Part 3: The Color of Corruption

. . . This collusion was too much for Congressman Hochbrueckner: “As a result of NHTSA’s apparent cooperation with VWoA, the public has been denied the opportunity to study significant evidence which might highlight the ineffectiveness of a shift-lock device in the Audi 5000 to curtail sudden acceleration incidents.” “This,” he charged, “was a shocking departure from the established practices in these matters.” . . .

. . . Molly was still seething. “Imagine that! The whole damned industry was drowning in sudden acceleration reports, and Ford was struggling with questions like ‘did the vehicle accelerate; how rapid was the acceleration; was vehicle control affected?’” Molly’s ire was thick enough to photograph. “This is so sophomoric, it shows Ford knew it could treat NHTSA like a bunch of morons.” . . .

. . . Like the fallacy that “absence of proof, is proof of absence,” the claim that “the brakes will always win”  is equally spurious. It was the Ford Motor Company, ironically, that gave NHTSA the evidence that should have exposed this falsehood . . . .

“Leon’s head was driven violently forward into the building ‘shattering his skull,’ as one doctor put it, ‘and tearing the covering of the brain so that... there was blood coming out of his ears....’ ”