Prior to mandatory child saftey seats...

[JANdad]

does anyone here remember riding in the front seat between your parents...even sometimes standing up to see what was going on?

[ogneopasno]

1. Yep. It actually saved Mr. Ogneopasno's life when he was 3. But I don't recommend it, really.

Also, tumbling around in the "way back" of a station wagon. Lots of fun.

[blogslut]

4. True story

I almost lost a schoolmate because my mom didn't close the back door properly on our station wagon. The girl had her back against the door when mom took off and little Mary Ann tumbled right out. She was unhurt but 43 years later, that memory is as vivid as any I've ever had.

[JANdad]

5. Or how about

laying down in the back "deck" by the rear window...

[Donnachaidh]

24. I tried that once, and my Grandmother went apeshit

She came *thatclose* to swearing at me, despite her rigid Catholic upbringing. My grandfather laughed about that reaction for years. :evilgrin:

[Silver Swan]

2. I recall the car seat I had circa 1949...

It was a canvas contraption with big hooks that when over the back of the seat, so I could sit up high to see out!

[dflprincess]

9. I had a really cool car seat with its very own steering wheel

as there were no seat belts in the cars back then, I think the only purpose it served was to keep me from moving around the car and bugging my parents.

And yes, I can remember standing on the front seat next to my dad while he was driving.

[SoCalDem]

12. yep.. they had little "hanger" thingies to attach to the bench seat

and even had a little horn on the wheel..
Kids were tough back then... but then so were cars :)

[dflprincess]

17. The other thing I really enjoyed was

my dad's brother had station wagon where the rear seat looked backward. We just loved riding on that and hanging our feet out the back window. Or when another uncle would take a bunch of kids to the lake and we'd be bouncing all over the back of the pickup.

It's really amazing any of us survived.

[SoCalDem]

19. My own boys did that in our station wagon.. Our oldest

used to twirl the seat around in our van, and once hit the door handle on the sliding door, and it flew open...at 70 mph.. Dad was "not amused"..

[trof]

30. We had one of those for our daughter.

Circa 1973?

[Maru Kitteh]

3. I wasn't allowed to stand in the car.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Yes, even my son came along before child seats. I guess that's why I really hate the things, but

use them for my grandchild.

[Rebubula]

7. Yes

Considering the safety precautions in place for kids today (Seatbelts, car seats, bike helmets....condoms??) - I am not sure how I got to be an adult.

We would wrestle, in the back seat, from Georgia to Maryland. Seat belts were rarely used up front in those days and they were just the lap-belts.

For all of the faults of the time, I am glad that I grew up when I did.

[DesertFlower]

8. we always had 2 door cars

and i would ride in the back. even in 1961 when my son was born that's how it was done. we didn't even have seatbelts.

[NashVegas]

27. My Sister Had a Volkswagen Buggy in the Late '60s

And I rode in that weird spot in the back on more than one occasion.

[Johonny]

10. yes

[slackmaster]

11. I remember standing on the floor in front of the rear seat in our family car

It was a 1955 Cadillac, so there was plenty of room back there for a little kid!

[Horse with no Name]

13. I have to wonder what the population was then...and what is now

and how many folks drove while talking on the telephone, texting, eating...etc.
Because while I remember the same thing--I also remember fewer people on the road, my parents full attention on the road, and for some reason--I recall that there weren't very many fast food restaurants, certainly not a couple on every corner.
I never remember eating a meal in the car.
However, as a nurse, I have seen unrestrained children that have been thrown through the windshield of one car into the the back window of the car in front of them. Of course, those children were organ donors.
Yeah...not securing children in safety seats...Good Times!


On edit: Oh and I remember the cars back then being heavier and safer too.

[RamboLiberal]

25. I doubt very much they were safer

At least in the interior. I remember reading quite a bit about car safety as the government fought the carmakers for safer cars. The steering wheels were heavy and didn't collapse in a collision. The interiors were full of hard knobs and other protusions that didn't break off and did some terrible damage to anyone hitting them. Engine blocks would come back in to the interior of the car crushing drivers and passengers.

