apparently airbags were controversial when they were first introduced? and a lot of people were against making them mandatory
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@Felthry They were, yes, I remember that time. Also the complaints about the third brake light, the one in the rear window of cars.
Seat belts were also crazy controversial, as were mandatory-seat-belt laws. (I am old enough to remember when the law changed where you had to actually wear the seat belt and *oh* the *whining*.)
@Austin_Dern I can't comprehend how such basic safety features would be conttroversial!
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@Felthry @Austin_Dern humans are bad at risk assessment.
American humans especially also *hate* inconvenience. Even minor lifesaving ones
@nautilee @Austin_Dern i guess it's hard for us to comprehend just because we were born after all that was well and settled into "yes definitely wear a seatbelt" and airbags were just a thing that every car had that you never thought about until they maybe save your life someday
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@nautilee @Austin_Dern but also we kinda assumed seatbelts especially were a thing all the way back to when cars were invented
we knew airbags came later but assumed that was like, 40s or 50s or something not 70s or 80s or something
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@Felthry @Austin_Dern for reference it took until 2017 for mississippi to implement an all passengers must wear seatbelts law.
@nautilee @Austin_Dern okay what the fuck mississippi
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@Austin_Dern @Felthry @nautilee I have memories of riding in the open bed of a pickup truck, as a kid, on Texas highways at full speeds...
Automotive safety was more of a suggestion in the 70s.
@JulieSqveakaroo @Felthry @nautilee Ooh, yes, I had a couple experiences like that, although not at highway speeds in an open bed.
When we joke that we don't know how we survived to adulthood, we're not joking.
@JulieSqveakaroo @Austin_Dern @Felthry @nautilee
And then Ralph Nader came along and ruined everyone's fun -- I mean, saved a lot of lives.
@KinkyTurtle @JulieSqveakaroo @Felthry @nautilee Ooh, yes, yes. So many Serious People of Big Business Instincts were incredibly cross about that.
I don't *know* for sure but I bet the crank who ran Astounding/Analog Science Fiction Magazine probably wrote ten editorials a year denouncing Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson. And would've denounced Betty Friedan if he had heard of women's rights.
@Austin_Dern @KinkyTurtle @JulieSqveakaroo @nautilee who is/was ralph nader?
also rachel carson and betty friedan?
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@Felthry @Austin_Dern @JulieSqveakaroo @nautilee
Ralph Nader is a political activist and consumer advocate famous for writing "Unsafe At Any Speed", a 1965 book criticizing the car industry.
Rachel Carson was a biologist who wrote "Silent Spring", a book that exposed the dangers of DDT.
Betty Friedan was a feminist and the co-founder of the National Organization for Women.
@KinkyTurtle @Austin_Dern @JulieSqveakaroo @nautilee those sound like important people who did important things and we've probably heard of all of them, i'm just terrible at names
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@Felthry @KinkyTurtle @JulieSqveakaroo @nautilee You likely have, though their era of greatest relevance in changing social attitudes was 60 years ago so it's reasonable not to have them leap right to mind.
@Austin_Dern @Felthry @JulieSqveakaroo @nautilee
Yeah, they worked to make mid-20th-century America a better place to live, but also made powerful right-wing enemies.
@Austin_Dern @JulieSqveakaroo @Felthry @nautilee
Are you talking about John Campbell?
@KinkyTurtle I am, yeah. Figured that I had enough old names in there, though.
There's one 1960s editorial where he diverts from his whole point to insult the international conspiracy of chemists who suppressed the name Tungsten in favor of Wolfram, and that's not even a thing that *happened*.
@Felthry @nautilee It's amazing to think, yeah. There was a very good sea change in public thinking in the 60s-70s, to realizing that safety could be designed into the cars rather than harangued into drivers.
(Also that if it weren't required by law, car makers wouldn't put it in on their own because not enough people would pay the extra money, however slight, for better safety.)