When you were a child, did you ride in a child car seat?

[cthulu2016]

If you are over a certain age, of course not.

Were your parents notably evil?

Today, having tots jumping up and down in the back seat is a sure sign the driver is lower than Hitler, even though it is safer in a modern car than it ever was back in the day when folks simply did that.

It is a very good thing that kids have a safer car ride today than they did in the 1960s.

It does not, however, follow from that that parents without the requisite child seats are evil today, but were not evil in the 1960s. The evil being done was obviously the same. (Or less, as noted previously.)

And we were not ignorant of the dangers. If anything, people today are more ignorant of the dangers. Most folks today expect to walk away from almost any crash because auto safety is vastly greater.

We simply decided, on a number of things, to adopt a higher social sense of requisite safety. This applies to pretty much everything, from aspirin to roller-coasters.

And that is awesome.

We enforce the current child safety seat regime partially by social pressure. Folks look askance at friends and associates who do not employ such seats. It is an "out" behavior.

And that is fine. Social norms are mostly enforced by society, informally. If you are anti-vax it is hoped that other parents in your neighborhood will express that it is an "out" behavior.

It does not, however, follow that extremism in pursuit of that good is an even greater good because it is extreme.

A person can get so jazzed up about their self-righteous virtue that they turn normal social attitudes into bizarre mental illnesses. (Primarily driven by a continual need to manifest ones own moral superiority in histrionic fashion.)


A prime example of this is the people at abortion clinics. Take the "fun" of calling female strangers sluts (which includes that satisfaction of implicitly shrieking that you are not a slut) and tell yourself that you are saving lives by doing so.

Problem solved! Demented anti-social behavior turned into moral virtue.


When one's concern over some issue leads to what used to be known as "anti-social behavior", directed at ordinary folks, it is a problem.

And there is always some vehicle for the anti-social personality to find outlet in some morally self-ordained way.

[pnwmom]

1. I disagree. It is more "evil" now because all cars come with seat belts.

And hospitals won't let babies leave without car seats. People who were parents before either of these were invented can't be blamed for not having used them.

[NOVA_Dem]

69. Exactly. When you KNOW better you DO better. n/t

[yeoman6987]

86. Evil?

Sheesh. Sometimes it is so over the top. Parents were not evil. Heck were there even car seats back in the day? Cars were made with heavier materials back in the day. Today cars are made with cheap weaker material. Heck some of the station wagons back in the day were practically tanks.

[pnwmom]

90. The OP used the word "evil." I don't think you could have read it.

Or my post, since you asked about car seats.

[whatthehey]

109. tanks that passed on all the force of impact to passengers

Crumply materials make cars safer. The energy is absorbed by the flexing of the metal. Every single impact test comparing old "tanks" with "cheap weak" modern cars shows passengers are much less at risk in the latter. This is one of the main reasons fatalities per mile driven have fallen like a rock even compared with the earlier seat belt era.

[PeteSelman]

2. No. And they smoked.

Oh, the horror!

[RebelOne]

8. Yup, and both my parents smoked.

And neither seat belts or child car seats were invented yet when I was a child.

[Bandit]

11. yes and died a horrible early death

besides smelling like shit.

[Matariki]

74. Smoked in the car and wouldn't allow the windows opened

no matter how desperately we begged. That was kind of evil actually.

[zazen]

104. agreed--I had asthma and literally dissociated n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

119. said I was being "fussy" for opening window

[dipsydoodle]

3. No seat belts either.

.

[warrant46]

57. Sitting on pillows in the back of the station wagon

Opening the back window and waving at the Car following us.

Parents driving with no seat belts in a 1952 Buick with a big V-8 at 65 MPH on a 2 lane road

[ChazII]

60. +1 n/t

[LadyHawkAZ]

121. Riding on the speaker shelf

You hadn't lived til you got to ride on the speaker shelf.

[warrant46]

122. +1 Awesome

[ladyVet]

131. Oh, I know!

We used to fight to see who got to ride back there. Our car even had a sliding window. Then Daddy got the station wagon, which had a rear-facing seat at the back. Also, no seat belts in cars when I was little. Good times.

