You Can Learn a Lot From a Dummy PSA (1989)

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It’s difficult to explain this to the youths of today, but there was a time not that long ago when nobody wore seatbelts and kids weren’t in the latest car seat / booster seat technology until they were almost teenagers. We all just kind of sat there, unrestrained, able to move around, to lie down, or to fight our siblings. The whole idea of ticketing for failure to wear a seatbelt was pretty controversial. Actually, ticketing for drinking a beer while driving was controversial (the argument being that you shouldn’t be pulled over until your driving reflected the need.)

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

The country I grew up in no longer exists. That’s okay. I don’t really consider driving without a seatbelt an “essential liberty.” I generally prefer that people not drink beer while driving and that they wear seatbelts (if the public is responsible for footing the bill of your accident, the public should have some say in how you drive.) But I do sometimes wonder if giving the reasonable-seeming seatbelt inch led to the taking of a thought-policing mile a generation later.

Either way, the pressure campaign to buckle up definitely worked. (via wiki)

Seat belt usage by year

The following list shows the national percentage of vehicle occupants using seat belts between 1983 and 2017:

Historical seat belt use in the United States 1983-2017
Year	%	Year	%	Year	%
2017	89.7	2005	82	1993	66
2016	90.1	2004	80	1992	62
2015	88.5	2003	79	1991	59
2014	86.7	2002	75	1990	49
2013	87	2001	73	1989	46
2012	86	2000	71	1988	45
2011	84	1999	67	1987	42
2010	85	1998	65	1986	37
2009	84	1997	69	1985	21
2008	83	1996	61	1984	14
2007	82	1995	68	1983	14
2006	81	1994	58

How did we go from a country where about 14% of the population wore their seat belt, forty years ago, to one where it’s nearly universal today? Forty years might feel like a long time when you’re young, but it’s really not in the big picture. People fundamentally changed in a relatively short span of time. To a large degree, they were made to change. PSAs played a big role. State policing played a large role, with the rise of “Click it or Ticket” campaigns.

But I like to focus on the top-down shaming. Some of you guys might remember the following:

As I had no interest in being dumber than a dummy, and I also just liked the statistical argument for crash survival with a seat belt, verses not wearing one, I became the sort of person who would put his seat belt on for all car journeys – even one wherein the car merely moves from the garage out into the driveway. But for most of us, our parents and grandparents traveled the country without the restraints. And here we are anyway.

I wonder how much of our collective societal anxiety is self-imposed. The more we try to control fate, the more things we have to keep track of. Maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss.

All this is to say that if your dad or granddad is ever annoyed by the car safety equipment required to transport his decedents, you should cut him a break. He’s already come a long way. Forty years ago, he would have done the drive while drinking a beer.