[PRCo] Re: Antique Trolleys & Trucks

[Ken and Tracie]

This sums it up without words:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrXViFfMGk

Many of the victims our Trauma Center saves every month would be dead on the 
scene if new vehicles were not designed with crumple zones to absorb the 
impact and protect the occupants.

Believe it or not, shoulder harnesses were optional by 1968. Both my '68 
Imperial and '72 Plymouth both have them, factory installed. They also have 
collapsible steering columns and padded dashes. But I'd rather be in a late 
model vehicle while having an accident. My particular truck was built with 
factory lap belts.They are indicated on the build sheet, being factory 
installed as an option. I had to add lap belts to my '59 Chevy.

Seat belts became mandatory in Wisconsin starting with the 1962 model year. 
They were not mandatory in Nevada until 1967. I believe the Feds made seat 
belts mandatory nationally starting in 1968, as you indicated.

Both my truck and my Impala were built in California.

K.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 9:16 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Antique Trolleys & Trucks


>I guess I should take this off line but....
>
> IMHO, the problem with taking something that nice across the country to 
> PTM is simply exposure of you and it.   Would be much better to load it in 
> a van and take it there that way.
>
> Those old tanks may have seemed safe but we killed people in them a lot 
> more readily than we do in today's vehicles.  We learned that a vehicle 
> that slowly crumples saves a lot more lives than one that behaves like a 
> brick wall.   We also learned that if we harness people in a slowly 
> crumpling vehicle, we have a pretty good chance of surviving when we plow 
> a car into a brick wall at mile-a-minute speeds.
>
> In 1963 we were just putting seat belts on cars as a option and dealers 
> would deduct them from the price if the buyer objected.   I suspect your 
> 1966 truck didn't even come with lap belts unless the state where it was 
> delivered had an earlier law.   Much better to throw you through the 
> windshield.   The first federal lap belt law was January 1, 1968 and the 
> three-point seat belt law took effect Dec. 1, 1984.
>
> Did you notice that, perhaps because of the recession (depression?  ... 
> worst since the 1930s), motor vehicle fatalities are roughly the same in 
> 2009 as they were in 1950 ... 33,808 last year versus 33,186 almost 60 
> years ago.   In that time the population U. S. population doubled from 151 
> million to about 309 million and the number of active vehicles probably 
> increased by eight times.     (Accidents peaked at about 37 or 38 thousand 
> and then dropped as mileage dropped in the recession.) (Last year we 
> manufactured 7 times more US cars than we did in 1950 and they last 
> probably twice as long.)
>
> I suspect we could even lower the accidents a lot more if we could get 
> those damn cell phones out of people's hands but as long as there is money 
> to be made selling / leasing them, the lobbyists will fight to keep them 
> in drivers hands.