Consumers have a man to thank for important safety regulations in place today, and that man is Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader is a lawyer, consumer advocate, and environmentalist born on February 27, 1934 in Winsted, Connecticut. Nader has been considered the father of the consumer protection movement (insert citation) for his participation in various types of consumer protection, ranging from meat inspection to automobile safety. Additionally, he created advocacy groups such as Public Citizen and the Public Interest Research Group. Lastly, Nader ran for president representing the Green Party in 1996 and 2000 and th Independent Party in 2004 and 2008. As previously stated, Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut on February 27, 1934. He was born …show more content…
General Motors (GM) was outraged by Nader and repeatedly sent private investigators to harass Nader’s family and friends in an attempt to get Nader to give up his ground. Nader proceeded to file a lawsuit against GM and received $425,500, which he used to create public-interest groups. Additionally, Nader might have been the reason for Lyndon B. Johnson signing the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act which helped form the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an organization that oversaw the creation of federal safety standards for automobiles and was also empowered to authorize recalls of unsafe vehicles (Encyclopedia.com, 2005).This event exemplifies Nader as a nonconformist mainly because it shows the smaller person (Nader) standing up to the bigger person (GM). Surprisingly, Nader does not even use the money he got mainly for personal use; he uses it for to create public-interest groups that were centered around the people, instead of it being just big business. Furthermore, Nader did not attempt to back down from GM and kept going at them until he got what he wanted (safer