[ManiacJoe]

4. Car seats not yet invented; only lap belts.

[B Calm]

91. Wasn't popular until the late 1980's.

[cali]

105. no, they were de rigeur by the early eighties.

[B Calm]

113. Maybe in California, but not in the Midwest.

[cali]

114. no, you are wrong. period.

Yes, in the midwest. Kansas- enacted 1981. by the early 80s, car seat laws for infants and toddlers had been enacted in most states. In fact, the first state to mandate them was Tennessee in 1978 and other state followed suit in short order

http://www.dgso.org/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36:child-passenger-safety-requirements-&catid=13:dgso-faqs

[B Calm]

130. Excuse me, but here in

Indiana it wasn't law until 1987. The surrounding states are all around the same time period. So I think I'm pretty correct when I said late 80's.

[cali]

135. uh, no. You said "maybe in CA, not i the midwest

Is Kansas on the coast? Why no, it's in the MIDWEST. And Tennessee ain't CA either. And sorry, by 1985 the majority of states had car seat laws

[B Calm]

136. . .

[bigwillq]

5. I rode in a car seat (nt)

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. Oh, hell yes we had child car seats!

There were these highly protective seats for the little ones


Then you graduated to this, if you were lucky enough to have a Country Squire!

[pinboy3niner]

16. Lucky you!

Instead of a back seat we had orange crates to sit on.

Years later I did a study of kids in crashes and promoted adoption of mandatory child safety seat laws by the states.

[Throd]

7. We had a '67 Chrysler Town & Country, but my parents insisted we wear the lap belts.

We spent a lot of time on Air Force bases where they a pretty militant about safety.

[cthulu2016]

18. That's funny, about the armed forces and safety. There are probably reasons...

I think the Jeep is such a death trap (due to high center of gravity and no top) that it put the issue front and center after WWII because there were so many Jeeps around and they were used as street cars at street speeds.

When my dad was overseas after WWII car accidents were by far the big killer of the troops and they had horrible "drivers ed" type photos on the inside of the bathroom stalls, which he said made for decidedly unpleasant elimination.


Also, active duty folks in car crashes were going to be in the government's dime.

[ManiacJoe]

125. The Air Force lost more pilots to car accidents

than to flight mishaps during the 60s.

[sarisataka]

9. Yes and from all appearances

I would have been safer strapped to the bumper.
It was a contraption with no padding outsde of the seat, kept a child upright held by a plastic lapbelt and held in the car by good iintentions. At least the various metal bars ensured a rapid if painful death

[Hekate]

22. Hey, I remember those! The toddler could see above the seatback and the baby rested in mama's lap

1940s - 1950s. Seatbelts didn't make it into cars until my childhood was over.

Some things have vastly improved.

[crazylikafox]

10. Nope. Standing up in the back inhaling cigarette smoke the whole way!

[PhilSays]

12. Yes.

My parents were responsible.

In my neck of the woods, that is rare. My Aunt's kids have all kinds of health issues because she couldn't keep that cigarette out of her mouth while she was pregnant.

[dembotoz]

13. nope--my kids are convinced that a dinasaur did not come with a car seat

yabba

dabba


do

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

14. No, and we didn't wear seat belts, either

I'm 47. Getting used to wearing a seat belt as a driver didn't come easily, either. A bit of forgetfulness, discomfort, and rebellion conspired against me.

[badtoworse]

15. We had a '54 Mercury

That should speak for itself.

[jwirr]

17. When I was a child no one in the car had seat belts and there were no car seats when my children

were small.

I do think they are a very good thing.

[Blue_Tires]

19. I'm told I had one as a toddler but it was rarely used...(circa 1978)

True story: I used to *STAND* on the goddamned passenger seat, and lean forward with my hands on the dash so I could see out the winshield...(sort of like some dogs do while in the car, maybe?)

If the ride got bumpy, I'd remain standing and grab the seatbelt sort of like how adults grab a subway strap...

Fun times...

