So many questions are sparking other questions in my mind this morning.
I am 45 years old and not only did I NEVER use a carseat as a child I had never even seen one until maybe 15-20 years ago. Now granted, I wasn't exactly in the baby set in my early 20's so I probably missed their arrival but I am sure no one I knew used them when I was a child.
In fact when I was a kid we didn't even use seatbelts. We had VW vans and bugs most of my childhood and we'd crawl all over the seats lounging and bouncing around. We even rode in what we called the Pokey, the tiny, scratchy space behind the back seat of a bug. Real safe in a rear end collision right? That was my experience of California in the 70's and early 80's.
Just curious what others experiences are. How old are you and did you use a car seat or seatbelt when you were a child?
No carseat or seatbelt, and yes I was in the “Pokey” too. Its a wonder we all survived. But truth be told, I was in the car when I was ten with my two younger cousins and my Aunt had an accident where she had to stop rather suddenly and my little cousins tongue got ripped in half and was dangling. He had to go to ER for tongue stitches. Gruesome! I yearn sometimes for the old days but not for this part. Love those car seats!
54 here…and NEVER a car seat…or a seatbelt as akiddo.
In fact, I remember as a third grader at ‘rome AFB’ (now closed) the military trying to IMPLEMENT a seat belt policy. If ya got ‘caught’ wearing one on base…$5!! woo hoo!
my family was NEVER ‘caught’
I also remember MANY a trip across states ‘sleeping’ on the back ‘ledge’ of our car…and MANY fights over who was stuck sitting in the middle of the back seat where the ‘hump’ was.
It sometimes makes me wonder how so many people ‘my age’ managed to survive…
But still…all my kiddos buckle up…and prior to that, were in appropriate car seats.
I am 44 yo and had a car seat and then a booster seat. My mom and dad also would not drive any of my friends until everyone had their seat belts on. I guess my parents were ahead of their time😊
No car seats, no seat belts and rode around in the back of pickup trucks.
I made it out okay but a lot of people didn’t. I had not one, but TWO aunts get ejected through the front windshield in car accidents. One was killed instantly (left three kids behind) and the other’s face was scarred for life (regular glass did a whole lot more damage than the safety glass they have now.)
Yet another reason the “good old days” weren’t so good!
I am 44 and I did have a little booster seat that was positioned on the bench between the driver and passenger in the front. No straps - just a little bucket with legs that hooked over the back of the bench.
I remember it primarily because when I was old enough to sit in the back (not because I wasn’t allowed in the front for safety, but because I had older siblings who called dibs), I remember the imprint of the metal hooks on the back of the front bench. We had seat belts, but usually the coveted position after the front was the way back, where you could roll around.
Yeah, it’s amazing we survived our childhood - I’m 51.
We didn’t use seat belts till we were in college and there were no child seats when I was a child.
My Mom says she’d just wrap me up in a blanket and put me on the floor of the back seat of the car when I was an infant.
But if you WERE in an auto accident back then, you were much more likely to die or suffer serious injury.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has estimated that these safety technologies (seat belts, child seats and airbags) saved an estimated 328,551 lives from 1960 through 2002.
Sure did, and I used a booster when I was older because I was small and even though it was not legally required, my mother felt it was SAFER so she kept me in it. Absofrigginlutely did I sit in a car seat and when I did not, we were in seatbelts that were properly adjusted (no putting the shoulder restraint behind me) or Mom wouldn’t start the car. I’m in my mid-30s.
My DH is a little older, but he was in a car seat (seen pictures) and his father installed seatbelts in the car before they were standard. Everybody buckled up.
You never saw a car seat til 20 years ago? My sister is also in her 30s and rode in a car seat. The first “car seats” weren’t even for safety. They were to put the baby somewhere. They later became concerned about the safety of small passengers and the following years have provided us increasingly safer seats.
My uncle is a long haul trucker. He was tearing up telling me about an accident. Someone was yakking on her phone and she and her three babies hit his truck, flipped and ended up in a ditch. She is paralyzed and thankfully her kids were restrained and were able to be removed from the SUV without major injury.
Regardless of whether or not I did anything stupid as a kid, my kid will be in her seat.
Nope. We also never used seat belts until my sister was born. I was 5. But my mom just held my sister in her arms in the front seat while my father drove… Or she put the “Baby carrier” in the front seat with us. Not belted in, just sitting there.
If all 4 of us were in the car. I either sat in the back seat or I would stand on the floor board in the back seat and have my chin resting over to the front so we could all talk.
I remember kids used to sleep across the back of the car in the back window.
