@blatham,
I think you are trivializing a much more complex process than you acknowledge. Protecting shareholder value is indeed a core responsibility of a corporation: indeed it is a legal responsibility of Board members. Almost anything can be used for bad or harmful purposes - even vehicles with air bags.
Interestingly the track record for government regulators for designing and enforcing safety standards for cars, aircraft, powerplants and stuff like that isn't very impressive. Generally speaking government is good at one thing - governing or enforcing rules. It is far less good at designing real improvements that make things better. Many of the improvements in aircraft and powerplant design that significantly enhanced both efficient performance and safety came in spite of government regulations based on outdated technologies that limited them.
There's a rich related field involving medical research and the trade-offs between innovation and the regulations protecting the public, and ongoing controversies involving various new drugs and innovations if which I assume you are aware. Some innovation for barely patentable variations of new drugs is likely based solely on profit; some not. The problem is how do you get one without the other? The FDA's role in all this is also hardly without fault. Governments that operate Public health Care systems routinely make decisions about cost and statistical (as opposed to individual) benefit that aren't morally any different from those you are deriding.
With that in mind, I think it's important here to throttle down your impulse towards presumed moral superiority That's an easily adopted mental state that requires no effort, competence or achievement. Real achievement - even making automobiles - requires work, risk, sweat and sometimes moral tradeoffs.
