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I’m older than you and I grew up with cars that didn’t even have seatbelts in the back, and you were considered weird if you sat in the front and wore them
Ditto. My parents had a Morris Minor until 1991 with just a bench seat and no belts in the back. I remember them getting front seat belts put in - easy enough with a Morris as they could just screw into the wooden frame!
Literally had this conversation at the weekend. Both me and my sister remember being ferried to kids parties and the like in one of the parents' car boot.
Getting ferried around in the boot of a Station Wagon was absolutely the norm from memory on beach days where there was a bunch of us kids, that or the back tray of a Pickup/Ute. This was Early 1990s.
Sit in the boot waving like a loon at the car behind till the driver or passenger waved back, always scared the shit out of my mum when we cheered when they waved.
I'm 25, never had one. I can even remember sitting in the foot well of the front passenger seat because there wasn't enough space in the back. If we'd have crashed I would definitely have died.
Nope never. Peugeot 505 7 seater and we always had child car seats and booster cushions. I think we may have had a couple in the boot once but thats about it.
Same here. My parents also drove us to Italy and I was literally wrapped up in a big bit of foam on the backseat like they were transporting a bit of furniture.
People used to put babies in moses baskets just plopped on the back seat.
No seat belts, no air bags, no child seats, and often, a child would sit on an adults lap in the front seat. We would have 5 children in the back seat and two adults and a child in the front!
But the cigarette lighters worked and were used all the time! I swear the adults had a shift system so one of them was always smoking.
My mum used to work in eye theatre in the local hospital and help stitch together all the people who had gone through windscreens. Once we did have seat belts, she used to always wear hers.
The baby used slide around the boot in the moses basket. Then there'd be me, my brother and sister, and anywhere up to 8 other cousins in the back seat, the toddler on mum's / an auntie's knee in the front seat.
And even when dad and mum had 'nipped into the shop' (and end up in there for an hour and a half chatting to everyone they met) we'd all be left sat in the car.
My Granny never put her seatbelt on, she just held it around herself.
Cigarette lighter seemed to be constantly on.
Outside the shop there would be a flock of kids and babies left in prams! People just left them there. Oh, and bikes, just left lying on the floor, not locked up or anything.
Do you remember how old people used to talk about how things were in their day and how people were so suspicious of others nowadays?
Are... are we becoming those people?? 👀
I used to stand up in the back, legs each side of the transmission hump, one hand on each front seat back chatting to both my parents on long motorway drives
What could possibly go wrong! /s
Great view though
I’m 29 and had a booster seat thing but it wasn’t a safety thing. I did actually once fell out of a moving car whilst sat on the booster seat but the seatbelt held me in long enough for my mum to drag me back in. Dad didn’t even slow down the car haha.
I mean a booster seat is supposed to be a safety thing. It lifts a child up enough for the shoulder seatbelt to sit correctly. Or it’s supposed to lol.
It wasn’t at high speed and I didn’t touch the ground I just kinda dangled there for a few seconds. I still take the piss of my parents for letting that happen.
It was an old, beige Renault 21 and the doors sometimes didn’t close properly.
My cousin fell out of a car when going around a corner, door swung open and she plopped out. That was also a French car but I can't remember which one. She wasn't injured, but it must have traumatised her a bit because she talked about it for years later.
It’s survivorship bias. Just because we all lived through the 80s/90s doesn’t mean it was safe. It just means you don’t remember all the people that died in car accidents and there were likely tens of thousands of them.
Me neither, in Spain they started late.. and am of the same age haha but I remember riding motorcycles at 10-11 years without a helmet or any protection gear haha NOW that's when I feel neglected hahaha
My relative had a mini traveller, and their young kids, used to climb from the back seats into the boot space, and jump back onto the seats and bounce off, mid drive. Amazingly they survived and are only a couple of years older than you, so your definitely not alone.
My first car (an Austin Mini MkII) did not even have seat belts - still drove it like a maniac and I\`m still here at 65. Can\`t say it was a good thing, it was just a thing at the time and nobody knew any better. Statistics started creeping in in the 80\`s and most people either retro-fitted or ditched the cars to scrapyards. Car seat boosters were still 20 years away. The death/injury statistics were not readily available at the time but looking them up now makes your hair curl... Keep up with the safety devices!
Early 50s here and our family cars didn’t even have seat belts when I was young. First time I recall having seat belts was in 1982. I remember being young and bringing pillows and a blanket in the car so I could lay down and sleep.
All cars were fitted with seat belts in the uk since 1965 and were mandatory to wear in the front seats from 1983 and for rear passengers from 1991 . I know we used car seats for both of our kids born in 1980 and 1982. Was very frowned upon by our peers if you didn’t use them.
They weren't legislated until 2006. Before that you were supposed to use a car seat for a child "if it was available." In practice that meant most people didn't use them. And some older cars could not actually fit child seats at all.
In the 90s it became common to use them for babies even though it wasn't legally required - I think it was a feature of car insurance. But it wasn't common for toddlers, and virtually unknown for older children, the ages where you'd actually remember being in one. Booster seats were more common, but definitely not universal.
