Ah, the good ol’ days. Remember when phones had cords? When people used typewriters? When cartoons were almost solely for Saturday morning enjoyment? When kids bounced around unrestrained in cars…and it wasn’t considered illegal or even unsafe?
Times certainly have changed.
Parents reading this blog today probably spent a good chunk of their childhoods unrestrained, or at least under-restrained, in cars. Looking back it seems scary, but at the time, it’s just how things were.
I was born in the late 1970s, and my mom was actually quite progressive about keeping me safe. I almost always used a car seat (albeit a dinosaur by today’s standards) until I was 4 years old. In fact, I distinctly remember the afternoon when my mom was washing our Chevy Nova in the driveway and asked if I’d like to stop using my car seat. I agreed, and I felt so grown up that I insisted on sitting in the back seat (buckled up) as she pulled the car into the garage.
Today my mom admits that having me ride in the car seat was less about safety and more about helping me see out the window. Still, she took car safety seriously. She always wore her seatbelt and insisted that I do, too, even if I did “graduate” to the front seat as soon as I graduated from the child restraint. I did often wear the shoulder belt behind my back, but she always reminded me to keep the lap belt on my hips, not my tummy (something that was often easier said than done).
I also remember a time when my mom was transporting a group of kids to some sort of YMCA event. She told everyone to buckle up, and a girl (I didn’t know her, but for some reason I remember her name was Pam) said that she didn’t have to wear a seatbelt because she was 16. My mom replied “I’m a lot older than 16, and I have to wear a seatbelt, so you do, too. Buckle up.”
Like I said, buckling up might have meant a shoulder belt behind my back, or lying on the back seat with a lap belt “secured” loosely around my waist during a long road trip, but it was (slightly) better than nothing.
Then there were the times I wasn’t with my mom, like the time my grandparents took me on vacation to California (we lived in the midwest at the time) when I was 6.
The trip involved staying a few nights with some distant cousins who had a convertible jeep. The dad decided to take us out for a ride, so my grandpa sat in front and two older cousins and I sat in the back. By “back” I don’t mean the back seat. I’m pretty there was a back seat but we sat on the back sill and held onto the roll bar. I remember looking behind us as we sped down an iconic palm-tree-lined Southern California street…and feeling nothing but sheer terror. Even at 6, I knew that balancing on the edge of a fast-moving car was probably a stupid idea. Perhaps that’s where my interest in child passenger safety began.
What cringe-worthy moments do you remember about riding in the car as a kid? Did you have a car seat? Did you use seatbelts? Did you stand up in convertible cars? Did you narrowly escape harm because you were restrained, or despite being unrestrained? Did your experiences play a role in how you go about restraining your own kids?
When my oldest son was born in 1977, we had bought him a GM Infant Love Seat, which seemed to be the safest seat available at the time. I distinctly remember being discharged from the hospital after his birth, and the nurses being heartily disapproving that I was going to put this poor baby in a plastic seat instead of holding him in my arms like a “loving” mother would do.
Each of my four kids rode rear-facing until 20 pounds (8 or 9 months old) because at that time 20 pounds was the maximum weight limit for any rear-facing infant seat on the market at that time (I remember one that maxed out at 17 pounds). And all four of them used the same seat because of course nobody had heard of expiration dates.
I’m happy to say that my grandson (6 years old now) stayed rear-facing until 2 when he maxed the height in his Sceneras, and harnessed almost full time (occasional booster in someone else’s car) until last month when he maxed the harness height on his Nautis. He’s extremely compliant and safety conscious and I suspect that in 12 more years he’ll be taking the certification course to become a tech. I’m sure that by then our state-of-the-art car seats will seem old-fashioned, and I can’t imagine what the seats will be like by then.
I survived a fatality crash at 18 months old because I was restrained. I lost my mom. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. That is the reason I do what I do today! Somehow I still have the familiar stories of riding on the “hump” and in the back window of my grandparents Lincoln. I knew before I went to college I wanted to be a spokesperson for safety. Little did I know where that road would take me. I love this field and love bringing lifesaving education to families (including my own) everyday.
I still remember the dusty smell of my mom’s parcel shelf in her Chrysler. I have a vague memory of being turned around, either standing on my feet or my knees, and waving at the people behind us. I whacked my head on the dash in a family friend’s car when I was around 9. We were rear-ended and not much damage was done, but my head hurt! My sil was born in the early 90s and I remember thinking her mom was a loon for wanting to keep her in a booster seat after she outgrew her carseat.
I remember riding in a fisher price T-shield seat, and an old Shield Booster, until I was about 4. My family remembers me screaming in those seats. After that, safety went sharply downhill. I almost always wore a seat belt, but the shoulder belt was ALWAYS behind my back, and I distinctly remember sharing a seat belt with my little friend in the front seat. One time, when I was 6 or 7, I rode completely unrestrained on top of some giant boxes in my parents’ mini van. I spent rode trips laying down across the back seat (buckled, but barely), or in the top bunk of an old C-class RV.