On edit:

How much safer are today's cars than those of forty years ago?
Cars today are substantially safer. On average, you are more than 5 times as likely to be killed or seriously injured in a 1967 manufactured vehicle as a 2004 vehicle.

In terms of secondary safety (safety measurements within the car's interior), there's no comparison. Safety was a huge issue in the 1960s and 70s, especially in America and although older cars had crumple rates and other safety features, it was generally inside where you were most likely to be injured. The placement of the steering wheel or other car components is very important. The handbrake used to be under the dashboard where, in a really bad accident, it had the potential to cause serious damage to the driver's knee. With the advances in cars now - airbags, pretensioning seatbelts and the lack of intrusion in the central structure, manufacturers are producing much safer vehicles.

Also, in terms of primary safety, that is avoiding a crash, there's no comparison between old and new cars. Today's cars with their safety advances and better design can help you avoid a crash altogether.

https://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/safety_advice.htm

[Pithlet]

45. Very good points.

It's fun to reminisce about the old days. I remember riding in a car as a kid without car seats. But things were different, then, as you point out. And I'm sure kids died in car crashes back then. They're not around now to reminisces on the internet about the good old days.

[RamboLiberal]

47. Oh I agree - one of the great fun things for me

was standing in the back seat of my grandpa's 56 Olds. But I was also the kid who watched all the commercials about "buckling up" and got him to order seat belts all around including the back seat of his 64 Olds.

I also read Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed" when I was in probably about 7th or 8th grade. I've been kind of a safety and news junkie all my life.

[Zuiderelle]

14. I remember riding in the bunk bed part of our camper that was over the truck cab.

It even had windows to look at the road ahead. Have to say though, that I would never let my kid do that.

[Xithras]

39. True story.

When I was a kid, my parents had one of those truckbed campers and we rode in it all the time. One weekend while driving up to camp near Pinecrest California, we came across an accident where a similar truck had run off the road and hit a tree. The three children in the pickup were all riding in the top cab when it happened, looking out the window ahead, and all three were hurtled through the glass to their deaths when they crashed. We were stuck in a backup for nearly two hours while the police investigated and cleared the two lane road. I remember my mother hopping out and walking ahead in the traffic jam to find out what happened, and how pale she was when she rushed back to the truck. She immediately pulled us from the top camper, banning us from ever riding up there again.

[Zuiderelle]

42. Wow.

:( That's really awful. I was incredibly lucky then, as we went on camping trips in that thing every summer. That was my favorite place to be too. :scared:

[Xithras]

46. Oh, I was devastated when she banned us from that spot.

It was my favorite place to ride. I get it in hindsight, but at the time we didn't get it. We thought it was unfair to "punish" us for something that some other kids did (gotta love kid-logic). Riding belted in around the dinner table just wasn't the same.

I don't think they even used safety glass on those campers back then.

[gollygee]

15. I remember sitting on people's laps

I also remember it being considered rude to put on your seatbelt in someone's car. It was taken as a statement that the person was a bad driver.

[Arkansas Granny]

16. In the late 60's, when my first 2 were born, the only car seats available

had a sling type seat and hooks that went over the back of the front seat. They were not really designed for safety, but they did keep the kids from wandering all over the car while you were driving. Also, no seat belts for the older kids. By the time my youngest were born in the mid-70's the car seats were much improved, but still not as safe as they are today. I shudder to think what could have happened to the kids if we had been in a crash.

[madokie]

18. In a 1931 model A ford sedan

Talk about unsafe they had mechanical brakes even.

[Solon]

20. No, but my Uncle was almost killed from standing up in the front car seat...

as a kid. Grandpa had to hit the brakes, and my uncle flew headfirst into the dashboard and got hurt pretty bad. He was lucky he wasn't killed or suffered brain damage.

[SheilaT]

21. Prior to car seats I believe

that car accidents was the leading cause of death in children under the age of 4.

Who here remembers the terrible facial scars people would get before safety glass? In an accident someone would go through the windshield, and if that person survived, it would be with terrible cars.

Oh, and the cars they made way back when were no where near as safe as the ones we have now.

[Mojorabbit]

23. I don't know about safer

In the 80's I had a 56 oldsmobile rocket 88. that car was a tank. Except for the fact it did not have airbags, I would bet it was safer than 90 percent of the cars out there now.

