54 here. Oldest of 9, long before seatbelts. True story: my dad was a police officer in our town. One day he was out on patrol with a partner when they had to make a hit-the-brakes quick stop. Dad was driving, and out of sheer force of habit with us, he whipped his right arm across in front of his partner to keep him from hitting the windshield, lol. They ribbed him about that for a long time, at least until he made chief.
Also from the bad old days: my mom was coming home with two of my siblings riding in the back of the station wagon. We'd had a bad snow storm and the side roads were unplowed and slick. Coming to an intersection she slowed, hit an ice patch and did a full 360, narrowly missing a big ol' tree in somebody's front yard. As she relaxed her deathgrip on the wheel and took a breath of relief, a little voice from the back piped up with "that was fun, mom! Let's do it again." To this day my mother doesn't know which one said it but she was ready to kill 'em both.
Funny as the stories are, and we're all here to tell them, there are good reasons for seatbelts and the like. Kids bounced out of the back of pickup trucks and got run over, or became human missiles going head first through a windshield. I have a cousin who had a close encounter with the windshield of her car, a grownup headed home from work who forgot to belt up and fell asleep behind the wheel. She was in critical condition when they found her and has spent a couple of years recuperating. Rules that some folks feel have made us into a "nanny" state all have their origin in somebody's tragedy
[ August 11, 2006, 17:43: Message edited by: Auburn Annie ]
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