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Comment by mongol | Hacker News Reader

Sometime between WW2 and now, human lives started to be valued significantly more. I have only a vague idea about this process. Was it continuous, or through several steps? I have a feeling that the invention of three point seat belts played a role, in showing that small measures can have huge impact. But when I grew up (Sweden in the 70s) seatbelts were only mandatory in the front seats, and me and my brother sat in the back seat without. I think this was common and not parental negligence at the time.

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Yes, same in the UK, I grew up without seat belts and then in the 1980s, they became a thing - "clunk-click, every trip" - and then only much later, compulsory for rear passengers.

It's step-by-step, building on top of the previous thing, slowly inculating into the population the respect for life and how it's the responsibility of every person, company and government. You belt up, cars add airbags, the government improves roads and traffic management. If all of those things are in place, things get better. In India, it's very much "god will protect me".

My own attitude changes so bizarrely when I'm in India. In Europe it's belt up, put your helmet on, and in India, let's all get into this Autorickshaw and hurtle through traffic. I must be mad.

What was the reasoning behind that. In the front seats you could fly out the window? But not in the rear seats?

I imagine people thought that the back of the front seat would stop the rear-seat passengers. You should also remember that dashboards were every hard, and that windshield glass would rip you to shreds.

You can also fly out of the window, but especially you will hurt whoever is in front of you. See for example https://youtu.be/9_Af8w2SAT4

I’m sure you know that the Swedish company Volvo released its patents on three point seatbelts so that all auto companies could use them. Pretty amazing.

It was actually around World War I that these kind of safety issues became well known to the public. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the books of Upton Sinclair, and the muckrakers started to bring awareness to a lot of formerly ignored problems like this.

Yes that I am aware about, and it actually happened earlier. So cars had three point belts when I grew up, but they were not mandatory to use in the rear seat. (Actually, I think they did not have three point belts in the rear when I think about it, but they had in the front)

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