MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

LINCOLN LABORATORY

LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02173
13 February 1970
Area Code 617
862-5500

Professor Jodma Lederberg

Department of Genetics

Stanford University School of Medicine
300 Pasteur Drive

Palo Alto, California 94304

Dear Professor Lederberg:

It was most kind of you to send to me a copy
of your column about the gronnd fault interrupter. I liked your
comment about the lonely place occupied by Professor Dalziel. In
fact, since he is emeritus, one could argue that the place is no
longer occupied at all. I suspect that if he were starting out now
in his same career, he would enjoy more approbation from his colleagues
than has been his lot in his actual working life.

Your juxtaposition of electric safety and auto-
mobile safety interested me. I think it is no profound comment, but
one that I do not remember having seen, except insofar as you allude to
it, that electric safety has been (to a high degree) obtained almost
solely through @ means that in principle has been available in the auto-
mobile field, but that has not been exploited. Electric safety is a
consequence of the interest taken in it by the insurance companies. As
you point out, they have been able to make safety economically attractive.
There has been no parallel development in the field of automobile safety.
I do not know why, but in the state I live in I believe it is illegal
for an insurance company to give different rates for different kinds of
cars because of judgments about their relative safety. Therefore the
buyer has no economic pressure exerted on him by the insurance companies
to buy a safe car, and therefore no pressure has been exerted from that
direction on the automobile manufacturers.

I think it is true that if one automobile company
ten years ago had gone strongly for safety and the others had gone along
as they actually have, going down the line for style, with such monstrosi-
ties as bumpers that not only do not protect the car they are on but
punch holes in the car that they collide with, the company that was manu-
facturing the "safe" car would have gone bankrupt. I therefore regard
legislation about automobile safety -- legislation exerting direct
pressure on the manufacturers all at the same time -- to be a highly
constructive step.

(continued)
Professor Joshua Lederberg -2-

Nevertheless, I think it's greatly to be
regretted that state government regulation of automobile insurance
companies has -- as far as I can see without any direct investigation
on my part -- prevented them from exerting the economical pressures
that have worked so well in the promotion of electric safety. Your
column is the only place where I have seen even a hint that such a
mechanism could be brought into play.

Yours sincerely,

Qj. G: APP © enw
ft
vd. d. G. McCue

Editor

IEEE SPECTRUM
JJGM: mw