[SheilaT]

49. Look at reply 25 above.

Cars really are a LOT safer these days. They have crumple zones, designed to absorb the forces of a crash. They don't have sharp things sticking out inside. Sammy Davis Jr. lost an eye in a car accident thanks to a "decorative" spike in the steering wheel of the car he was driving at the time.

[Solon]

50. Size does NOT equal safety...

That is really stupid, what good is a car that's the size of a tank, when you have no restraints and when you do end up in an accident, the car doesn't absorb the impact, but your body does instead? I'd prefer my car to be totaled before my body gets totaled, thank you very much.

[Donnachaidh]

22. with bench seats? Hell yeah!

Although we didn't stand up in the car, ever. I felt safer back then, knowing full well if there ever was a problem my grandparent's arms would transform into deathgrip rods, keeping my body from moving a fraction of an inch from the seat.

Sometimes they had to keep us separate, to stop the fighting over mallomars on long trips. :bounce:

[NashVegas]

26. I Rode Between My Parents - In a Child's Seat

This was back in the day, you know ... bench seats. Like DF Princess, mine had a steering wheel.

[Capt13]

28. Remeber when the government

Stayed the hell out of our lives and minded there own business?

[RamboLiberal]

31. Yeah - let's go back to those good old days

And many of us wouldn't be here to discuss. We'd have been road kill thanks to the government not forcing car makers to make safer cars.

I'd highly recommend anyone who wanted to research this issue to find a copy of Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed". It wasn't just about the unsafe Corvair but also about many unsafe designs in cars that activists like Nader forced the government to make the carmakers change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed

Googled a great 1965 video interview Nader did on his book.

'Unsafe at Any Speed'
Broadcast Date: Dec. 12, 1965

In 1965, attorney and budding consumer advocate Ralph Nader has released his first book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile. The auto exposé rallied public concern over potential dangers of cars and paved the way for a new era of safer roads.
In this clip from This Hour Has Seven Days, the 31-year-old attorney talks about how his bestseller came to be, and his resulting battle with the auto industry.

http://archives.cbc.ca/lifestyle/living/clips/12091/

[Capt13]

43. Don't get me wrong

I have no problem with with the the government regulating consumer product safety, within practical limit.We have the FDA to stop hucksters from selling poison as hair tonic etc. What I object to is interference in our personal lives.
A free society is not a necessarily a safe society, That's part of the price we should expect to pay.
I shudder at the neglect and abuse I was exposed to as a child. My dad used to sit me on his lap and take a blast around the field in his stock car, or around the pond in his hydroplane. Smashed my face good on the dash knobs of my Moms DeSoto once because I wasn't sitting down. My grandpa used to pile 10 of us in the back of his pick up and take us for ice cream. I learned to drive a farm truck with no doors when I was 10 helping bale hay.Already had a bb gun, a homemade mini bike and go cart. Before we we're old enough to get drivers licenses We'd pool our money together to by a junk car or motorcycle to run through the woods and back roads till we wrecked it. We played hard and rough but we were taught discipline,love and respect. I raised my daughter the same way, she learned to ride and shoot at a young age and was flying airplanes at 15. Any one of us could have gotten killed or maimed at any moment. But we didn't. Were we lucky, paying attention, I don't know but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I'm afraid younger people are growing up not understanding freedom to make you own choices and suffer the consequences.

[Still Sensible]

29. Done that

and when i was little i would stand up on the hump on the floor of the back seat and hang over the front seat.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. Absolutely.

And on long trips I used to lay with my head on my mom's lap and my feet on my dad's. I also used to LOVE riding in the back of a pickup truck.

[trof]

33. I used to stand up behind grandpa.

In the back of a two seater Chevy coupe.
He and my uncle in the front seats.
No back seat.
Just a 'luggage' space?
I'm older than dirt.

[Arctic Dave]

34. I remember riding in the back of my friends dad's pick up

on I-5 back in the early 70's. That was fun.

[JDPriestly]

35. Absolutely. And further, for one long trip, my father built

a wooden platform and placed it between the front and back trips so that he could drive through the night while we four children slept in the back of the sedan. We all arrived safely.

