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Child car restraints and travelling in "Minnie"

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#1: Child car restraints and travelling in "Minnie" Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:16 pm
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I'm reading Future just now, and was amazed at the account of their trip from the Platz to Tiernsee in "Minnie". What really flummoxed me, not remembering a time when small children were not in car seats, was the casual way EDB talks of the babies and Cecil being on people's knees for the journey, and particularly the twins being put down for a nap in hammocks slung between seats.
Was this normal practice in 1962? That's not all that long before I was a small child in a car seat myself, and it seems very unlikely to me.

#2: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:43 pm
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Car seats and the like didn't really start to be used until the late Seventies. I can still remember, when I got my first car, (1982) that people just didn't use seat belts and car seats for children came along even later. As one of three growing up we never had car seats or used seat belts.

We went to Cornwall on holiday one year (1974) with seven in a standard saloon car, my brother on my Uncle's lap in the front passenger seat, me between my Mum and Aunt in the back and little brother on Mum's lap.

#3: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:50 pm
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The seatbelt law came in very late in Ireland - I don't think it was obligatory until the nineties (this was when my parents started wearing them and making me wear one too - I was a teenager at that stage). I was a child in the eighties and we never used carseats or belts either, so the children in Minnie never bothered me. Incidentally, once we were driving home and gave a lift to my cousins - we had a little red mini, it was about 1988 and we managed to fit 3 adults and 6 children in! Laughing

#4: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:54 pm
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I remember doing a ten mile journey in a 2-seater convertable sitting on the folded back hood! That was in my teens so mid 60s. Also for one birthday about 10 years earlier we got 9 kids into a Ford Popular - the old sit-up-and-beg type car!!!

#5: Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:59 pm
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Interesting. I was born in 69, and I clearly remember my little brother being in a car seat and me on a booster cushion with seat belt.
Maybe my parents were just more than usually safety conscious.

#6: Author: Caty, Location: New Zealand

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:01 pm
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1984-87 in Ireland, if it was raining in the morning, we used to be sent to all the neighbours to collect kids for school. Packed into a chevette estate, there could have been 10-12 kids and my dad driving. 1 in the front with a seatbelt, 5 in the back seat and anything up to 8 in the boot. It was only 5 minutes to school though and hardly anyone had cars at that stage.

#7: Author: Travellers Joy, Location: Middle of Nowhere

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:29 pm
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I felt rather the same when I read Future - it seemed more like the Tardis than a minibus! And I couldn't get my head round the hammocks: how on earth were they secured? Shocked

We had a minibus when I was a child and I still couldn't work it out! Nor would our bus have had all the storage/boot space that Minnie apparently did.

But this is set in the era before seatbelts and maximum numbers of bodies per seat etc. I remember in about 1976 travelling with 12 adults/well-grown teenagers in a car designed to hold 6! We were all well aware that we'd be in serious trouble if the police pulled us over, but the driver felt it was worth the risk not to have to do two trips to deliver people to their homes. I'm sure my mother would have preferred to come and collect me if she'd known!

#8: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:53 pm
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Seatbelts were made compulsory here in 1982/83 ish IIRC - not sure about Switzerland and Austria but I doubt that they'd have been in use in the late '50s/early '60s. I can remember sitting on adults' knees in carts when I was a little kid, and even after the seatbelt law was introduced Embarassed

squashing 4 or more kids into the back rather than taking an extra car. Even now you sometimes see people travelling with children on their knees, although it's illegal.

Never seen anyone using hammocks in a car, though!

#9: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 2:25 pm
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When I was young we regularly used to travel with two children in the boot of an estate car - we had a mat to make it softer for sitting on! If someone else was taking us to Guides, and there were six passengers we used to have four girls on the back seat, and two on the front passenger seat, a smaller one sitting on the other's lap! This was all in the middle to late 1960s. Fitting everybody into Minnie never bothered me - it just seemed the obvious thing to do. Don't they fill cars similarly when Joey and the family are taken to Dover in Joey Goes?

