passive seat belts
cwi@bdol.com
Thu, 27 Feb 1997 11:16:46 -0500
MB>At some point, the US Feds instituted yet another "save us from ourselves"
MB>law which required passive safety on the part of auto manufacturers. I
MB>believe 1990 was the magic year. Essentially, if you didn't have an airbag,
MB>you had to have passive belts. This was true for any car sold in the US; my
MB>91 Mi16 did have the passive belts.
MB>The truly wacko part of this was that lots of people who would otherwise
MB>wear belts neglected to use the lap belt, thinking that the automatic
MB>shoulder belt was enough. These folks were then less safe than they would
MB>have been had the government not intervened.
That's very stupid. Of course nobody uses lap belts when they have those
things on.