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Given that three-point seat belts weren’t available in a car until 1959, it shouldn’t be too surprising that child safety wasn’t given serious thought until more recently either. It seems that child seats were initially devised as a way to allow small children to look out the windows (more like booster seats) and then as a method of keeping them immobilized so they couldn’t leap from seat to seat, creating a distraction.
It wasn’t until 1962 that two men simultaneously designed child safety seats (seemingly unbeknownst to each other) featuring different concepts. One, designed by Briton Jean Ames, was a rearward facing seat that featured a Y-strap, similar to today’s models. The second, designed by American Len Rivkin, buckled the child into a seat surrounded by a metal frame. Auto manufacturers and aftermarket seat companies soon followed suit, developing their own seats.
Check out some early examples below, they range from children’s automotive lawn furniture to dangerous, steel baby-prison.
Image Sources: bellissimakids.com, topclassiccars-of-alltime.blogspot.com, vintagechildabuse.blogspot.com, automechanicschools.net, jilmcintosh.typepad.com, volvocar.com, babble.com, retrolifestyle.com, boingboing.net, knittingiris.typepad.com, grayflannelsuit.net, jalopyjournal.com, teambuick.com
Not that I would ever want to go back to those days – but @.. least the cars didn’t go so fast back in the day! I do remember some of these things though in all honesty, even though I never did use any of them.
As an industry, we had to start somewhere and since none of these products were subject to crash testing or safety performance requirements, for their time, there worked well. As a child, I rode on some of them. Defensive driving and not being in the car as much as kids born today, along with some luck, is what helped us survive. The idea that a child riding in a car seat of one of these designs or standing in the car would prompt an immediate ticket or arrest is not correct as most law enforcement officers are not trained in car seat law or its enforcement. What we have now is light years better, yet less than 10\% of parents properly install or use their car seats, so are we really that far along. This blog entry is a great step in moving the conversation forward, but we have a long way to go. Visit my web site and call me if you like. Cheers!
Check out [url=”http://thecarcrashdetective.cf”]The Car Crash Detective[/url] for information on extended rear facing; I learned from there that it’s actually a lot safer to rear face for a long period of time than to forward face, and that there are actually seats that allow children to remain rear facing for up to 50 lbs!
It is a wonder any of us survived. My preferred car riding position when growing up was in the back, standing up, straddling the “hump” on the floor, with both hands on the back of my parent’s front seat so I could see straight ahead.
Today, parents would be pulled over and immediately carted off to jail for allowing that.