Editing Ford Pinto (section)

===Retrospective safety analysis===
A ''[[Rutgers Law Review]]'' article by former UCLA law professor Gary T. Schwartz (see ''Section 7.3 NHTSA Investigation'' above), examined the fatality rates of the Pinto and several other small cars of the time. He noted that fires, and rear-end fires, in particular, are a very small portion of overall auto fatalities. At the time only 1% of automobile crashes would result in fire and only 4% of fatal accidents involved fire, and only 15% of fatal fire crashes are the result of rear-end collisions.<ref name="Schwartz 1991">{{harvnb|Schwartz|1991}} Footnote pg 1029</ref> When considering the overall safety of the Pinto, subcompact cars as a class had a generally higher fatality risk. Pintos represented 1.9% of all cars on the road in the 1975–76 period. During that time, the car represented 1.9% of all "fatal accidents accompanied by some fire". This implies the Pinto was average for all cars and slightly above average for its class.<ref>{{harvnb|Schwartz|1991}} pg 1031</ref> When all types of fatalities are considered, the Pinto was approximately even with the AMC Gremlin, Chevrolet Vega, and Datsun 510. It was significantly better than the Datsun 1200/210, Toyota Corolla, and VW Beetle.<ref name="Schwartz 1991"/> The safety record of the car in terms of fire was average or slightly below average for compacts, and all cars respectively. This was considered respectable for a subcompact car. Only when considering the narrow subset of a rear impact, fire fatalities for the car were somewhat worse than the average for subcompact cars. While acknowledging this is an important legal point, Schwartz rejected the portrayal of the car as a firetrap.<ref>{{harvnb|Schwartz|1991}} pg 1033</ref>