My husbands family had station wagons with the rear facing seats. No seat belts and remember the crank down windows back there? Yes, he said they would be back there on their knees or standing back there, so they could wave to the cars behind them…
I also recall being about 5 and riding in the back of my grandfathers pick up truck on a quilt with an older cousin (12) all the way to San Antonio… It took about an hour to get there back then… Yep, going 75 mph…
This was of course when the hwy speed limit was 75 mph… I loved it!
Hehe, we were just talking about this a couple weeks ago. When my sister & I were growing up (I’m 38, she’s 36) we rode in the back of a cargo van.
There was a bench bolted onto the floor of the van w/seat belts if we were sitting.
But at night, on the way home from grandparents or other events, there was a mattress in the back, with a huge bolster pillow up against the bench, so that we could sleep, & if Dad had to hit the brakes, hopefully the pillow would keep us from flying into the front.
When we got a bit older, Mom had a station wagon… best place to be was loose in the big back compartment, waving at the traffic behind us!
I sat in my mom’s lap sometimes. Dad stopped short one day and I chipped my front tooth.
I stood right behind my Dad and used to tell him how spongie it was back there. I jumped up and down showing him. Later, he looked under the seat and found it had rusted out, with only the carpet holding me up.
My niece, in her early twenties at the time, thought she would wait till she got out on the main road from the tiny back road she was on, to put on her seatbelt. Her tire clipped the gravel on the side of that road and jerked the car off an embankment and turned over. She almost died that day.
I live in a big, busy city. I never left the driveway without a car seat or seat belts on everybody. Thank God for common sense and seatbelts.
Had to text my mom, but yes…she used them with all 3. I remember being in a booster until I was about 7-8. I am 31.
Since it’s been proven that FAR LESS children are injured and die since carseats, I don’t know what people are complaining about. Most accidents happen within 5 minutes of leaving your destination. It’s a big deal, no matter how people try to sweep it under the rug.
Seriously? People just spew nonsense. It’s NOTHING like winning the lottery. That analogy is idiotic. The odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident are ONE in 108.
Well, I guess those that think it’s nonsense can take the chance. I bet they won’t, which proves the “astronomical” odds really don’t matter…do they? Because, people with actual common sense, wouldn’t take the risk with a child. A negligent parent or caregiver would take the chance, but then again…they probably don’t have common sense to begin with.
I’m 46 and never used one. We rode in the back of pickups all the time. Us little kids rode in the front seat of cars all the time with no restraint on. I remember being in the back of my uncle’s giant buicks - the ones with the bench seats- and about 7 of us kids could fit back there, lol! I do remember some sort of pouch my brother was in, which was some kind of sling that just strapped over the back of the front seat. I recall riding in my mom’s lap in the front seat when I was really little. We had one car that had a fold down backseat, so it could be a regular back seat, a bench, or fold flat. Many times I just laid in the back on that flat fold out. Once we took a trip a few states away and I laid down on the back seat to sleep and my brother laid across the back floor. You could open back windows all the way then too. There were lap belts in the cars, but I don’t remember any one ever using them. It became law to use them in the 80’s when I first started to drive. Until the law came into effect, we still did not use them. Then, I remember people putting them on because of the law, but putting the shoulder part behind them. Now, after the law, I became an avid wearer, still am, and never ever let my kids travel without being in the proper seat or restraint.
ETA: Just remembered sitting in my dad’s lap “driving”, and frequently sitting on the middle console in the front as well. Yikes!
I am 43, and we did not have car seats when I was a child. We had car beds to keep baby from rolling off the seat onto the floor if mom didn’t feel like holding the baby, but it was more like a Moses basket. We loved to ride in the cargo space of a station wagon or a hatchback car. Seat belts became mandatory about two years after I got my drivers licence. I am glad that seat belts and car seats are available and in use today, but I still don’t think riding in a car without a car seat on occasion is a huge risk, just because of the odds of having an accident the one time there wasn’t a car seat are like the odds of winning the lottery. I’ve never won the lottery.
ETA: The odds of dying in a car accident may be 1 in 108, but what are the odds that a child who rides in a car seat 364 days of the year will die in a car accident on the one day she doesn’t ride in a car seat? Pretty astronomical…but yes, some people do spew nonsense…
I am almost 40 and remember my first car seat from when I was a pre-schooler (probably 4 or 5). It was black and I think it was made out of styrofoam (at least that is what I remember) and it had an orange “table” that the belt went through. No belts or harness.
My sister is a few years younger and rode in a bassinet next to me that could be clicked into the seat belt.
We were never allowed to ride unbuckled. Ever.
Heck cars were not invented when I was young lol! We actually had seatbelts in the 1957 DeSoto. My Dad was in the car business and had them installed. They were like airline belts. We were the only ones in my neighborhood with them. All my kids had carseats (oldest 38) but compared to today’s seats they were useless.