Government can pass any law it wants to with regard to your car. If citizens don't like it enough, they'll vote for representatives who will change those laws.
....that I find quite scary.
Sorry to scare you, FreeTally. The statement above is just a statement of FACT. We elect people to our Congress and state assemblies and senates and to our town councils to pass laws for society's benefit. Many of those laws pertain to cars and car safety and driving laws and driving safety. And they work pretty well on the whole. The only reason such laws are passed is because we elect people who pass them. If we don't like them, we can elect people to rescind them. That's democracy in action, FreeTally - not totalitarianism. If the majority in my state sees fit to elect reps who pass laws to require seatbelts, so be it. No dictatorship there!