#10: Author: Squirrel, Location: St-Andrews or Dunfermline

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 2:34 pm
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Alison H wrote:

Seatbelts were made compulsory here in 1982/83 ish IIRC - not sure about Switzerland and Austria but I doubt that they'd have been in use in the late '50s/early '60s.

That may well be right in part - but not for the back seats of the car. My parents had seatbelts in the back of the car, but I have clear memories of being told to 'sit down' pretty well several times a minute when I was in the back of my Godmothers car all the time - though I can't have been much older than 3 at the time = which dates it to around '85, so...

#11: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:48 pm
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Squirrel wrote:

Alison H wrote:

Seatbelts were made compulsory here in 1982/83 ish IIRC - not sure about Switzerland and Austria but I doubt that they'd have been in use in the late '50s/early '60s.

This is correct, the law for the compulsory seatbelts in the back of cars in the UK came in when I was in my teens (I'm 30 now) and even then there were exceptions, ie. my first car when I was 17 (1995/6) didn't have them fitted in the back so my passengers and I were exempt. I had that car until 1998. I remember when I drove my little cousin anywhere I was always paranoid about it (I do wonder now why I didn't care about any of my friends, lol!) he used to sit in the front on a booster seat even though he was only 4 and this was all perfectly legal.

I remember we had seatbelts in the back of the family car when we were tiny because my dad fitted them himself but then again we had trips to Wales in the 80s with my parents in the front and 3 kids and Grandma in the back - thinking about it now she must have had my youngest brother on her knee.

I also remember my parents not liking us sitting in the boots of people's cars but it really was what people used to do.

Sorry for this probably deeply uninteresting personal ramble! Laughing

#12: Author: Liz K, Location: Bedfordshire

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:59 pm
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I think it was 1983/84 that seat belts were beginning to be legal here as I was on holiday in North Wales with my ex-hubby and we drove right past a police car with no seat belts on and they didn't bother to come after us. Embarassed

#13: Author: Torri, Location: Connecticut

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:53 pm
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Squirrel wrote:

Alison H wrote:

Seatbelts were made compulsory here in 1982/83 ish IIRC - not sure about Switzerland and Austria but I doubt that they'd have been in use in the late '50s/early '60s.

Yup. I was about 3 or 4 and my parents paid to put a seatbelt in the back of my granddad's car for me (He wasn't the best driver in the world! Confused

) so that would be '88, '89.

I also remember cramming four or five in the back, with me on a lap and the order to duck if we saw a police car!

#14: Author: Fleury, Location: Epsom

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:32 pm
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i'm 23 now but up until my brothers and i were in our early teens it was quite common that one of us would be in the boot of the car (often holding onto a sheep to try and keep it calm on the way to to slaughterhouse Sad

) i'm sure a crash would have left a nasty child/sheep mash in the boot...

#15: Author: Liz K, Location: Bedfordshire

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:38 pm
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Fleury wrote:

i'm sure a crash would have left a nasty child/sheep mash in the boot...

#16: Author: linda, Location: Leeds

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:53 pm
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I can remember taking driving on holiday to the east coast with four children (aged approx 8-13)sitting across the back seat on top of sleeping bags, bedding and all the things we couldn't get in the boot in the late 1970s.

At that time there were no rear seat belts in our car anyway, and to be honest we never considered it to be dangerous then - it was just a bit of a squash! Rolling Eyes

#17: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:18 pm
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I went on Guide camp in the early 60s and we had a furniture van for the kit and us. We sat on the kit in the back.

#18: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:18 pm
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It still wasn't as bad as the journey to the train station to see Madge and Jem off on their honeymoon, when Juliet was hanging on the outside of the car Shocked

#19: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:22 pm
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Pat wrote:

I went on Guide camp in the early 60s and we had a furniture van for the kit and us. We sat on the kit in the back.

We used to do that too! Very Happy

It was great fun, but I imagine illegal nowadays. Sad

#20: Author: linda, Location: Leeds

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:42 pm
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Pat wrote:

I went on Guide camp in the late 50s and we had a furniture van for the kit and us. We sat on the kit in the back.

Pat, you had luxury - we used to go to Guide camp on the back of a flat-back lorry along with all the kit. !!!! Our captain and lieutenant used to travel in the front with the driver.

