seatbelt laws?!

[torredcuda]

Being that i was born in 1947 i have ridden in cars for decades before lap belts were even in cars let alone shoulder belts.   Ive been in 3 separate collisions (one a T-bone with new then 70 challenger and yes i had my lap belt on.   No injury.  One of the comments was ..."why take a chance without them "   I look at it this way...ill bet NOT ONE of us has installed air bags in our classic cars.   Gee are we taking a chance in them.   

Like a few of us have said there is always risk in anything, even in a new car with 26 air bags, crumple zones, auto braking etc. Our old cars are nowhere near as safe a new one but just a basic seat belt/shoulder harness can prevent your head from going thru the windshield and other injuries even in a low speed crash. The last accident I was in was in my driving my wife`s Jeep, a 19 y old girl puller out rigth in front of us and I hit her car in the drivers front fender, luckily only injuries were minor neck strain for my wife and son and re-injured my already bad back. NO air bags deployed so all three of us would have been head first into he windshield at 40-45 mph if we were not wearing our set belts.

[tparker]

"Why take the risk?"

As mentioned, we all have to determine what is acceptable  risks. Our driving in a 70s  era car is risky  in  itself. Drum brakes  have issues, brake  fade is a real  thing. The hood apparently can decapitate us,  if I believe what others have said. Apparently later hoods added a "crumple zone" to help  deal with  this issue. Will the steering  wheel  collapse on impact? that pin in  the steering  wheel  seems a bit  dodgy. Did it get rebuilt correctly if  it was rebuilt? Or is it still maintain the same tolerances after 50 years if not rebuilt? Are we relying  on our original 50 year old seatbelts? Hows
 that stiching? Are we running bias tires? How  does the  windshield hold up  to modern glass technology for shattering? No  Air  Bags,  ABS brakes, traction control, side mirror warning lights and alarms. And there  is a myth that older cars  are safer in crashes because they use real  steel and have more mass, but this  has  been  proven  incorrect  in collision tests. These  cars don't manage the force from a collision. True there  is some  advantages having a bigger  heavier car, but that has limited benefits. Your not gonna win  if you hit that tree.

There  are  risks and we obviously are ok  with these  risks. Perhaps  some  of us upgrade  the brakes and tires, but probably not much  else,   safety wise. The vary  act of driving  has inherent  risk. If  you ever went for a drive to get a slurpy  at 7-11,  your putting  your life at risk for  a slushy. It would suck to get into a violent crash because you wanted a slurpy. But we do things  like that all the   time because we accept  risk. To completely minimize risk we would drive vehicles with ALL  the possible protection  devices (think race cars with  roll  cages, helemts, 4 point harnesses, etc) and limit our driving  activities.  But of  course  we don't  do  that.

So at  the end  of  the day,  we each take on the risk  we are OK with and  we may adjust that calculus on  a  day  by  day basis.  That is why  I am ok  with driving a motorcycle, but not OK jumping out of a plane. To each his own. I find  it  fascinating to see how people perceive the same activity differently.

[torredcuda]

I haven`t flown too many times in my life but have never felt "safe" miles up in the air in a mechanical, human built flying machine even though they are way safer statistically than driving in a vehicle. Having worked in the aerospace industry for a short time I heard some stories about stuff that used to happen before tighter regulations that would make anyone think twice about getting in a plane. I do like thrill rides so jumping out of a plane might be fun - I Know that doesn`t make much sense.

[Brads70]

Everything will kill ya, pick something fun! 

[BluRaySRT]

I have a '71 convertible and always wear the lap belts.  I've been in enough accidents to know what can happen.  I would love to wear a shoulder belt, especially in a vert since you are so vulnerable.   So there actually was an option for a shoulder belt in a vert.  As you can see in the diagram it is pretty convoluted.  My belts are blue,  so forget about finding this ultra rare option.  I might consider having one made.  That's alot of belt to be laying on the floor.