Safety belts, the postal ‘service’ and using technology | News
Every now and then I like to remind people of the need to wear seat belts in automobiles. Lately I have noticed an increasing number of reports of people being ejected from vehicles with fatal consequences. Which is almost always due to the fact that you are not wearing a seat belt. I installed one of the first seat belts in the area as a correspondent for the California newspaper Bakersfield and as a teenager. The California Highway Patrol began installing lap belts on their patrol cars in the mid-1950s when the Air Force discovered they were losing more troops to car accidents in the US than in Korea. Ford jumped on the train by building safer cars and installing the seat belts. Other manufacturers soon followed. Adoption was slow, with the usual fear and reluctance to change. When shoulder straps were introduced, some drivers complained of c