Remember When There Were Protests Against Seat Belts?

We all know that seatbelts save lives, but did you know that it wasn’t too long ago that very few people in Dallas wore them? Dallas News reports.

According to the report, only 12.8% of people wore their seatbelts in 1985, despite mandatory seat belts in vehicles since 1964. Other drivers would ignore them, or even cut them out of the vehicle. A common practice was to buckle the belt and then sit on it to stop the warning tone.

Texas passed their mandatory seat belt law in March of 1985, but opponents objected using arguments similar to the anti-mask arguments of today. They believed the belts interfered with their personal freedoms and that mandating wear was government overreach into the lives of adults.

There were many excuses given about different body types feeling discomfort from the belts. There were even people who believed that if it was their time to die then they had no control over it, so a belt didn’t matter.

However, the safety of the belts could not be denied a few years later. In 1987, a report showed that deaths from car accidents decreased by 18% and that 75% of Texans wore belts.

Most people in America are no longer old enough to remember these seat belt wars, but they are a reminder that some people just don’t want to listen to safety.