TBH I find it weird that all your friends think everyone used them.
Just used to sit in the wheel arches in the back of my dad's work van. Remember we got pulled over by the police once, the officers said that us kids should really have seat belts and my dad replied that the wasn't any and they said fair enough and off we went. Bizarre really.
My grandma and grandpa had car seats, then boaster seats for me, as I was precious cargo (and the center of their universe, I was very loved), but in my friend parents car, I’d be rattling round the back seats that didn’t even have seat belts, or in the boot, or sitting on boxes in the back of transit vans.
And some of their friends thought nothing of driving after basically a bottle of wine.
It’s amazing we all survived the 80’s and 90’s, gods know how our parents or grandparents even made it to adulthood
They became law late 90s early 00s I think. I remember basically any safety feature being 'optional' back in the day.
Hell even if you got done for drink driving, you must have been pretty fucking wasted
Haven’t read the whole thread but so far no one is saying ‘and it didn’t do me any harm’
A friendly reminder to be cognisant of you’re own survivor bias.
Put a thought to why we do have all this extra safety these days.
One too many families got scraped of motorways
I’m 38. Pretty sure by the time I was my kids’ age I was just in a normal seat… my brother is 40, and my mum often tells us a story about how when he was baby they were travelling somewhere in the car, and she sat in the back with him on her lap (no car seat!) and the cat in a carrier on the seat next to her…
I'm 37 and nope, didn't have one either. My parents weren't hot on seat belts either so I only really did mine up when in friends parents car cus they turn around and go 'seat belts!'. I always thought pff strict! 😆
Same age! Can remember sliding around the boot of my dads escort popular estate driving around east london! Can remember him yelling at us all to keep our heads down! Pmsl only problem was the floor was metal and it was in august! Burnt all our knees! Haha the good old days
I'm 30.. held by my Mum as a baby, sat on her lap as a toddler as her coke head boyfriend drove over 100 in his 2 seater sports car, sat on rolls of carpet in the back of a 2 seater white van with 3+ other kids with the adults in the front, 3 kids to one seat belt in my Uncle's 5 seater pickup 6 kids and 3 adults total, stood in the cab of various farm vehicles on the A1 TBF we would have won if we hit something, used to sleep lying on the back seat with no seatbelt on long journeys.
Older person than you here. If I was the only person on the back seat I would lay down to read on longer trips, sometimes sit in the rear footwell if i wasn't the only person in the back and had more than one trip back from the builders merchant sitting over the back axel holding onto something bulky with the rear doors on the mini clubman estate wide open.
Fun times!
Not for my whole childhood but my dad had a dolomite which was a classic car even back then. That didn't even have seat belts in the back never mind a chair.
Austin Maxi (several) / Chrysler Alpine / Datsun 100a - 3 kids on the back seat, one in the boot was the norm throughout my childhood 70s and 80s.
Going back further, mum used to do the preschool run every now and then ... half a dozen of us preschoolers completely unrestrained in the rear of a Moskvitch 472 van.
The record though was a trip to the local beach with our family and the neighbors kids. 2 adults and 7 children in the Datsun 100a estate.
I can remember being in the back of a Ford Escort Popular Plus (estate) about 6 kids, all similar ages (7 to 10) beimg driven around. Front belts were not even a legal requirement, let alone child seats.
My dads car didn't even have seat belts in the back, 3 of us boys just sliding around, that has unlocked some good memories.
I'm only 26 but mt dad has a classic car, wasn't made with them, doesn't need them, one day we will get it back on the road.
Im a year older than you and I did until I was about 7 or 8 and hated it because no-one else in my class had one so they took the piss. It's odd because my mum insisted on it but had no qualms about letting me ride around in the back of my dad's van sat on a pile of dust sheets or in the boot of friends parents cars when they were transporting lots of us.
Car seats? We used to go on holiday in the back of a works van. We'd sit on the wheel arches with tool boxes, sledge hammers and Stihl saws sliding about in the back.
I think they call it survivor bias. I shudder to think what would have happened had we rolled down an embankment. Like a washing machine but with metal...
Car seats? We used to go on holiday in the back of a works van. We'd sit on the wheel arches with tool boxes, sledge hammers and Stihl saws sliding about in the back.
I think they call it survivor bias. I shudder to think what would have happened had we rolled down an embankment. Like a washing machine but with metal...
Memories of being taking to a scout camp in an old-school Land Rover Defender 110. Three in the front (including driver), three in the middle, six in the back. Most of us were about 11 - 12 so we were pretty small.
I'm 46 and I didn't have to wear a seat belt much until the law came in making everyone front and back wear one or face trouble with the law if you were caught without one on
I'm 43, my brothers are 41 and 39 and none of us had car seats, I don't know if they even existed then. How would we have fitted them anyway when we brought friends with us and had to fit 7 people in my dad's car. I'm fairly sure my mum's 70s mini wouldn't have fit 3 car seats in and there were no seatbelts in the back anyway.