One year, one of the guides lost her beret when it was blown off when we turned a corner rather quickly. She nearly fell off the lorry trying to catch it!!

What price Health and Safety? Laughing

#21: Author: Vick, Location: Leeds, Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 10:58 pm
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I remember going to school one rainy morning with about 10 of us crammed into the car + Mum driving - 9 in the back & me in the front with all the bags around me & that would have been about 1990ish (the car was an old T-reg citroen). Laughing

I also remember taking our old settee from Chesterfield to my cousin's flat in Wolverhampton in Dad's work transit - me & parents in front & my brother sat on the settee in the back! Shocked

That would have been about 1980ish.

#22: Author: Emerence, Location: Australia

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:40 am
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I don't have kids but I still car travel with my dog (Rufus, of course!) climbing on to my lap ... I really need to get him a dog seatbelt Embarassed

. He had one when he was a puppy but he grew out of it.

#23: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:45 am
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I agree that the rules are fairly recent. When I grew up, we regularly packed 8 kids and 2 parents into a car that today would take no more than six, and sitting on laps was absolutely the norm. We envied the people with station wagons, which had the front and back seats plus a flat area in back -- no seats, let alone seat-belts -- where people would sit or (if they didn't have too many kids taking the space) nap. Got lots of experience riding in them when various parents volunteered to drive on Girl Scout excursions.

And yet, my parents were proud of how safe they were being, compared to their childhoods, when it was perfectly normal for kids to ride in the back of an open pick-up truck. (They asked us please not to take rides from relatives who still indulged in this practice. It had been made illegal in our state, but not theirs.)

The car rules started coming in for my state in the late sixties, but at first both seat belts and car seats were only for the front seat. (Now, of course, I don't think car seats are supposed to go in the front seat at all.)

In thirties series books, there always seemed to be people hanging on while standing on the running boards, which were platforms outside the doors that you stepped up onto when entering the car.... Sometimes this would be policemen holding on with one hand and firing at criminals with the other, mind you, so I can't say how realistic it was meant to be.

#24: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:14 am
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Possibly it would depend on how big Minnie was and how she was registered. If she was a bus, it may have been 'licenced to seat 12 adults' Probably there were only 3 or 4 adults at a time (except for reunion) so they got away with it.

Most buses here still don't have seat belts. Small vans (aka people movers) that seat usually 7/8 people have belts and are registered as cars.

However, growing up (now 37) as a small child I can not remember being in a suitable child seat and belt. We were always belted while travelling though.

#25: Author: miss_maeve, Location: Buckinghamshire, UK

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:13 am
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I don't remember, but have been told by my mum, about a trip made when i was about 2 years old, where i felt unwell, and so rather than be left in the back seat by myself, I was put into the passenger side footwell by my dad, so he could keep an eye on me without having to keep turning to look into the back of the car.
Mum was not impressed (she wasn't on the trip) and gave Dad a lot of stick when he got back.

#26: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:28 am
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linda wrote:

Pat, you had luxury - we used to go to Guide camp on the back of a flat-back lorry along with all the kit. !!!! Our captain and lieutenant used to travel in the front with the driver.

I did too. We used to lean over the tailboard and wave at other drivers. Two guiders I knew had pick up trucks so they could carry lots of girls.

I used to carry an entire primary school football team in my estate car - just put down the seats and cram them in, sitting (or rioting) on canvas sheets.

Worse still, an uncle who was in the police (Chief Inspector) used to take me all over the place sitting in the front seat when I was certainly under 10.

How did we survive?

#27: Author: Jenefer, Location: London

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:29 am
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Even today, a lot of parents let their children ride in the car without seatbelts. I always check when giving lifts to my daughter's friends. Some do not fix the belt when they get in so Gwen usually reminds them. These are 16 -17 year old girls!

#28: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:56 am
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Quote:

How did we survive?

It was a different world, and very different ideas about risk and danger.

There was less traffic, for one thing. Few motorways and dual carriageways, so speeds were lower. (I remember the M2 opening, and how much time we used to spend sitting in jams on the A2 before that!)

