From Accident to Crash: The Auto Industry and the Politics of Injury

In many instances, the politics of public health is directly related to the problem of state power. This is especially true for automobile injuries and the 64‐year history of the effort to reduce their number in the United States. This article looks at the continual redefinition of the automotive injury problem through these phases: (1) 1920–60, when the automobile manufacturers controlled prevention programs that defined the driver as the cause of accidents, (2) 1960–79, when federal regulations targeted vehicle technology as the best source of prevention strategies, and (3) 1979 to the present, when, during the Reagan years, the framework shifted toward defining health and injury prevention as economic commodities. Throughout this history the dominance of a market ideology in U.S. political culture has largely defined both the character of public health programs to reduce injuries and the capacity of the state to curtail industrial power to design hazardous technologies.