7 ms·

Also, driver safety wasn’t a thing, either. If a car came to a rapid stop, those kids would have been flying through the front window, but chances are the drive

Also, driver safety wasn’t a thing, either. If a car came to a rapid stop, those kids would have been flying through the front window, but chances are the driver would be impaled on the steering column (the steering wheel would easily break of, but that column would be rigidly connected to the front axle), the engine block might be pushed through the car into the back seats, maiming any legs it encountered, etc. Cars were extremely dangerous at the time and could kill their passengers in collisions even at low speeds. Ralph Nader had a point (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed:_The_Designed-In_Dangers_of_the_American_Automobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed:_The_Desig...)

cogman10 3y ago
> If a car came to a rapid stop, those kids would have been flying through the front window That's how my sister broke her arm and what got my entire family on the "buckle up every time" train. Fortunately, she was in the backseat of a van so she wasn't ejected from the vehicle. But it was a real wake up call. (This happened back in the 90s).
huehehue 3y ago
This story is dumb luck, and not an anti-seatbelt sentiment in any way: my grandmother was in a collision severe enough to send her flying through the front windshield and into the ditch, and the shape of the car(s) afterwards suggested that if she weren't tossed from the car she would have been crushed to pieces. Things are different today, but interesting to think that the structural integrity on these old machines was so poor that you'd rather get hurled from the car in an accident.
- connicpu 3y ago
  Yeah, it's crazy to think there was a time when cars put little to no engineering into passenger safety. A modern car is designed with room for the engine bay to be crushed to absorb some of the impact while all of the rigidity is put into the cage surrounding the passenger compartment
  - eru 3y ago
    At least that's the case for normal cars. SUVs have some weird regulatory loopholes around them (in the US) that negate these good ideas.
    - _yb2s 3y ago
      Decent manufacturers still use best safety practices even when not required to. Volvo and Mercedes invented most of the modern safety tech in the 70s and 80s and use it on all models, most other higher end cars do as well nowadays. If your car company only makes your car as safe as legally required, is that what you want to trust your family with?
      - paul_funyun 3y ago
        Sure, the legal requirements are more than sufficient
        _yb2s 3y ago
        That’s a personal decision of course, but the most dangerous cars have real world death rates over 200x that of the safest designs, and they are all legal[1]. Driving is incredibly dangerous on average, yet the risk can be almost entirely mitigated by choosing the right vehicle. I find it shocking how much difference there is. [1] https://www.kbb.com/car-news/the-deadliest-and-least-deadly-cars/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/the-deadliest-and-least-deadly-...
        dancek 3y ago
        That's an understatement. According to that data, the most dangerous cars are infinitely more dangerous than the safest cars (205 driver deaths per million registered vehicle years vs. 0). Even more interestingly, the fifth safest car is infinitely more dangerous than the safest four cars (2 vs 0). Also note that this is the driver death rate. The death rates for other people are vastly different. You shouldn't jump to conclusions from the data, either. A Dodge Challenger (3rd most driver deaths) is probably not unsafe per se, it just attracts people that want to take unnecessary risks. Driving is quite safe on average. In my home country there's 5.1 deaths per a billion vehicle kilometers. That's about one death every 2.5 million hours of driving at highway speed. Many other things carry a greater risk of death.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  That was an argument people made when seatbelts first became mandatory. They thought that without a seatbelt they would be "thrown clear" in an accident, when in reality that is very unlikely to happen.
