I don’t even wear my seat belt most of the time anymore. Run it

By even the late 90s? Yeah, they were a REALLY REALLY REALLY stupid idea.

But understand that in the 70s and 80s it was still very socially acceptable to refuse to wear a seatbelt with many outright claiming it was more dangerous because you would be trapped in a burning car instead of thrown clear. Yes, boomers were always dumbfucks.

But, by those standards? Something is better than nothing and a system that forces people to at least be partially restrained was a good idea. It was eventually replaced with education (LOTS of tv shows had Very Special Episodes about why you wear your fucking seatbelt) and the nag chime (... that people now bypass by buying metal clips to insert into the buckle).

They were actually more unsafe because only the part across your torso was automated and you still had to manually buckle the lap belt. People generally didn’t do that and got injured badly, a standard 3 point plus airbag is much safer. Then add in the driver side door airbag and the system is doooooomed

It was just because of regulations. There were a few years in the US when they had to have either automatic belts or airbags. It took a couple of years before the manufacturers got their shit together for airbags, so they had these things. Once they all had airbags, these went away.

My first car was a 1989 ford escort hatchback and I miss it terribly. They’re fairly difficult to find now thanks to the stupid cash for clunkers program that laundered hundreds millions into the auto industry and wasted tens of millions of perfectly fine cars so that people could get into consumer debt and waste a shitload of resources getting into a modern suv that is barely more efficient in most cases (1989 ford escort hatchback got 25mpg on average, in line with many modern boat cars, and doesn’t destroy pedestrians or take up 8 city blocks to park)