Then, the turning point: When I was 11, I was completely unrestrained during a minor roll over accident in my dad’s sports car. It was at the very beginning of a long road trip (less than a mile from home), and I hadn’t buckled my seat belt yet, because I was busy arranging my things for the trip. Amazingly, I had only minor bumps and bruises, but to this day, I remember the terror of being unable to buckle my belt when my mom (who was driving) started fishtailing across road, and the pain of being tossed around like a pin ball in the car when it flipped upside down. From that day on, I ALWAYS buckled my seat belt FIRST, when getting into the car.
I was in a serious crash at age 11 or 12 in a lap-only belt (thankfully properly fitted) with multiple impacts. My life was saved by the seatbelt; however, due to lack of upper body restraint, I have permanent neck damage and pain.
I do think that this contributes to the passion I have for keeping kids as safe as possible!
My mom did the best she could to keep us as safe as possible. Her car didn’t start until everyone was buckled. My dad had a similar rule (only his car just didn’t GO.) My parents used car seats for us until we outgrew them; I don’t remember riding in one but I remember my brother’s. I also distinctly remember CA’s 6/60 law being passed and me thinking it was kinda dumb- and my dad defending the law to me based on medical evidence that children needed more protection in the car.
Obviously, my parents are happy that I have developed a passion for being safe in the car- especially given the crash we were in this year. They come to me with car seat questions and send their friends to me too! I’m glad they planted the seeds for me to WANT to do it right, even if I had a lot to learn before I met my first CPST. 🙂
I remember riding in the truck with my mom out to the dump. I must have been in Kindergarten; around `81. The part I remember was suddenly being upside down, my head was down where my feet should have been. It was a bumpy drive and I was obviously not restrained at all!
In grade school, we kept small pillows in the car to put between us and our slowly tightening lap belts. On long drives, we we laid down in the seat with the belt wrapped around us some how.
My thirteenth birthday, we hooked the little red wagon up behind our ATV, and took turns riding it, the quad being the horses and the wagon being the chuckwagon. I remember hooking up a tow rope like the one used for wake boarding behind the snowmobile, and using the kneeboard and kneeboarding behind the snowmobile. The stories I could tell=)
Remember those Volvo station wagon seats that faced backwards that were only rated for small children? Those were TOTALLY safe I’m sure 😉 If I remember correctly they only had lapbelts also.
I may have (ahem) ridden in a horse trailer. With a few ponies and some miscellaneous livestock. Doh!
We rode in the cargo area of the station wagon all the time when I was younger than 8. I vaguely remember riding in a overhead shield car seat made out of brown leather like material when I was 3. After that, nothing.
We often rode in the back of my grandpa’s truck on the highway back and forth between Lawton and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
When I was between 9 and 10 we piled up into my dad’s Camaro, all 7 kids and 2 adults. The younger kids rode in the trunk area and the older kids rode in the back seat on each other’s laps. No seat belts. We frequently rode that way.
When I was a teenager, we took rides in a friend’s truck over bumpy roads because it was fun to bounce around in the truck bed.
My sister almost died in 09 after the truck she was riding in, no seat belt (it had been cut out for some reason,) hit a railroad track and blew the tire out, flipped, ejected her, and then landed on top of her.
I will never, ever, not wear my seat belt again and my kids will be properly restrained according to best practices until they are driving themselves. Then they will wear their seatbelts because that is what I taught them to do.
We took turns sleeping in the back window of our sedan on a road trip to California when I was a teen.
I was born in 89, my mom kept me restrained as best she could with what was available, I stayed in a booster until I was 4. Obviously the shoulder belt didn’t fit correctly so I tucked it behind my back. When I was 6 and my brother was 4 we were rear ended and we smacked our heads pretty hard and had bad headaches.
I also remember laying down on the front seat of my dad’s pickup not buckled in so I could lay on his lap to fall asleep.
I remember going on road trips as a kid in our station wagon, riding in the “way back” with the seats folded down, laying down in our sleeping bags so we could sleep through most of the drive.
I feel lucky to be alive, considering some of the ways I traveled. My family had a station wagon with lap-only belts in the back and a lap-only front and middle. I sat in the back (on the middle hump) most of the time, but sometimes I sat in the front. I remember sitting with my knees to my chest and the belt wrapped around my legs… My dad had an old, green, ford pickup truck. I don’t remember ever sitting in the cab, but my family of 5 often took that truck on vacation. My brothers and I would play in the bed with the shell thing on top. I remember one time when my brother and I thought it would be funny to show drivers behind us our mother’s dirty underwear. Mom didn’t care for that much… I remember that we went to a safety fair and learned about wearing our seatbelts correctly. My brother and I started wearing our lap belts correctly, but when I got older, I sat in the front with the shoulderbelt behind my back. I’m short, even as an adult and most shoulderbelts are uncomfortable. I even remember putting the shoulderbelt behind my back while driving on my honeymoon. I’m really grateful I’ve never been in any accidents, because if I had, I might not have been alive today.
I remember riding in the back of the pickup truck, sometimes on a lawn chair!Needless to say, times have changed and I am much more safety conscious with my own 3 year old daughter who is still riding rear-facing in her Radian XT.