Groundless attack on an uncommon man: William Haddon, Jr, MD

In the 11 June 2001 issue of The New Yorker magazine, a lengthy article (titled “Wrong Turn: How the fight to make America's highways safer went off course”) by Malcolm Gladwell, a regular contributor to the magazine, distorts the history of attempts to reduce motor vehicle injuries. He accuses William Haddon, Jr, MD, as well as Ralph Nader, Joan Claybrook and others, who he labels as “Haddonites”, of diverting attention away from driver factors toward vehicle factors resulting in less reduction in highway deaths than could have been accomplished. Gladwell particularly focuses on the delay in passage of seat belt laws in the United States relative to many developed countries and infers that if Haddon, Nader, Claybrook, et al had supported belt use laws, they would have been enacted earlier in the United States.

Several people responded at length in the 9 July 2001 issue but only short parts of their letters were published.1 In response to the letters, Gladwell briefly defended the article and compounded his mischaracterization of Haddon, “Haddon opposed seat belt laws in California, in the tragically mistaken belief that greater gains would be made with airbags. The automakers' preference for seat belts over airbags wasn't merely a cynical ploy; it was the correct position. Safety, as Nader and others took too long to understand, begins with seat belts”. When I wrote to the editors asking for documentation to support Gladwell's assertion regarding the California belt law, they did not respond. Now that both seat belts and airbags are installed in most new light vehicles and seat belt use is relatively high, would Gladwell or those among his sources in the auto industry and elsewhere advocate no longer including airbags in those vehicles?

It was most of the vehicle manufacturers, not the “Haddonites”, who did not …