My parent’s first new car was a 1949 Buick convertible. No seat belts, and a good sold metal dash with a radio with metal knobs sticking out. If Mom or Dad hit the brakes, an arm would be thrust out to keep me from flying into the dash. Lot’s of long rides in the bed of my uncle’s pickup truck. The 50s were a great time to grow up.
” If Mom or Dad hit the brakes, an arm would be thrust out to keep me from flying into the dash.”
Not in an accident.
A friend of mine bought a 1941 Buick, a barn find from Colorado. He fixed it up and had to put seat belts in it because his daughters were 7 and 4 at the time. My 64 Chevy has factory seat belts, our lovely daughter was 7 when I first bought it. In NY, FL and most other states doesn’t matter if the car is a 1920 or a 2020 if kids 12 or under ride in it they must wear seat belts and younger kids must be put in car seats.
Lot’s of long rides in the bed of my uncle’s pickup truck.
= = =
Statute of limitations being long past,
Throwing rocks out of the back of a pickup truck adds the velocity of the truck (or a component of it).
Hitting a roadside sign made an impressive impact.
One day two rocks from two throwers collided and ricocheted and came back at the throwers, fast. Boy, that squelched that, (for a while).
I remember my dad yelling out to us playing football in the back yard. We even had girls playing football. My dad would yell out, “Who wants to go swimming? Go home and put on your swim suits and be back in a half hour!” Six boys and two girls would load up in the back of his pickup. Two others would get in the seat—without seat belts—and off we would go to the lake. That’s a total of eleven people going swimming in a pickup. Now it would take three carloads (max 5 people per car) if you could get a parent to drive each car, to achieve the same objective.
There were seatbelts in the 70’s-80s but virtually no one wore them. I also spent a ton of time rolling around in the back of a van or pickup bed. No one batted an eye about it.
Mom said if all 6 of us kids would have had to be belted in and have car seats and all that junk, we never would have left the house! After having 4 myself, I agree, it was a terrible hassle that only made the nanny-staters happy.
AMEN——I even had a Welsh Pony that I rode bareback every summer day.