If anyone cares, the car was an 1977(?) toyota corolla

[newfie11]

20. No car seats, no seatbelts,

Hell I was lucky it wasn't horse drawn back in those days.
Yes my mom smoked. Oops forgot I road in the back of a pickup too.

[blueamy66]

40. I hope that you weren't fed formula too!

[newfie11]

49. Nope so I'm told Nt

[Scairp]

65. Me either

One time they had an uncle drive our car, we were moving or something and he was helping, and he was trying to get the seatbelt to work. I distinctly remember this for some weird reason and I was really young, they way he was tugging on it or adjusting it, whatever. Later on when no one else was around, they had a big laugh over it, like he was this big pussy or something for wanting to wear a seatbelt. No one thought seatbelts were important, let alone a safety seat for a kid. And no seatbelts as an older child at all. But it seems I did have some kind of car seat my mother put me in when she was driving alone because they still had it for my brother, but I don't recall anything about it. But then it could have been just a carrier and it wasn't buckled in, that's for sure. I'm quite sure it would not have saved my life had we been in a serious accident.

[2naSalit]

66. Me too!

to all of the above!

[Hekate]

21. Social pressure and the change in norms has brought down the percentage of smokers enormously

You put the case very well, cthulu.

[Holly_Hobby]

23. No car seat, no seat or lap belt

Actually, my mom cut the seat belts out (lap belts) with scissors and pitched them because she didn't want them leaving marks on the interior from sitting on them.

My parents smoked, my grandparents smoked, my grandparents lived above a bar all their lives where second hand smoke from the bar drifted. My mother smoked during all 3 of her pregnancies and probably had more than a few high balls too.

I also didn't wear a bike helmet.

[Thirties Child]

24. I still throw out my arm when I make a sudden stop.

For some reason I expected my arm to save my child during a crash. I'd never heard of car seats for children. My father drove a Hudson coupe - called a Terraplane - during WWII; when I learned to drive in 1950 our car was a 1941 Hudson. Huge car, huge motor, huge hood. Can't imagine the mileage but gas was 25 cents a gallon. When my kids were young we drove a 1967 Ford Country Sedan. We needed one that big for four children and a Great Dane. Terrible car, but we drove it for 21 years. We could never afford a new car every few years, still can't.

And, yes, I smoked while I was pregnant, smoked when I fed my babies. Lots of regrets.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

36. You stopped short?

That's my move!

[Politicalboi]

25. Nope

I remember laying on the top of the front seat with my arms and legs dangling down as I watched the road ahead of us. I also remember sudden stops while sleeping in the back seat. Then my mother yelling at my dad. LOL! Standing in the back of pick up trucks while moving. Fun days.

[FarCenter]

26. '46 Chevy with car seats?

[Cleita]

27. Never. Also hitched rides in the back of pickup trucks too. n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

111. Oh, the horror!

[doc03]

28. I was born in 1948, I don't think they had such things

back then.

[B2G]

29. We had a station wagon with those little fold up seats

No seat belts.

Amazing I'm still alive.

[JVS]

30. See those suitcases behind the backseat?

I often rode back there if we had more than 5 people in the car. For long trips mom would fold down the backseat and my brother and I would sleep on the large flat surface too.

[winter is coming]

42. The squabbled-over location in my parents' station wagon was a similar

gap between the second seat and the (rear-facing) third seat.

[doc03]

31. The neighbor family ran a homemade ice cream store.

Me and their three boys would ride down to the dairy (about 8 miles) to get cream sitting on the tailgate of their pickup. They would probably put their grandfather in prison for
doing that today.

[CBGLuthier]

32. I did in the early 1960's

The only reason I know is my father and I were caught in a snow storm and he used my car seat in a failed attempt to create traction. Then we walked a mile or so to a little store with a coal stove that felt wonderful.

But my father heard about that car seat for the next 20 years.

[madinmaryland]

33. Until the late 60's or early 70's we were never required to wear seat belts, primarily

because there were none in the back seat where my sister and I sat. I remember when I was 4 or 5 standing on the "hump"
(where the drive shaft went back to the rear wheels) to see out the front window. When we drove across the country in the early 70's my sister and I spent much time in the back of the station wagon.

