Seat Belts !

I am not sure of the history of seat belts, but I will write of the history of seat belts for me. It has been a long and changing road and has had a drastic impact on my life.

Being a teen in the 1970's it was common practice to question government control, at that time seat belt use in cars was an option and for most of us and option we didn't use. It wasn't cool to use seat belts. Nerds used seat belts, those kids with those funny glasses and the pocket protectors.

I was one of the cool kids, a motor-head, I liked fast cars, fast bikes and racing. One of my first cars was a 69 Firebird muscle car. I also like to flat track race bikes and had a BSA 500. I had a need for speed, street racing or cruising on Friday nights and flat track racing on Saturdays. When cruising you had to be ready to jump out of your car at a moments notice if you saw a hot girl or a fight on a corner, and seat belts would only slow you down.

Well the 70's passed and either luck was on my side, or I was a really good driver, because all of the cruising, street racing, flat tracking and just all the driving I did in general, I never got into an accident. The 80's started and government took a bit more control in car safety and started passing laws about car seats and children. Well the 70's rebellious attitude in me came out, and questioning government control, I thought that the government was in cahoots with the car seat manufacturers and this was just a ploy to sell more car seats. But having no children yet, it did not matter to me.

By 1988 I had my first child, and I am not sure if it was first time fatherhood, or the fact that I had already had an uncle and a first wife killed by drunk drivers, but my attitude towards car seats had changed. My new baby had one waiting for her before she was even born. Now seat belts were a different story, they were still a pain in the ass, I still did not use them because now the new cars had shoulder restraints, not like the cars from the 70's that just had waist restraints.