Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States by Lee Vinsel (review)

By almost every imaginable measure, present-day automobiles present a vast improvement over their predecessors built fifty, let alone one hundred, years ago. On average, cars have become not only considerably more powerful and more comfortable to use, but also much safer, cleaner, and more fuel-efficient. How did this development come about, and who gets to claim the credit for it: resourceful engineers, innovative entrepreneurs, combative political activists, or discerning consumers? In Moving Violations, the American historian of technology Lee Vinsel makes the case for (re-)discovering the influence of a perhaps less fashionable factor in the evolution of the automobile: government regulation.

Given its enormous economic, social, cultural, and political significance, the American automobile offers an excellent and extremely rich case study for an investigation into the "relationship between regulation and technological change" (p. 2). As the first of the book's four main parts (entitled "Standards") shows, the earliest attempts to mitigate the negative consequences of motorized traffic by imposing some general rules date back all the way to the 1890s, when cars were still little more than motorized carriages. These initiatives became more systematic with the advent of mass motorization in the 1910s to 1930s, when not only the car itself, but also the basic rules governing its use (such as speed limits or traffic lights) took their now-familiar shape. However, since attention during this period was focused mainly on "undisciplined" human drivers, regulation of the automobile itself as a technological artefact remained largely restricted to consensus-based, uncontroversial standardization initiatives that merely followed the state of the art in the industry.

How and why this changed during the 1960s and early 1970s is the subject of the second and third part of the book, explored in two parallel case studies on "Safety" and "Pollution." In both cases, regulatory action was preceded by a fundamental reframing of the basic problem, due to the emergence of a new field of research: impact biomechanics and the chemical analysis of smog. In combination with pressure from the emerging consumer and environmental movements, this led to the passage of landmark legislation (in 1966 and 1970, respectively) and the creation of new bureaucratic institutions tasked to enforce it: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Office of Mobile Sources of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To comply with the new requirements, automakers were forced to develop and deploy new technological solutions, such as crumple zones, airbags, and catalytic converters.

The final section, "Bureaucracy," outlines further developments from the 1970s to the present. With the partial exception of the introduction of fuel efficiency standards in 1975, no comparable new areas of regulation emerged during this period. With the rise of "free market" economics in the 1980s and the increasing political polarization over the question of government intervention, Vinsel sees automobile regulation policy becoming increasingly toothless and erratic, "lack[ing] any overarching sense of direction" (p. 280).

Parts of this story will sound familiar to readers of automotive historians such as Joel Eastman, Peter Norton, Amy Gangloff, Jameson M. Wetmore, and many others. Nevertheless, Vinsel's well-researched and highly readable account—rooted in detailed attention to historical context and enlivened by short biographical sketches of its main protagonists—still manages to present plenty of new details and original insights. Focusing on "knowledge communities" (a concept borrowed from the late Ann Johnson) forming around specific technical problems, Vinsel deftly weaves together histories of scientific research, social activism, national politics, corporate policies, and bureaucratic institutions. The book could have profited greatly from the occasional sideways glance across U.S. borders. This might not only have served to highlight the exceptional nature of U.S. regulatory efforts in the 1970s, but also have drawn attention to their transnational effects—thus addressing the alleged incompatibility between regulation and globalization. Overall, however, Moving Violations offers not only an inspiring contribution to the ongoing debate on the origins of technological change, but also...