctured in four places. Ford said there is no car marketed in the world that could have survived the accident because the driver who slammed into the police car was traveling at 80 miles per hour and had installed a 4-inch steel-tube bumper on his sport utility vehicle.
In the most-recent incident involving a Crown Victoria, Robert Ambrose, a New York state trooper, was killed last week when a sport utility vehicle rammed his vehicle, causing the police cruiser to burst into flames.
Ford is facing several lawsuits over the safety of its police version of the Crown Victoria, including a high-profile case in a U.S. federal court in Ohio.
In October, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said after a 10-month investigation the agency could not find a defect with the Crown Victoria police cruiser.
Dallas officials said Ford is paying to retrofit some 800 Crown Victorias used by the city's police force with a shield that is aimed at protecting the gas tank.
Ford settles claims it misled public about SUVs
By Tom Brown
DETROIT, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co. on Friday said it agreed to pay $51.5 million to settle U.S. state government claims it misled consumers about the safety of its highly profitable sport utility vehicles while also failing to disclose known tire failure risks.
The agreement, which does not affect private legal claims against Ford, was announced by the automaker and attorneys general from some of the 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, that participated in the case.
The claims against Ford stemmed largely from Firestone tire failures, which U.S. safety regulators have linked to about 270 deaths, many in rollover accidents involving Ford's popular Explorer SUV.
The world's second-largest automaker denied any wrongdoing. But the $51.5 million nationwide settlement "resolves allegations of deceptive trade practices relating to the sales and advertising of Ford sport utility vehicles," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement.
Ford has already spent about $2 billion to replace millions
of allegedly faulty tires produced by Bridgestone Corp.'s Firestone unit that were fitted as standard equipment on Explorers and other SUVs.
But Miller said the states' investigation focused on allegations that Ford continued to use certain Firestone tires even after the company knew the tires had had an unacceptably high failure rate that heightened the risk of dangerous rollovers.
The states also alleged that Ford's advertising misled consumers about the safe use of SUVs, which have a higher center of gravity than cars and are more prone to rollover accidents.
Additionally, according to statements from the attorneys general, they alleged that certain replacement tires, sold through Ford's "Around the Wheel" program, were falsely advertised as the same tires that came equipped on Ford SUVs.
CONSUMER EDUCATION
The states said they will use $30 million of the money from Ford to launch a national consumer education campaign on SUV safety. The remainder will cover legal costs, additional consumer education programs, and unspecified litigation going forward.
As part of the settlement, Ford will share its patented Belt-Minder technology -- which rings a bell when passengers are not wearing seat belts -- with other automakers.
The automaker will also add an advisory that says "Do Not Attempt" to ads showing its vehicles climbing up steep slopes or performing other risky maneuvers.
"For a multibillion-dollar corporation this is a slap on the wrist," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Auto Safety.
"It does nothing for the rollover hazards of the Explorer, for consumers who own the Explorer," said Ditlow, who alleges that older model Explorers are still prone to high rates of rollover and roof crush.
Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, another Washington-based consumer advocacy group, said the money from Ford -- and from a similar $51.5 million settlement last year with Firestone -- would be well-spent, however, if it was used by state governments to launch an effective SUV safety campaign.
"The public still is uninformed and misinformed about the safety of SUVs," Claybrook told Reuters.
"If they just tell people to drive more safely it's a waste of money," she added, saying automakers themselves should be forced into building vehicles that are safer and more stable than today's SUVs.
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