Unemployment compensation also functions to alleviate poverty, but people often judge it mistakenly by those who misuse the system. The same with food stamps, abused mostly by grocers. The minimum wage and farm programs are other ways of reducing poverty. In each case, proper behavior had to be legislated for the auto producers. And the automobile industry is just one.
Airline safely is similar, and now there are even federal laws against smoking on planes.
Consumer product safety is another example of governmental success, especially children's products. Regulation began about a century ago with the Pure Food and Drug Act because meat packers were selling contaminated meat, and just about anyone could sell anything as a medicine, medical practice, or medical device. We could each judge for ourselves whether a product is useful, but it is more efficient to have one body judging for all of us so that we each can be doing something else. The overall principle is sound and has been successful. Another form of regulation is that which prevents firms from destroying each other.