FWIW, when I learned to drive in the late 70's, seat belt use was required and it is second nature to me no matter where I am sitting in a vehicle.

[HockeyMom]

34. Never rode in a car, period, as a Manhattan kid

That was in the 1950s, but I am sure most City kids in 2014 could say the same.

[markpkessinger]

35. I don't think I define 'evil' in quite the way you do . . .

You say that the evil being done to children in the days before car seats was the same as the evil of someone today who fails to use a car seat. Not so. The harm, or risk of harm, was the same. But 'evil,' at least as I've always understood it, implies a degree of malevolence or mal-intent. But given that human beings are psychologically complex creatures who tend to act first and find a rationalization after the fact, I am hesitant to label the parent in either of your scenarios as being 'evil.' Clearly, neither intends to place his or her child at risk. But as a matter of ethics, the parent who fails to use a child seat at a time when the importance and safety implications of not using one are widely understood MUST take responsibility for his or her willful negligence.

[Skittles]

37. no

[blueamy66]

38. No car seat, no seat belts, no bike helmets, no knee pads

Hell, we played tackled football in the street.

I didn't wear shoes to school in Hawaii.

We didn't wear shoes in the Arizona Summers. I dug rocks and cactus spikes outta my feet every night.

I drank water from the hose.

I grew up on a dairy....drank unpasteurized milk. Still kicking....

[HuckleB]

47. If you were walking on concrete or asphalt, you were wearing shoes in the Arizona summers.

Don't pretend otherwise.

[blueamy66]

58. Nope. We ran around all the time without shoes.

Your feet get used to it.

Trust me.

[Gravitycollapse]

71. I don't trust you. I've lived in Arizona for 20 years and I know that isn't true.

But you can keep saying it if you think others will buy it.

[blueamy66]

78. I lived there for 38

Does everyone at DU just want to fight these days?

We played hide and seek every night in Summer and nobody wore shoes.

You must live in Tucson....

[HuckleB]

95. At night, maybe.

Your story just changed. Maybe people just want others to be honest.

[blueamy66]

133. Maybe nobody asked you.

Nt

[Gravitycollapse]

110. Playing when it is dark out is not what we are talking about...

You never prefaced your statement with that. During the day, it is not possible to walk around bare foot.

I'm not fighting you. I'm saying you're wrong. And the whole "everything was better when no one took any safety precautions" argument is bunk.

[blueamy66]

134. Yeah, it was possible. Did it.

We swam in irrigation ditches. We burrowed into cotton seed piles. When i went home to Buffalo, we grabbed onto fenders and rode behind cars in the snow.

Those were the days....

[HuckleB]

93. No, they don't.

Sheesh.

[Gravitycollapse]

73. I can confirm that I have burned my feet on concrete and asphalt.

From only a few seconds of unprotected exposure. There is no way anyone is walking around barefoot for any substantial period of time without sustaining actual, possibly serious burns.

[HuckleB]

94. Exactly. -eom-

[sandpan]

39. Not in 1949!

I always stood up next to my Dad. I kept my arm around his neck and if I fell asleep, I would wake up when my mom tried to me lay down. I insisted on standing next to my dad; my shoes made holes in the seat. If car seats where available then, I would've protested and probably be really bad horrible child. Now, I'm not so bad, I always wear a seat belt.

[haele]

41. No, but I also almost went through the windshied when someone rear-ended us on Hwy 1.

I was three and "wearing a seatbelt" across my lap in the back seat. Broke mom's collarbone when I was propelled over the front bench seat and onto the dashboard. Broke my arm and cracked my jaw, losing a couple baby teeth.

It wasn't an unusal occurance in the early 1960's - to have babies and small children die in even small car accidents when they became missiles.

Haele

[MineralMan]

43. Not even seatbelts in my childhood.

Cars didn't have them.

