Remember days before seatbelts?

Yes we had a simialr car and we kids were always in the very back space behind the back seat..god alone knows we'd have been killed immediately if something rear ended us...

During the 70's we had ''the clunk click every trip'' campaign, encouraging everyone to use seat belts... and many tv adverts promoting it...

Everyone started using seat belts in the front seats.. but no-one in the back seats.. so another campaign started I think it was the 80's...



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Yes. The first car Papa had with seat belts (they were behind clips in each side of the car's roof). We were coming back from an outing on the bridge when we hit black ice.

We'll, I should say, Papa had to break quickly due to two swerved cars at the bottom part of the bridge. Unfortunately, due to black ice, we slid into them and then it was just a ricochet pile up.

Thankfully, no one was driving over 30 mph. So, no major injuries. Most of us were kids in the backseat. The injuries were eggsize bumps on foreheads. Exactly, where our heads hit the window glass, as we were bumped by other vehicles.

Two hours later, after each car was cleared from the scrum, we were all checked by Ambulance services. Another two hours later and we were finally back home.

On Monday morning, Papa unclipped those seatbelts and from that day on, he insisted we wore them seatbelts. That was 1970...

If we got into any car that didn't provide them, we just didn't ride in that car. Papa was adamant about it and I believe he campaigned ferveotl make them compulsory.

I hit the glass so hard that day, I sprouted a duck egg size bump. I was told what happened in the aftermath as I've no recollection. I woke up in my bed days later, minus the lump.
 
The first car I remember with seat belts was the one I bought in 1980. Before that I'd biked everywhere, and before that when living at home we were poor and never had newer cars. I'm not even sure that our school Driver Education cars had had seat belts.

But a lot of life was different for those well off I guess.
 
As one of seven children we often rode around in station wagons before seatbelts were mandated. When we moved to California my parents bought a camper and we rode in it all the way across country, fortunately without incident. We settled south of San Francisco near where two of my mother’s lived. They each married carpenters so I found ready spending money doing odd jobs for them. Frequently I and one of my other brothers would ride in the back of one of their pickups with the materials or rubbish. I lived a much more adventurous childhood than realized at the time.

When I was in my mid twenties I was a passenger in my younger brother’s Fiat Spider when it was hit head on by a guy in a big old station wagon when the driver who had been drinking passed out. Since I had not been wearing my seat belt at the time, most of my extended family took that as an omen to do likewise. But for me it was an anomaly and never to repeated. My brother was was driving us in his car was brin dead almost immediately but being strong and a healthy 19 lived another week before they pulled the plug.
 
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I remember when the seat belt law went into effect in NY. It was in 1984, I believe and my husband and my son and I were coming home from LI. We were on the LI expressway and state troopers were driving with loud speakers on their cars warning motorist to buckle up. Before that I used the seat belt anyway since my cars had them but they were only the lap belts.
 
I remember the folks putting us in the hatchback of the Subaru and going for a drive. My brother and I would hum the I dream of Jeannie theme music as we watched the dust from the dirt road and were getting jostled around back there. Hit our heads on the roof of the car a few times. LOL!
 
Nathan said:
In 1968 seat-belts were mandated in the U.S. My '69 Camaro had them, at the time it was the first car I owned to have seat belts. The only accident I ever got in was while driving the Camaro(not at fault) and the seat belts saved me from serious injury.
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My folks must've had a death wish cuz I don't recall them ever buckling up or having us buckle up until sometime in the 80s.
 
About 6 years ago, driving a Pontiac Vibe I ran into a 3/4 ton pickup truck that ran a stop sign at a corner that had obstructed view. I was going about 40MPH and my car was shortened by about a foot and a half. I was not injured but just had a few minor back issues for a few months. Without the crumple zone, the shoulder belt, and the air bag, the outcome would have been much worse!
 
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Seat belts are important, of course they are, yet it's wonderfully subversive to legally drive around without them. The irony of these photos is that the lady spent her working life as a paramedic in the ambulance service.

In the UK if a car is over 40 years old and wasn't fitted with seat belts when new, there's no legal obligation to fit them.
 
Yes, I remember the pre seat belt days too.

At one time I had an old 1955 Morris Minor with split windscreen.
The front seats weren't bolted to the floor in that when the driver braked hard the passenger seat would upend towards the windscreen (can't think of another way to describe it).

Giving my workmate a lift home, I had to brake hard when a dog ran into the road and had a spontaneous reaction by throwing my arm across her middle to try and stop the passenger seat upending. It worked thankfully and she didn't go towards the windscreen.

In 1988 when I was towards of end of my pregnancy, I couldn't bear the seatbelt around me. My stomach was fairly small pregnancy wise, more like I might be 4/5mths rather then nearer 9mths.

Anyway, I got pulled over by the police for not wearing a seatbelt. I explained I believed pregnant women could be allowed to not wear the seatbelt. He said, yes that was true, but they have to apply for it - but he didn't believe I was towards the end of pregnancy and asked me to step out of the car.

Eventually he 'relented' but said 'don't do it again' with your next pregnancy. (Yeah right, as if I was going to have another ;))
 
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I remember when I was six and my brother was three taking a nap in the back seat with him napping in the back window. He would have really launched if we hit anything.

After raising 3 children I still have that reflex of throwing out my right arm to catch the passenger on sudden stops.
 
I learned two important lessons early on. First, "Use Seatbelts"! Learned that from an inebriated driver who pulled out directly in front of me on a 65 mph two-lane. My '65 Ford had the optional seatbelts and, fortunately, that day I just happened to be wearing mine.

The second was "in a crash, size matters"! In the days before seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, and collapsible steering columns, my family (immediate and extended) were all General Motors people. They always drove some of the heaviest cars and trucks that GM offered. There were a number of collisions that could have ended badly had the drivers not has mass on their side.

No matter what the advertisers may say, the laws of physics offer no free passes. ;)
 
I just recalled- once while riding up front in my mom's car, the vehicle ahead stopped abruptly and we smacked into it, going about 5 MPH. I immediately slid off the seat and slammed into the dashboard, painfully.
 
I don't remember having a seatbelt when I was young. I remember Standing With my hands on my Dad's shoulders while he was driving and I was in the back seat standing with my hands on his shoulder,if there were seatbelts my Dad would have insisted we would wear them.
 
Robb.hisself said:
I began driving race cars in 1956. They had safety belts. But, cars did not. The family bought a Rambler soon afterwards because Rambler put head restraints and seat belts in their cars long before the government required them.
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The government required head restraints? It was easier to back out of anywhere safely without them as I remember. I don't remember when we got those in our cars.
 

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