And children made fewer car journeys, so car safety was much less of an issue. Two car families were extremely unusual, so if dad had the car, mum and children had to walk or use public transport. My Dad always had a car, but we, growing up in the '50s, '60s and '70s, only travelled in it on our summer holiday and weekend trips to see relatives. And many families didn't have a car at all.

Nearly everyone walked or cycled or took the bus to school. And this was long before the big supermarkets on the edge of town, indeed supermarkets of any kind were only just beginning to appear in the early sixties. So shopping would be done locally, perhaps every day, since mothers usually didn't work, and no-one had a freezer. And again, you walked or took the bus.

#29: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 12:48 pm
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JayB wrote:

Quote:

How did we survive?

It was a different world, and very different ideas about risk and danger.

There was less traffic, for one thing. Few motorways and dual carriageways, so speeds were lower.... And children made fewer car journeys...

This is true, but also remember that lots of people *didn't* survive. People did die as a result of crashes - they were quite frequent, and when people were awkwardly placed in the car there was no hope for them in the crash. There is a reason for all the health and safety rules laws - to bring down the mortality rate - and they have worked, to an extent.

#30: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:11 pm
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It's funny, Róisín, when I read that my first instinct was to say "but the roads are so dangerous now!!" but when I looked it up, you're completely correct. There are FAR less road deaths now than there were 10, 20, 30 years ago. It's weird that the media coverage tends to give the impression that road traffic accidents are increasing when they're actually not.

BBC Website:

Quote:

...in 1930 there were only 2.3 million motor vehicles in Great Britain, but more than 7,000 people were killed in road accidents.
In contrast nowadays there are more vehicles but fewer deaths - there are more than 27 million vehicles and 3,180 people were killed in the 12 months to March this year (2006).

#31: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:33 pm
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*nods*

An email recently came around in work (in the library at uni) called 'Were you born before date X (I think it was 1980) with a list on it saying things like 'We ate lots of chemicals in our orange soda', 'We played out on the road', 'We played outside in the rain' etc and one of them was 'We never wore seatbelts, or used car seats'. I can't remember the full list now; the end of it was 'And we were fine!'

I just wanted to scribble some infant mortality rates at the end of it and pass it back around, but I didn't. Laughing

#32: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:18 pm
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I can remember some pretty horrific safety ads about wearing seatbelts and people crashing through windscreens and then the scars - they terrified me and I think I was fairly adult at the time

[quote=Patmac]I used to carry an entire primary school football team in my estate car - just put down the seats and cram them in, sitting (or rioting) on canvas sheets. [/quote]

I can remember going with my best friend in her mum's car along with the entire sports team of the primary school her mum worked at. So, 2 teenagers, 1 adult and at least 10 primary school kids in....

a Morris Traveller

and that was about 1978 Shocked

#33: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:22 pm
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I was born in 1980 and we used to put people in the boot or have four accross the back of the car on ocassion, not as an every day thing. The boot was a great treat; I only remember it happening once. And we all went off to my frined's birthday party sitting on cushions in the back of her dad's van.
In the days before people carriers people who had more than three kids used to have an estate with two seats in the boot that faced backwards. We used to wave at the driver behind. Are these seats still legal?
As for hammocks, could you attatch them to the poles the headrests are on and then they'd swing across the centre aisle?

#34: Author: Travellers Joy, Location: Middle of Nowhere

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:26 pm
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Katherine wrote:

As for hammocks, could you attatch them to the poles the headrests are on and then they'd swing across the centre aisle?

Our minibus (1960s) didn't have headrests on any of the back seats, so no poles for hanging from.

#35: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:31 pm
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Travellers Joy wrote:

Katherine wrote:

As for hammocks, could you attatch them to the poles the headrests are on and then they'd swing across the centre aisle?

Our minibus (1960s) didn't have headrests on any of the back seats, so no poles for hanging from.

If there were luggage racks then you could use those to fasten them to.

#36: Author: Travellers Joy, Location: Middle of Nowhere

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 4:16 pm
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Dawn wrote:

If there were luggage racks then you could use those to fasten them to.