[Little_Wing]

44. The day my mom drove around a corner and the door swung,open with me hanging on to it

was one of those "nostalgic" family stories retold many many times by my amused mother. Luckily for me, the door reclosed from centrifugal force, so no harm, no foul, I suppose. This was in the early 50s Detroit, and I'm convinced that my mother's penchant for always driving about 15 miles an hour (with her foot on the brake, as well) are probably what saved me.
Baby boomers are always bragging about the lack of safety precautions during our childhoods, proclaiming how we all made it through those dangerous times with nary a scratch. Sadly, the reality is that while many of us survived intact despite the dangers, many did not and I'm sure the data bears that out.

Being confined in a cigarette smoke filled car has, I suspect, resulted in many health problems for our aging generation. Perhaps our saving grace is the fairly limited mileage we travelled back in the day, and I am forever grateful for the advances in science which resulted in our own children increasingly protected by facts we could not even conceive of while we were growing up.

They (our folks) truly didn't know what they did was wrong, and therefore were not evil. Those today who intentionally disregard what science has provided us appear to me fundamentally ignorant, not evil, but that does not mean they should get a free pass. They endanger not only our children but out entire culture, and we cannot excuse them under the pretext of different "morality."

I hope we are capable of figuring out the difference before it is too late. Tragically, those that scream and protest at abortion clinics are not satisfied with enduring their own ignorance, but seek to impose it on the rest of us by way of laws and other governmental restrictions. That IS the evil.

[RobinA]

62. The Reason For The Bragging

Is that today the meme is that if you don't use all these safety precautions you (or your child) will surely die. Which is demonstrably not the case. It's the overstatement of risk that creates the backlash.

[HuckleB]

45. What a strange, pointless OP.

We know what we know now. End of discussion.

[sakabatou]

46. I may have, I don't remember

[nitpicker]

48. In the mid-60s, there were just lap belts

IF you ordered a new car from the factory WITH the lap belts.

My father (returning to the US) did so for all four seats.

Of course, no concept of restraints in the carpeted playroom (aka cargo zone).

[shanti]

50. hell, i didn't wear a seat belt until 1974

(AFTER a serious accident). that said, when i had my first child in 1977, he had a car seat, as did my other 3 sons.

i also remember that when my parents went grocery shopping around 1964-65 in upstate NY, they used to leave all three of us kids in the locked car. i imagine they'd have been arrested for that now.

[valerief]

51. We couldn't afford a car. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

52. When I was a kid cars didn't even have seat belts.

I don't recall the incident, but my parents told me about how I nearly fell out of their 1948 Plymouth when I opened a back door (which swung from forward to back - another bad design - instead of back to forward the way they do now). I also remember sitting in the front seat with my mother driving and she had to stop suddenly and the only way I avoided flying forward and hitting my head on the dash was because she flung her right arm out to hold me back. When we went on vacation my brother and I rattled around on the back deck of the station wagon. We loved stretching out back there and reading our comic books or looking for Burma Shave signs.

My parents certainly were not evil for failing to avail themselves of safety features that didn't exist.

[nitpicker]

53. It's not just rug rats that used to "have fun"

And there were further escapades in the 70s (such as being able to jump up and down in the back of a rent-a-Ryder with the back open).

Now it probably would be some sort of "Public Nuisance" misdemeanor.

[LeftyMom]

54. I did, but it was a secondhand death trap from god knows where. Then again, we had a Pinto wagon,

so we would have been pretty much fucked in an accident no matter what.

The law at the time in CA was that you had to use them until the kids were four, but I recall that at the time most everybody actually just put kids of two or three in lap seatbelts, often more than one kid to a belt.

A lot more kids died in what would now be survivable accidents, too.

[cherokeeprogressive]

55. I stood on the front seat between my smoking parents...

Rode in the backs of pickup trucks too, usually sitting on the wheel well hump. A cousin and I once rode from Long Beach to Oklahoma city in the back of a pickup.

The nervous tic goes away when I'm drunk though so it's all good.

[liberal N proud]

56. My mother had a fit when we brought our first baby home

She thought it was terrible that a new mother couldn't hold her baby in her lap on the way home from the hospital.

