Proposal

When buying a new car, most people don’t think about if there is going to be a problem with the car. It’s a new car right? There’s nothing that could possibly go wrong. Why don’t we ask the family who bought themselves a new Lexus. Unfortunately they are not available because this Lexus killed them in a crash. The accelerator on the car got stuck and the driver could do nothing until they hit another car at 120 mph killing everyone involved. All this could have been avoided. Blood was spilt because of one little problem of the accelerator pedal sticking. Something Toyota overlooked.
There are too many safety issues that are overlooked by car companies today. Safety must be top priority when it comes to a product like a car. Auto safety standards must be updated regularly in order to keep up with the technology of cars. In history NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Association) has been in control of the safety requirements for cars. About every decade they make changes, which is usually right after a major problem or recall.
When it comes to the lives of the people, safety shouldn’t be considered as trial and error. Prevention is the name of the game. If safety was higher on the companies’ priorities then we could prevent most of these defects. One way to make car companies take a better look at safety is to make it cost them if they don’t. By taking the cap off of the fine for recalls and by requiring more safety features, a problem with a car caused by a car company could be devastating to the financial well being of the company. This way safety becomes one with profit. So in order to make money and not lose money, companies will step up on the safety of their car so that they can prevent problems in safety or defects in cars which in turn prevents them from losing money. That’s all they need is a little motivation.
Many of you may be thinking “You can’t prevent every problem” which is true. You cannot simply prevent all problems but we can prevent car companies from neglecting safety and by doing that we can save lives.

Cause and Effect

When it comes to auto safety standards, everything depends on cause and effect. When a problem arises and a recall is set out, that is cause and effect. Car makers are currently controlling auto safety and just doing the bare minimum to get by. With the new bill and the new safety grading this will change. The bill will require much more attention to safety features and the grading will motivate car makers to build cars to compete with these increasing standards so their car can sell.

Opposition Arguments

Most people are in favor of the auto safety bill that is coming into play but the car companies are very skeptic about it. Although they don't publish their ideas, they don't like the idea because it will cost them more to build a car. Also they are removing the cap from the maximum fine of $16.4 million which companies are worried could cause them to go bankrupt. If they did argue about it, the argument they would probably use is that it would make cars more expensive for the consumer. They would show how much more you would have to pay for a car to make up for the new safety requirements and new taxes being imposed on car companies. Persuasion by greed would be their method and the consumer would be their target.