To 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 aut

To 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.