[giftedgirl77]

59. There was probably seatbelts & most likely some form

of car seats but there were so many of us they were prioritized by age. At around the age of 3 or so I was saved by my braids as my aunt rounded a corner & the door flew open. Thankfully she was quick enough to grab ahold or I would have been a goner.

[Generic Brad]

61. Heck no

In fact, when my dad drove his pick up us kids were back in the open air bed running around. I preferred it to sitting in the cab with him while he chain smoked.

[ananda]

63. No, I was subject to the flying arm.

Anytime my mother had to break hard, the arm would come
flying out across me.

Come to think of it, I think a car seat would have been nice.
On the other hand, there was a certain feeling of freedom
I think I would have missed.

Still, safety rules.

[ScreamingMeemie]

64. No. They had a thing called "baby beds," but they were expensive. Also, seatbelts were a

form of punishment. As in,"Behave yourself, sit down, or I'll make you put your seatbelt on!"

[PowerToThePeople]

67. No car seat for me.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

68. I never rode in a car until I was 5 or 6 years old.

I used to ride on a child's seat on the front of my mum's bike!

I brought my oldest son home from the hospital on my lap! 13 years later a nurse made sure my youngest baby was in a proper baby seat in the back seat, before we left the hospital. Times had changed.

[Luminous Animal]

70. We went to the beach daily in a car with holes in the floor and no seats

We set up the lawn chairs for the ride and I mixed my moms secret tanning concoction of baby oil and iodine over one of the holes.

I liked seeing the roadway go by.

[Douglas Carpenter]

72. in those days we didn't even have ipads - much less child car seats

[laundry_queen]

75. Not as a newborn but as an older baby I had one

I sat in it until I was 4 then my baby brother was old enough to use it too. This was in the 70's. My parents were fanatical about us wearing our seatbelts too. We owned a station wagon, but never ever got to sit in the back of it while it was moving. Yes, other kids made fun of us. I think we were the only kids I knew that had to buckle up or else.

[Ex Lurker]

76. My mom's signature move was throwing her arm out in front of the child riding along

next to her in the front seat when she braked hard. She still does it once in a while

[Liberal_in_LA]

120. my mom did that for kids and adults.

[Mugu]

77. Stood in the back seat of a 1950 Oldsmobile

while dad paced trains from western Kansas to eastern Kansas at almost 100 miles an hour.

During the summer, the old car would overheat and we had to slow down.

Several years later, we got a 55 Oldsmobile and then it was the trains that couldn’t keep up.

[defacto7]

79. We'd pile in the back of our 1962 Buick Special

no belts and no need! We'd open the back window just enough so we could smell the lead gas fumes drafting back into the car all the way across America! Now that's a vacation! And that's a car!

[sibelian]

80. My mother used to smoke in the car!

I HATED it even as a child. She didn't even open the window!

Eventually I nagged her so much she stopped. I was 6 or 7 at the time...

[Demo_Chris]

81. Absolutely famtastic post. nt

[Jenoch]

82. I just woke up and decided to check on DU.

I have not taken the time to read the responses. I will say that back in the 60s and early 70s the parents were pretty much ignorant of the safety factors of driving in autos with children. It wasn't like they knew aboyt all the dangers and decided to ignore them endNgering their children. It is a good thing that seatbelts, carseats, airbags, and other safety devices have been made mandatory.

How could anyone disagree?

[Art_from_Ark]

83. Does anybody else remember this public service announcement?

Last edited Wed Mar 12, 2014, 10:27 AM - Edit history (1)

[LeftishBrit]

84. I think your argument is faulty here

The point is that no one can be blamed for not using something that doesn't exist; but if something that is important for your child's safety does exist, and you deliberately refuse to use it, this makes you reckless and negligent (I wouldn't use the word 'evil' for such things).

