If there are so many child safety in cars laws out there, how did we Boomers survive in our parents cars?

Question

There are so many laws now out there regarding strapping a child into a safety seat or booster seat or whatever it takes so that your kid is not bounced around like a pinball while you're driving. When we Boomers were kids, there were no such laws (not to mention no seat belts or anything else of that nature) and we survived things that would make a younger person of today's hair curl. Do you think that the government wants the next generation to become a bunch of marshmallows or is there a real danger out there that didn't exist 40 or 50 years ago. Come on - let's make sense!

Answer 1

As most have mentioned there is alot more traffic on the road now a days as every household has become a 2 or 3 (or more!) care family.

My mom still to this day will put her arm out in front of me when I'm in the passenger seat and she stops suddenly lol.

We did survive - it's a miracle, but then again alot of things are miracles. We have come a long way in understanding the mechanisms of traffice fatalities and if we can protect our children then I am all for it. As a mother of 4 I welcome anything that can assist in the safety of my children.

We grew up in a different time with different rules and we took different risks.....our kids take different risks than we did as children. I guess it all evens out in the end.

Answer 2

I think the biggest contributing factor is the amount of cars on the road now. When I was a kid, everyone had a "family" car, 1 car per household, now there are at least 2, sometimes, 3,4,5, it's ridiculous. With that many cars on the road makes for more aggravation, ergo "road rage", not to mention the odds of being in an accident go up greatly.

Answer 3

I am sure lots of kids DIDN'T survive crashes of their youth. Of course they are not hear to talk about it. You can only find them in mortality tables or via the testimony of elderly relatives who remember them.

Why do you think the safety laws came to be in the first place? Because people were being maimed and killed at an unacceptable rate.

This was already cutting edge thinking by the end of WWII (before there were Boomers) as evidenced by the history of the Tucker Motor Company, as depicted in the film "Tucker".

Answer 4

I often wonder that too!
I know when I was about 3, I opened the car door and fell out onto the street. Was pretty banged up, but no big deal. Now there are child safety locks, gotta be seatbelted, gotta be in a carseat until 60 lbs., etc. Cars were bigger and heavier back then (my mom had a BIG Plymouth). Our legislators have so much time on their hands, they seem to pass a law about anything and everything.

Answer 5

There was also less traffic; less automobile travel in general. While I do not agree with government intervention in every aspect of our lives, I do believe that it is important to provide those safety features that we can. In the case of child safety seats, if the life it saves is your child's, you will be happy that the law is in place.

Answer 6

There's alot more traffic now then there was back then. I think they make these Laws for preventive measures to ensure the child's safety the best way they can.

Answer 7

You also need to remember that these laws are also in place so that you can't sue everyone if something does happen.
A lot of laws are out there so that if something does happen, you can't blame the car manufacturer or whoever for damages.

Answer 8

If you think it's safe to go through a collision with no protective devices, try it. The ity and injury rates have declined as a result. Why don't you want us to use these devices?