Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, was a leading advocate for automotive safety issues.
Clarence Ditlow, one America’s leading auto safety advocates, died after a prolonged battle with colon cancer. He was 72.
Along with the better-known safety advocate Ralph Nader, perhaps no one did more to shift the automotive industry’s mindset which, for many decades argued that “safety doesn’t sell.” Today, automakers routinely promote their latest safety technologies and Ditlow, to some, could claim credit for savings thousands of American lives over the years.
“Spanning four decades, his work forced the auto industry to make vast improvements in the safety, reliability and fuel efficiency of the vehicles on which Americans depend daily,” the Center for Auto Safety said in a statement.
Ditlow helmed the Center for Auto Safety in Washington as executive director. The organization was founded by Consumers Union and Ralph Nader in 1970 to help consumers with cars that were dangerous or poorly manufactured.
Under Ditlow, the center played a major role in these recalls, among others: 6.7 million Chevrolets for defective engine mounts, 15 million Firestone 500 tires, 1.5 million Ford Pintos for exploding gas tanks, and 3 million Evenflo child seats for defective latches.
Nader once described him “as a full-time citizen for motorist safety.”
While he rose to prominence during the Ford-Firestone tire defect crisis in the 1990s, he was still highly active in the issues facing consumers today. Dogged in his pursuit of safety, after decades of pointing dangerous problems even now many automotive gadflies acknowledge his efforts likely save the lives of thousands of Americans.
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“In the past seven years alone, the center was the primary force behind the recalls of 7 million Toyotas for sudden acceleration, 2 million Jeeps for fuel tank fires, 11 million GM vehicles for defective ignition switches, and more than 60 million faulty Takata airbag inflators,” the center noted.
Ditlow not only criticized automakers and suppliers for faulty equipment and vehicles, he also chastised federal regulators when he believed they weren’t doing enough to keep companies in check.
Despite that, he earned praise from the head of one of the organizations, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, he often rebuked.
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“Clarence was relentless in his pursuits, and whether he was taking the fight to the auto industry, or prodding NHTSA when he felt we weren’t moving fast enough, no one could ever doubt his heartfelt motivation,” said NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind in a statement. “Americans are driving in cars that are safer thanks to Clarence, and his voice as an advocate for safety won’t easily be replaced.”
Ditlow often testified in federal hearings about automotive safety issues, including the aforementioned Takata Congressional hearings. His zeal and dedication found him a few friends in the Washington D.C.
“A tireless champion for consumers, his work has resulted in better government oversight of automakers, the installation of key safety features and the exposure of safety defects in millions of cars, SUVs and other trucks,” Senators Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a joint statement in the Congressional Record of Sept. 29, 2016.
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Ditlow, whose father was a Chevrolet service manager in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in chemical engineering as well as a graduate of Georgetown Law School and earned a master of laws degree from Harvard Law School. His Washington career began as a patent examiner with the U.S. Patent Office in 1965. He later joined Mr. Nader’s Public Interest Research Group as a staff lawyer.