  - nielsole 3y ago
    My elderly medical University lecturer told us about first aid in old cars and how before seatbelts and safety glass, people would have their necks slit from the windshield while being ejected leading to a rather quick demise.
  - Doxin 3y ago
    Never mind that being "thrown clear" involves breaking the windshield with your skull. Not pleasant under the best of conditions.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  And yet we have so many people who want them to go back to making cars like that...
- mcv 3y ago
  It's why motorbikes don't have a seatbelt. Except the ones with a roof, which do. It's entirely possible that when a vehicle doesn't have a roof, it's better to be thrown out (while wearing a helmet and other safety gear, obviously) than to be strapped in a seatbelt.
mikestew 3y ago
If a car came to a rapid stop, those kids would have been flying through the front window Nah, Mom would stick her arm out during rapid stops to keep that from happening. No, Mom had never taken a physics class, thanks for asking.
BizarroLand 3y ago
Also, when your 70 something granddad says cars today are fragile and break too easily in a crash, they're right. Old cars were built to last, to survive crashes with a minimum of damage and to be easily repairable as soon as you hose out the remains of the former occupants who were turned into an untasty raspberry jam like substance after bouncing around the inside of their indestructible death cabs at 60 miles an hour. If it weren't for rust and lack of maintenance, many of those old beasts would still be on the road today. Today's cars collapse and crumple like wet tissue by comparison, but then after the accident your friendly local fireman can use some powered jaws to open your little nesting cocoon and extract you largely unhurt from accidents that would have turned you into aforementioned jam just 60 years ago. Sure, the car is toast but who wouldn't trade a brand new car for years of life, especially when many people have insurance so your deductible can be as little as a few hundred dollars?
jvm___ 3y ago
The glass broke like picture frame glass, all sharp-edged and spiky. Safety glass was invented as it breaks into tiny shards that are unlikely to cause major damage.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  I read Roald Dahl's autobiography when I was young (young enough to be reading his other children's books) and remember his description of the car accident in 1925, when he was 9: > The driver was to be that twelve-years-older-than-me half-sister ... She had received two full half-hour lessons in driving from the man who delivered the car, and in that enlightened year of 1925 this was considered quite sufficient. > ... > Spurred on by our shouts and taunts, the ancient sister began to increase the speed. The engine roared and the body vibrated. The driver was clutching the steering-wheel as though it were the hair of a drowning man, and we all watched the speedometer needle creeping up to twenty, then twenty-five, then thirty. We were probably doing about thirty-five miles an hour when we came suddenly to a sharpish bend in the road. The ancient sister, never having been faced with a situation like this before, shouted ‘Help!’ and slammed on the brakes and swung the wheel wildly round. The rear wheels locked and went into a fierce sideways skid, and then, with a marvellous crunch of mudguards and metal, we went crashing into the hedge. The front passengers all shot through the front windscreen and the back passengers all shot through the back windscreen. Glass (there was no Triplex then) flew in all directions and so did we. My brother and one sister landed on the bonnet of the car, someone else was catapulted out on to the road and at least one small sister landed in the middle of the hawthorn hedge. But miraculously nobody was hurt very much except me. My nose had been cut almost clean off my face as I went through the rear windscreen and now it was hanging on only by a single small thread of skin. My mother disentangled herself from the scrimmage and grabbed a handkerchief from her purse. She clapped the dangling nose back into place fast and held it there. — Roald Dahl, Boy (1984)
  - seanthemon 3y ago
    One strand away from becoming Voaldahlmort

