Engineers Know Engineering Best

Several months ago, I mentioned a book that all engineers should read — "Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom," by Peter William Huber. Recently, I was reminded of this book while reading an article in the Sunday magazine of my local newspaper. The article's title stated, "Lawyers say air bags without tethers are posing danger to passengers."

Since when are lawyers able to make accurate determinations as to the technical merit of a design feature or methodology? Engineers need to be very wary about allowing design options and design methodologies to be governed by legal or legislative fiat.

As a design engineer familiar with the design of softgoods (fabric) structures, I am familiar enough with the technologies involved with air bags as used in automobiles to know that tethers are not always necessary. True, in some applications, internal tethers are necessary because of other design requirements, but in other cases tethers are detrimental to the design intent.

The Knight-Ridder newspaper article, by Alejandro Bodipo-Memba (viewable at www.safetyforum.com/cgi-bin/sn_search.cgi?ID= 002060) does present some engineering point of view, but it appears to me that the author is not convinced that air bag design is being done properly.

The tone of the article implies that the design errors are the result of companies trying to save a few dollars.

The prevalence of this attitude in society should be of concern to all engineers. We can all agree that users of equipment and technology deserve to be safe. The big question is, how should safety and proper design be determined?

Design needs to be prepared and demonstrated to existing verifiable engineering standards as prepared by recognized standards organizations. For the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the governmental organization responsible for automotive and transportation safety policy. The American Society of Automotive Engineers is a professional society that has developed many standards for the automotive industry.

All engineers need to be aware of the push by the legal profession to second-guess the design process after it has been completed.

The U.S. tort system is being slanted to assess blame for injuries to the companies with the deepest pockets and not necessarily toward the individuals who are most at fault.

Engineers are not allowed to practice law without getting a law degree and passing the bar. Lawyers should not practice engineering or make engineering pronouncements without an engineering degree and, where appropriate, getting their Professional Engineer's license.

As entrepreneurs, we must all be aware of what is out there and be sure that we design our products and implement them in the world using the best practices of the day.

— Niel Leon
Committee on Engineering
Entrepreneurship
leonn@asme.org

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