I also remember riding in the back of my grandfather's pickup. Great fun. But, remember, there was a lot less traffic back then.

[Blue_In_AK]

38. My dad did that too.

My brother slept on the back seat, and I slept on the plank on the floor.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

36. I had a very close call.

I was in our 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood. Mom was driving.

I yanked up the door lock knob and opened my right side door.

Mom was making a left turn at a busy intersection.

I flew out the door, hanging on to the armrest for dear life, and my feet were dragging the pavement.

Mom reached over, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me back into the car.

Then she pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.

I climbed into her lap and we both sat there and shook.

I was three or four.

:scared:

I'm glad we have safety devices and seatbelts now.

I also remember bouncing over the top of the front seat, like doing a horizontal roll to go back and forth between the front and back seats (I was little enough to do that).

[pipi_k]

37. Like some of the others...

I wonder how we ever survived.

I remember standing up in the back seat...lying in the rear window...sitting in the "way back" of the family station wagon...

also, riding my bike around the neighborhood without helmet, elbow or knee pads...

licking the bowl when my mom made cake batter (raw eggs dangerous? whaddaya mean???)

we got the milk in school...3 cents a day for a half pint. It would be delivered sometime in the AM to the school basement and each class would get those little wax cartons and straws for the kids who paid. Sometimes the milk would sit for an hour or more and become warm...I can still remember what it tasted and smelled like...not altogether bad....

McDonald's and Coca cola were real "treats" back then...not a way of life

And Sunday nights were "bath night" (somehow we didn't die because we didn't have antibacterial soaps all over the place)


:7

[FloridaJudy]

40. I remember standing up

On the back seat and looking out the rear window. My parents wouldn't let me stand up in the front - too distracting. I also remember my sister sleeping on the back bench seat, while I had to curl up on the uncomfortable floor, with its prominent hump.

The women in my family used to develop what I called the "Mommy reflex": when she slammed on the brakes suddenly, her right arm would almost instinctively reach out to protect the kid sitting in the seat next to her. Fortunately, we never had a bad accident, because there is no way in hell that would restrain a kid given the physics of a crash.

By the time my son was born the "Mommy reflex" was pretty well history: educated parents used car seats. They were clunky, ugly and expensive as hell compared to the modern versions, but they were a step in the right direction.

I don't think people drove as much during my childhood. Families had only one car, and most errands were accomplished on foot: I remember walking to the grocery store with my mother, and helping her tote the purchases home. I don't think as many of us would have survived if we'd driven as often as we do now.

[pansypoo53219]

41. well, safety might be better, but

my 72' delta 88(in the late 80's by the way) was hit by a flying wheel, not tire, WHEEL. mushed my hood and middle of the header. i saw it coming and prevented worse. i DROVE home. skidded on a freeway exit, hit the side of the concrete barrier. ruined the side and the headlight, but DROVE home. of course sitting on the driving couch, didn't feel either impact.

skidded last year in my mom's 2001 camry, hit a van(slippery) so mearly pushed the van around, but the camry's airbags did NOT deploy and was TOTALLED. so stuck for hours. and bumpers taday are shit. i want my couch back and rubber baby bumpers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Yes, and as a medic I have seen many a young one

sprawled, badly hurt, for not wearing the damn things.

THey may be a bother, but they save lives

[carlyhippy]

48. yes I do..today's parents never developed that 'arm across the front seat to hold the kid back' move

Even today, if I ride with my mother, if she slams on the brakes I still get an arm across the face haha

[Solon]

51. I find this fascinating, you do realize that, while many of you were lucky, those that weren't...

can't respond to this thread, right? I see a lot of people talking about the crazy things that they were allowed to do as kids, whether in the car or elsewhere, as if that was better than today. No offense, but it isn't. Sleeping in the back of a stationwagon? One of my neighbors kids did that, while his parents were driving, he can never walk right again, the stationwagon was rear-ended, he was 3 or 4, and both legs were crushed completely. He's on crutches for the rest of his life.

So instead of reminiscing about those, such as ourselves, who got LUCKY, why not think of those who lives were lost or were severely injured because their parents or those who were supposed to take care of them didn't think about their safety first.