My parents didn't put me in a car seat, because, as you correctly point out, car seats didn't exist at that time. But they kept the house adequately warm in winter; made sure that spoil-able food was refrigerated; had me vaccinated against polio and measles - the latter vaccine had, I think, JUST been introduced; and made sure that I had my antibiotics when I had pneumonia as a young child. Earlier generations did not have these facilities. E.g. when my dad got pneumonia when he was a small child, he did not get antibiotics as they didn't exist; he obviously recovered, but many children of his generation were less lucky. But that doesn't mean that it would have been OK for my parents to have prevented me from having any health/safety protection that they didn't have themselves. The same goes for people nowadays, who don't look after their children in the ways that are feasible now.

Obviously I don't include parents who simply cannot afford the facilities to look after their children adequately - that is a tragedy, and indeed a crime; but the criminals are not the poor parents.

[Ghost in the Machine]

85. Nope!! Mom had a station wagon & dad had a pickup truck.....

I used to ride in the back of BOTH of them, even on the Interstates & the Florida turnpike, and I'm still here. It was even more fun when we moved to the mountains of Tennessee. We would all pile up in the back of dad's truck when he got home from work in the summertime and take off to the lake and cook out & swim til almost dark. Fun times!!

Peace,

Ghost

[tularetom]

87. I rode in the bed of my granddad's 36 Ford pickup

Along with my sister and little brother (who had to be like 3 at the time).

If you sat behind the driver's side you might get tobacco juice all over you when my granddad would spit out the window.

Sometimes we might have sacks of feed to sit on, sometimes we might have a calf for company. It was a highlight of our day when we got to ride back there.

Last weekend my granddaughter came by. When she left, she strapped her 2 year old into this torture device that totally immobilized him. I'm sure it's what a responsible parent should do.

But somehow it made me sad for the little guy.

[B Calm]

88. No

Child seats didn't become popular until the late 1980's.

[ileus]

89. We were pulled over once in the Jeep with the top down.

When the kids were old enough for the "booster" seats. Trooper walked up looked over in the back seat, continued to walked to my side and said "just checking for the child seats, good day." didn't ask or say anything else. LOL

I don't recall anyone having car seats in the 70's when I grew up. I do remember my niece having a car seat when she was hatched out in 86.

[Raine]

92. No and I usually preferred to stand up in the front seat in the middle between my parents. When the

car had would have to make a fast sudden stop one or both of them would fling their arms out to catch me. I found it great fun at the time now I think it's a miracle to have survived.

[LWolf]

96. No. I'm over a certain age.

My mom didn't even have a car until I was 7; we rode the bus, or, when my grandma was along, took taxis which she paid for. Grandma never owned a car or had a driver's license.

That first car...a buick rambler...I don't remember ever even using seat belts. No seat belt, and my mom smoked like a train in that car no matter whether or not weather conditions allowed open windows. She quit smoking in 1979, but has bitched about seat belt laws ever since they were enacted in 1986 in CA, which was where we lived at the time.

Of course, I also grew up riding down the Ventura Freeway in the open bed of a pick-up truck; that was a pretty regular ride.

Mom was not evil. She loved me and did her best with me. None of the above violated social norms of the time.

While I am all for safety regulations, including those dealing with motor vehicles, I get nostalgic pretty quickly when I think about some of the other social norms. I was allowed to run wild; on weekends or holidays or summers, my mom never had any but the most general idea of where I was or what I was doing; I was free to come and go and do whatever. No cell phones, very limited checking in.

A different world indeed.

[pipi_k]

97. Oh hell no!!!

In fact, our car was so small that we kids had to draw straws each time to see who would ride with the dog...

[Puzzledtraveller]

98. Born in 1973, No

Not as a newborn, toddler, preschooler, and we took road trips all the time.

[Iggo]

99. Nope.

Sat on my Dad's lap and worked the wheel while he worked the pedals.

Hardly ever ran over anyone important.

[DiverDave]

100. Nope, in fact

when I was 4 or 5 I was standing just behind the front seat and mom had to stop suddenly.
I flew over the seat and face planted the dash...metal (56 Ford)
We were going to D-land and I threw a fit until we went on.
I'm sure she got dirty looks towing around a kid with a fat lip.