cogman10 3y ago

> If a car came to a rapid stop, those kids would have been flying through the front window That's how my sister broke her arm and what got my entire family on the "buckle up every time" train. Fortunately, she was in the backseat of a van so she wasn't ejected from the vehicle. But it was a real wake up call. (This happened back in the 90s).

huehehue 3y ago

This story is dumb luck, and not an anti-seatbelt sentiment in any way: my grandmother was in a collision severe enough to send her flying through the front windshield and into the ditch, and the shape of the car(s) afterwards suggested that if she weren't tossed from the car she would have been crushed to pieces. Things are different today, but interesting to think that the structural integrity on these old machines was so poor that you'd rather get hurled from the car in an accident.

connicpu 3y ago
Yeah, it's crazy to think there was a time when cars put little to no engineering into passenger safety. A modern car is designed with room for the engine bay to be crushed to absorb some of the impact while all of the rigidity is put into the cage surrounding the passenger compartment
- eru 3y ago
  At least that's the case for normal cars. SUVs have some weird regulatory loopholes around them (in the US) that negate these good ideas.
  - _yb2s 3y ago
    Decent manufacturers still use best safety practices even when not required to. Volvo and Mercedes invented most of the modern safety tech in the 70s and 80s and use it on all models, most other higher end cars do as well nowadays. If your car company only makes your car as safe as legally required, is that what you want to trust your family with?
    - paul_funyun 3y ago
      Sure, the legal requirements are more than sufficient
      - _yb2s 3y ago
        That’s a personal decision of course, but the most dangerous cars have real world death rates over 200x that of the safest designs, and they are all legal[1]. Driving is incredibly dangerous on average, yet the risk can be almost entirely mitigated by choosing the right vehicle. I find it shocking how much difference there is. [1] https://www.kbb.com/car-news/the-deadliest-and-least-deadly-cars/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/the-deadliest-and-least-deadly-...
        dancek 3y ago
        That's an understatement. According to that data, the most dangerous cars are infinitely more dangerous than the safest cars (205 driver deaths per million registered vehicle years vs. 0). Even more interestingly, the fifth safest car is infinitely more dangerous than the safest four cars (2 vs 0). Also note that this is the driver death rate. The death rates for other people are vastly different. You shouldn't jump to conclusions from the data, either. A Dodge Challenger (3rd most driver deaths) is probably not unsafe per se, it just attracts people that want to take unnecessary risks. Driving is quite safe on average. In my home country there's 5.1 deaths per a billion vehicle kilometers. That's about one death every 2.5 million hours of driving at highway speed. Many other things carry a greater risk of death.
SoftTalker 3y ago
That was an argument people made when seatbelts first became mandatory. They thought that without a seatbelt they would be "thrown clear" in an accident, when in reality that is very unlikely to happen.
- nielsole 3y ago
  My elderly medical University lecturer told us about first aid in old cars and how before seatbelts and safety glass, people would have their necks slit from the windshield while being ejected leading to a rather quick demise.
- Doxin 3y ago
  Never mind that being "thrown clear" involves breaking the windshield with your skull. Not pleasant under the best of conditions.
eternityforest 3y ago
And yet we have so many people who want them to go back to making cars like that...
mcv 3y ago
It's why motorbikes don't have a seatbelt. Except the ones with a roof, which do. It's entirely possible that when a vehicle doesn't have a roof, it's better to be thrown out (while wearing a helmet and other safety gear, obviously) than to be strapped in a seatbelt.

mikestew 3y ago

If a car came to a rapid stop, those kids would have been flying through the front window Nah, Mom would stick her arm out during rapid stops to keep that from happening. No, Mom had never taken a physics class, thanks for asking.

BizarroLand 3y ago

Also, when your 70 something granddad says cars today are fragile and break too easily in a crash, they're right. Old cars were built to last, to survive crashes with a minimum of damage and to be easily repairable as soon as you hose out the remains of the former occupants who were turned into an untasty raspberry jam like substance after bouncing around the inside of their indestructible death cabs at 60 miles an hour. If it weren't for rust and lack of maintenance, many of those old beasts would still be on the road today. Today's cars collapse and crumple like wet tissue by comparison, but then after the accident your friendly local fireman can use some powered jaws to open your little nesting cocoon and extract you largely unhurt from accidents that would have turned you into aforementioned jam just 60 years ago. Sure, the car is toast but who wouldn't trade a brand new car for years of life, especially when many people have insurance so your deductible can be as little as a few hundred dollars?

jvm___ 3y ago

The glass broke like picture frame glass, all sharp-edged and spiky. Safety glass was invented as it breaks into tiny shards that are unlikely to cause major damage.

Symbiote 3y ago
I read Roald Dahl's autobiography when I was young (young enough to be reading his other children's books) and remember his description of the car accident in 1925, when he was 9: > The driver was to be that twelve-years-older-than-me half-sister ... She had received two full half-hour lessons in driving from the man who delivered the car, and in that enlightened year of 1925 this was considered quite sufficient. > ... > Spurred on by our shouts and taunts, the ancient sister began to increase the speed. The engine roared and the body vibrated. The driver was clutching the steering-wheel as though it were the hair of a drowning man, and we all watched the speedometer needle creeping up to twenty, then twenty-five, then thirty. We were probably doing about thirty-five miles an hour when we came suddenly to a sharpish bend in the road. The ancient sister, never having been faced with a situation like this before, shouted ‘Help!’ and slammed on the brakes and swung the wheel wildly round. The rear wheels locked and went into a fierce sideways skid, and then, with a marvellous crunch of mudguards and metal, we went crashing into the hedge. The front passengers all shot through the front windscreen and the back passengers all shot through the back windscreen. Glass (there was no Triplex then) flew in all directions and so did we. My brother and one sister landed on the bonnet of the car, someone else was catapulted out on to the road and at least one small sister landed in the middle of the hawthorn hedge. But miraculously nobody was hurt very much except me. My nose had been cut almost clean off my face as I went through the rear windscreen and now it was hanging on only by a single small thread of skin. My mother disentangled herself from the scrimmage and grabbed a handkerchief from her purse. She clapped the dangling nose back into place fast and held it there. — Roald Dahl, Boy (1984)
- seanthemon 3y ago
  One strand away from becoming Voaldahlmort