1965 Seat Belts???

[lakeroadster]

The Seat Belt Story
(The Medical and Public Health Law Site)

First, there is popular concern about accidents

Individual stories - MADD is an example

Interest Groups

Nader and Public Interest
Unsafe at any Speed - 1965
Insurance industry

Then Congress passes the Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
1967 - regulation requiring seatbelts
1972 - realized that people where not wearing the seatbelts
Regulation requiring automatic seatbelts or airbags by 1975
Required cars between 1973 and 1975 to have automatic seatbelts or ignition interlocks
Chrysler v. DOT affirmed the regs
Industry choose interlocks - why?
1974 - Congress passed a law banning regs requiring interlocks and said that all future regs on passive restraints had to be submitted to Congress for legislative veto
DOT under Ford withdrew the regs
DOT under Carter (a few months later) passed new passive restraint regs for 1982 and Congress did not veto them
1979 - Regs were affirmed in Pacific Legal Foundation v. DOT
1981 - DOT under Reagan withdrew the regs because the car companies were going to use automatic seatbelts that could be disconnected.
1983 - Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Assoc. v. State Farm hit the United States Supreme Court

The court ruled that the DOT could not withdraw the reg without a proper explanation of its actions
Remanded to the agency for review

1984 - DOT (E. Dole) promulgated a reg requiring automatic seatbelts or airbags in all cars after 1989, unless
2/3 of the population were covered by state seatbelt laws
The laws had to meet certain criteria

What did MO do?
$5 penalty
No stop
No meaningful seatbelt defense

1997 - most newer cars had airbags
1998 - airbags kill grannies and little kids!

Nothing new - known at the time
Save many more

1999 - You can get your airbag disconnected
Products liability issues?