I remember the "Flying A" guy giving me a wet rag to wipe the blood off.

Different time.

[notadmblnd]

101. Heck no...

The back window in my moms 68 ford galaxy 500 doubled as our space ship. I can remember being in the car at night and laying in the window looking at the stars.

[Art_from_Ark]

107. The car I learned to drive on

was a '65 Galaxy 500. (I think they actually spelled it "Galaxie&quot

That sucker got about 9 miles to the gallon.

[SidDithers]

102. A parent who specifically chooses not to make their kids safe in a moving car...

is not evil. They are, however, dumbass parents.

Sid

[BainsBane]

103. I don't understand the connection between child safety seats

and insulting women going into abortion clinics. The logic here escapes me. It also ignores the fact that the law requires parents to use child safety seats, and that in turn has led to changes in how people perceive parents who don't.

[whistler162]

106. Yeah... it was called the back seat or

back window.

[woodsprite]

108. We had seatbelts, but my dad tucked them back behind the seats and didn't use them.

He was a fireman and head of the ambulance team back in the 60s. He said he had seen accidents where it would have helped, but had seen more where they would have stood a better chance of survival if they had been thrown out of the car, so he never enforced wearing the seat belts UNTIL both my brother and I started driving.

As a kid, I can remember standing up in the back seat, straddling the hump in the back leaning over the front seat between my Mom and Dad. I'm sure they were thrilled.

[aikoaiko]

112. If by child seat you mean the hump space between my brothers....

....then yes.

[KatyaR]

115. I'm too old. I can't even remember

when we got seat belts, but I know we didn't have them when I was a kid.

When we traveled, I would bring a pillow, a blanket, my doll or whatever, and books, books, books. I would sit in the back seat, it was my own little world. Oh, and I had to have the radio on so I could sing as well. I'm sure I drove my parents absolutely insane.

Oh, the joys of being an only child....

[Go Vols]

116. No

I remember laying in the back window a lot when going long distance tho.

[Tikki]

117. Tons and tons of people advocate for better safety conditions, equipment and healthier ways to live.

If this push for better and safer ever stops…we are in trouble.

I just got my first dishwasher in 65 years by informing my husband that I read that
the heat that sterilizes in the dishwasher is important for people with autoimmune conditions
..especially for seniors. That is what finally did it for him.

I scour this site, libraries, magazines, the nets and ask professionals for help.


Tikki
critics of abortion see it as something it is not...

[Liberal_in_LA]

118. nope, 1960s - standing up, sitting in laps, rolling around in back of station wagon, no seat belts

sliding across vinyl seats.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

123. I remember the highway holiday slaughter was part of the news broadcasts.

[HereSince1628]

124. I rode the back window shelf of the 55 Chevy sedan...only a child could sit there

So, I guess it was 'a child seat' of sorts.

Family of 7, in a car most suitable for 5 adults. The arrangement was parents and sister in the front seat and all the boys in back.
The only safey device was a cord/rope to hang onto on the back of the front seat.

Circa 1963 my father got a 58 Chevy Brookwood wagon with a 3rd bench seat. At that point everyone finally sat on a seat, but the car didn't come from the factory with seat belts.

[TeeYiYi]

126. Of course not.

You need to aim for a younger demographic than the majority of DUers.

TYY

[tridim]

127. No, but my younger brother did.

I, on the other hand, fell out of a car when I was a kid and somersaulted across a busy street. Not a scratch on me.

The door wasn't latched, and I reached to close it while we were turning a corner. Inertia yanked me out.

Freaked my mom out something awful.

[AleksS]

128. Oops. Nevermind.

Ooops.

I should have read the whole OP.

[MFM008]

129. seatbelts

in the 60s, I had a scoop shaped car seat for my son in 1983.... I remember my mom holding my sister in the front seat in 66.... In the 70s we had a Pinto had ony 2 seat belts in back, we fit 3 of us back there..... thats ok coz they were going to blow up anyway..my poor dad sure knew how to pick cars...

[One_Life_To_Give]

132. Complete with steering wheel and little horn nt