3 ms·
> I was surprised to learn that seat-belt usage took so long to take on. Look up the automatic seat belt fad from the 80s and 90s. To make a long story short,
by gwbas1c 2y ago
> I was surprised to learn that seat-belt usage took so long to take on.
Look up the automatic seat belt fad from the 80s and 90s. To make a long story short, there's a reason why they fell out of favor; you still had to manually put on your lap belt, and a lot of people who normally would wear their seat belt correctly didn't realize they had to wear a lap belt.
Also, no one wears seat belts in India. When a car came to pick me up, there was no seat belt in the rear seat. The driver had tucked them under the seat, so I made him pull them back out. As we drove along a semi-freeway, the center divider was giant potted plants instead of a guard rail. Good luck if you happen to drift into one of those without a seat belt.
- sjm-lbm 2y agoTo be fair, the automatic belt "fad" was more interesting than that. For a brief time in the 80s (and into the early 90s), cars were required to have either automatic seat belts or airbags. Generally speaking, air bags were more expensive during that time period, so automatic seat belts were more popular.