I don't remember any luggage racks, but I wouldn't swear to it. What I do remember was a narrow space behind the rear seat for luggage and anything that didn't fit there came inside and was stashed under the seats.

#37: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:21 pm
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Dawn wrote:

a Morris Traveller
and that was about 1978 Shocked

Mine was a Morris Traveller, too. Laughing

but several years earlier.

#38: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:25 pm
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Just reading Future where they get Minnie, and its says that there were luggage racks - Len bangs her head on one of them.

#39: Author: Karry, Location: Stoke on Trent

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:26 am
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I can remember going in the back of my brother=in-law's mini-van, and keeping "conk" ( look out) for policecars! We once got 6 teenagers in a bubblecar driven by a teacher!

#40: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:11 am
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Now that's going some!!!!

#41: Author: meerium, Location: belfast, northern ireland

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:41 pm
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In 1980 my mum had a yellow Fiat 126 which we nicknamed 'the mustard pot'. She used to regularly fit 7 of us, plus my brother who was a baby at the time and in a car seat, in for the school run! The car must have just exploded with children when she arrived at school!

#42: Author: Chris, Location: Nottingham

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:16 pm
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Katherine wrote 'In the days before people carriers people who had more than three kids used to have an estate with two seats in the boot that faced backwards. We used to wave at the driver behind. Are these seats still legal? '

Yes they are - we have a Mercedes with 2 rear facing seats in the boot that fold down flat. There is plenty of room for an adult to sit in them, although it is a bit of a struggle getting out again!

#43: Author: JustJen, Location: waiting for spring training

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:51 pm
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My parenst always made upbuckle up in the car. The reason why my dad bought the yellow bomb was becuase it had seat belts already installed.
I remember when the seat belts became compulary in Canada duringh the mid 70's. Who remembers the exploding pumpkins commercials?

#44: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:25 pm
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I don't remember exactly when we got our first car that had front seatbelts; it was either the late 1950s or early 1960s, and certainly before 1965. Seatbelts back then were horrid - they weren't self-adjusting, as they are now, but you had to adjust them by means of sliding loops. Pregnant women were more or less told not to wear them, but my mother certainly did when she was expecting my sister.

But seat-belts were for front-seat travel only; the rare occasions when one of us kids sat in the front, we were expected to use them. I do remember my brother, who got quite dreadfully car-sick, travelling on my mother's lap in the front seat, though, but I don't think he started off there!

The car my husband had when we married in 1979 didn't have rear seat belts, either, although we fitted child belts when our daughter came along in 1980. Those lovely seats they have nowadays were more or less unknown, though - for the first three or four months, your child travelled in its carry-cot that was strapped into the rear seat. Child seats were used once they could sit up a bit, or at least support their heads; and booster cushions once they were too big, as today (although none of this was compulsory as it is now).

#45: Author: Squirrel, Location: St-Andrews or Dunfermline

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:59 pm
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Yep! I still remember hearing stories about being taken for drives round town to see if I could be hushed off to sleep by my parents when I was *very* young. I remember being told that at each street light I did a press up, or something similar, to see what was happening! I guess I wasn't in the sleeping game at that time!

#46: Author: babycassied,

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:23 pm
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Perhaps Minnie is related to Mr Weasley's Ford Anglia? Wink

#47: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:13 am
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There is a particular ethnic and religious community that lives near my mum.

They do have large families and it is nothing to still see up to 15 kids in the car (usually something like a mitsubishi pajero). These people also tend to leave said children in the car while they shop. On warm days car temperatures can get extremely high here and kids have been known to die in hot cars.
There is usually no adult and often the toddlers are left with either no one or an older sibling in charge. The older ones play with the car insrtuments and pretend to drive.The cars are often quite beaten up because junior has managed to set the car rolling and out into the traffic.

How do you get the safety message through to a group that doesn't speak English, without alienating the rest of the population?

#48: Author: Fleury, Location: Epsom

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:52 am
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Quote:

How do you get the safety message through to a group that doesn't speak English, without alienating the rest of the population?

my friend lives near a fmaily who do the exact same thing, and as it's so dangerous she asked the police if they could send someone who could speak the language round to talk to the family, with the result that thy stopped, apparently they just hadnt known it was illegal, and luckily the police decided that the little chat was enough and didnt do anything silly.

