Automotive Vehicle Safety.

George A. Peters Barbara J. Peters Taylor & francis www.taylorandfrancis.com 272pp., $96

Sartre, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky wrote about philosophy, life, and human existence. So, too, George and Barbara Peters write about philosophy--that of safety engineering in automotive design, in what can best be described as an undergraduate engineering text.

In their recent collaboration, Automotive Vehicle Safety, the authors mix one part philosophy with another part engineering in an effort to describe the ethics of design and the methods for directing those ethics toward the goal of making safer vehicles. Using examples from the real world, they illustrate how ethical design principles can reduce societal harm and its attendant cost.

The book clearly targets a sophisticated readership and would be more valuable to a lawyer with training in engineering than to an experienced practitioner involved in automobile litigation for the first time.

Although Automotive Vehicle Safety is not a must-have for the auto products litigator, it does provide some interesting and informative insights into the cost-benefit tensions that often confront a design engineer.

Unfortunately, what is unclear is whether the design processes the authors describe define an accepted standard of care for the design and testing of an automobile product or simply the authors' view of what that standard should be. These excerpts from the book's lengthy disclaimer and statement of objectives, respectively, reflect this ambiguity:

   The authors and the publisher must strongly
   disclaim any and all liability that could conceivably
   result from the use of the information,
   in whole or in part, contained in this book.
   This is because of the unique circumstances
   that may arise during the application of such
   information, the wide variation in competence
   and capability of users or appliers, and the
   need for highly skilled specialists. Before any
   detrimental reliance, the reader is urged to
   obtain consultation, advice, and opinions from
   licensed professionals.

      The purpose of this publication is to provide
   useful information that could save lives,
   even prevent personal injury and reduce property
   damage, and generally improve the individual's
   quality of life.

At the same time, the authors do make observations that might be worthy of inquiry during the discovery phase of an auto products case. Examples include:

* the rule of multiple causation, which holds that there may be more than one cause of an undesirable result and that all causes should be considered to determine which ones need to be resolved before a product is put on the market

* fault tolerance, which defines the ability of a product to continue to operate safely despite component failures

* compliance-plus, in which the use of trade and government standards as design goals and objectives is considered inappropriate, given that those standards set minimum levels.

The book's treatment of human-error control also provides some interesting insights into the analysis of a product's foreseeable use and misuse as an element of sound design practice.

This de facto design guide for engineers also contains some useful reference information for lawyers involved in auto products litigation, in its two separate chapters dealing with crash-testing and accident reconstruction. These portions of the book provide fundamental reference information that can assist the practitioner. For example, the chapter on accident reconstruction contains definitions of commonly used reconstruction terms and injury criteria. Although the chapter on crash testing is more esoteric--for example, describing the subtleties of various crash pulses--it nonetheless helps the reader understand the nature and reliability of crash-test data and how the crash pulse can affect vehicle performance in real-world accidents, especially those involving cars equipped with air bags.

Clearly, given the depth of its content, this book is neither a quick read nor something with which to while away the hours on a rainy day. As evidenced by the discussion questions that appear at the end of the book, Automotive Vehicle Safety is best approached as a textbook that may have more interest and value to an engineer studying the ethics of design than to a lawyer trying to prove that a given vehicle's design was defective and unreasonable.

Even so, it might be interesting to ask a manufacturer whether any of the ethical issues the authors identify were considered in the design of the product at issue.

Daniel Dell'Osso practices law with Coben & Associates in Scottsdale, Arizona.