#49: Author: Katya, Location: Lost in translation

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:09 pm
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I see similar things a lot where I live...

The seatbelt laws in ...err, was going to say Britain or UK but realised I don't know whether the legislation was UK-wide in this case so we'll say England and Wales for the sake of argument! Anyway, the laws were introduced in stages: it was made compulsory to wear seatbelts in the front, then to wear them in the back if fitted, then to wear them full stop by the time all new cars were being produced with seatbelts, and then the provisions on child seats etc came later. Bit hazy on exact dates, but I know the car my mum bought in c.1987 already had rear seatbelts and she made us wear them right from the start because the relevant legislation was already in force. Until then we (a friend and I) had always cheerfully knelt up on the back seat looking out of the rear windscreen and 'bobbing' down every time we saw a particular coloured car! Rolling Eyes

#50: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:37 pm
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meerium wrote:

In 1980 my mum had a yellow Fiat 126 which we nicknamed 'the mustard pot'. She used to regularly fit 7 of us, plus my brother who was a baby at the time and in a car seat, in for the school run! The car must have just exploded with children when she arrived at school!

Good grief!!! How on earth did she manage that??
My mum had a Fiat 126 until I was 13, and I can remember the school run with myself, 2 friends and our (rather large) bags being extremely uncomfy, I can't imagine what 7 plus car seat must have been like.
(I loved that car though, and insisted on getting one as my first car once I started learning to drive)

#51: Author: JackieP, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:54 pm
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Vikki wrote:

meerium wrote:

Good grief!!! How on earth did she manage that??

Asks the owner of the Tardis.... Rolling Eyes

I do remember sitting in the Boot space of an estate once when we had far too many people for the car, as well as us squeezing more then should be possible in friends cars at college.

JackieP

#52: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 3:33 am
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My parents paid extra to have seat belts fitted in the back seats when I was born. However, it looks like Australia introduced seat belt legislation fairly early. It was compulsory in the front from 1969 and in all seats in 1971.

I am always gobsmacked when I see people in American movies and TV shows not wearing them.

#53: Author: Torri, Location: Connecticut

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:05 am
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Miss Di wrote:

I am always gobsmacked when I see people in American movies and TV shows not wearing them.

In New Hampshire, there is actually no law about wearing one once you're above 18!

And then it depends on which state you're in if you can be pulled over for not wearing one; some states, you can only be punished for not wearing one if you're pulled over for something else.

#54: Author: meerium, Location: belfast, northern ireland

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:10 am
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Vikki wrote:

meerium wrote:

Well, my memories are a bit hazy really, so maybe it was more traumatic than I'm currently remembering!!! Certainly 5 of us were 4, and the other two girls were 6, so I suspect we were all titchy enough that it wasn't too ridiculous. And I suspect it was 2 in the front and the other 5 on knees and in the gaps between the front and back seats and then we just exploded out in every direction once we got to school! I must ask her how she did it....

#55: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:40 pm
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meerium wrote:

Vikki wrote:

meerium wrote:

*grin*
That explains a lot, I was picturing 7/8/9 ish year olds, although I'm still impressed!

#56: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 3:39 pm
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Vikki wrote:

meerium wrote:

My mum had a Fiat 125 and called it her shopping basket on wheels

And I learnt to drive in it and took my test in it - the examiner was rather freaked out by the starting system Laughing

#57: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:25 am
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A few days ago I rode in the back of a pickup truck with 15 other people. Shocked

This was in Thailand, where this is a very common method of travel, with three rows of benches in the back and space for three people to stand on the back bumper.

I remember rules for seatbelts becoming mandatory in the early to mid 80s in Canada - as a kid we didn't use them in the back. I live in Taiwan, and seatbelts are only mandatory in the front seat, and cabs generally don't have them in the back. Helmets on motor scooters seem to only be mandatory for adults, and it is quite common to fit a family of four plus groceries on a scooter. And yes, the traffic fatality rate is quite high.

The CBB -> Anything Else

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