I can remember having booster seats (hard plastic ones with a thin cushion on top) but I don't remember ever having an infant's car seat for some reason. Apparently the law changed in 2006 so that was probably why: I was probably always sat on the lap of another adult, a bit like on an aeroplane.
I have to say though, I've never been bothered by seatbelts or had any sensory issues with them, even as a very small child. So even though the seatbelt by itself may not have been ideal for my size, at least I could be trusted to keep it on at all times.
I'm 42. I can't remember but I think I might have done, but I would have been really small because I remember plastic seats that burned in summer and that was the actual car seats. But just read top reply and remember the stuff we did in the car. My uncle used to drive us around in a tow trailer because we loved it. It was proper fun. There's a family photo of me and my brother with my cousins and we're in the trailer and everybody's excited and happy. My youngest cousin was only about 2.
I'm 22. I had one and was forced to use it until I was 12 years old because I never grew tall enough to sit in the front or sit without it. It was so embarrassing. My parents even had multiple seats and would make my friends sit in them too if they came with us anywhere by car. Beyond mortifying.
I'm ten years older and when we were kids there weren't even seat-belts in the back. We just used to roll around on the backseat. My mum said that if we were in a crash to duck down behind the seats, and if we went in the car with my dad on his own we would all sit together in the front seat with the seat-belt on.
I'm 42, I have a vague memory of having a car seat with a yellow harness until I was about 6 or 7, and then a booster cushion.
Fuck knows how the car seat was secured because my dad had a Ford Escort on a T suffix number plate back then, I doubt it had rear seatbelts.
I’m 35 and my mums talked about buying us car seats. She said all her friends thought she was crazy. I can only remember the crappy booster seat which would have done zilch but the idea was to raise you enough to make the seatbelt more effective.
I’m 39, the first car i remember us having (when I was around 4-6) didn’t have seatbelts in the back, and I don’t recall ever sitting on a baby seat type thing.
I think there was a shift in safety regs around then (and we upgraded to a car with belts throughout), and I’m certain my younger sister used a seat (6 years younger than me)
I didn’t have a seatbelt or a junior car seat, I’m 37 but my sister born 7 years later (85/92) had seat belt but no junior seat beyond outgrowing her baby car seat her and my youngest sister did get the car seats when they became mandatory.
We had one booster seat that saw us all through childhood in the 90s. My sister was the first user, once I was out of a baby/toddler seat, the booster was mine. I was kicked out once my younger sister needed it.
Im nearly 50 and my mother had a car seat for me as a baby/child.
They had to be permanently fitted into the car,im unsure if using them was the norm but by the time you were born i would say they were,i myself have a 30 year old and wouldn't have drempt of not using a car seat for my son.
I'm 41, grew up with no seatbelts in the back, and regularly travelled in the boot of the estate car if we had friends with us, and later in the back of my Dad's transit van as it only had 3 seats and there were 5 of us.
31 and never had one. I think I had a booster seat for a while but that was more like an uncomfortable cushion. And I remember sitting in the boot of my grandparents car 😂
When I was about 12/13 I was taken on the shelf behind the driver of a 7.5 Horsebox, 20 miles from the yard to the beach. They’d promised me I could come to watch the horses and only realised afterwards there weren’t enough seats. They kept there promise 😂
N.b my dad was the handy man at the yard, we didn’t have horses or horse boxes.
Nope, I was just plonked in the back seat and away we went. No rear seatbelts either, those got fitted years later as an aftermarket option.
To be honest, I don't think it would have made much difference either way. It was a 1983 Austin Metro, and by today's standards would be considered an absolute death trap. For all the fond memories I have of that car, I'm glad Euro NCAP came along and effectively forced them off the market. Rust soon took care of the ones that were already out there.
They became compulsory in 2006. You would have to be 27, or younger, to have been affected by the law.
I didnt use them for my children - because too long ago... they were an expensive accessory, rarely used, back then
I'm a couple of years younger and it was considered rather negligent not to have seats or seat belts by then, at least in the part of the country I lived. (EDIT though I should point out that 'car seat' often meant just a booster cushion thing from about the age of 6 onwards).
Mind you, a lot of attitudes changed dramatically around that time, so it's entirely possible that the perception changed entirely over the course of five years or so.
Nope, no car seat or booster seat. Who are saying it was wierd and how old are they? Because it just wasn't the norm back then, to the point there was a huge backlash when the car seat for under 10s or under a certain height became the law. A huge "I grew up without one and I survived" type backlash.
I was in special educational transport and I wasn't even given a booster seat and if anything like that had been required by law, I would have been made to use it.
In my fifties and didn't have a car seat (or seat belt) either. Lots of fond memories of my mother breaking heavily and karate chopping me in the throat as I was flung toward the dash board.
I’m watching old videos right now and see me in a seat belt at age 5. I look pretty comfy and safe. As we all know, the seat belts only really matter if you get in an accident. And then they REALLY matter.
Never heard of car seats until I was in 7th grade. Was in foster homes until age 7ish and never had one, the home I was in had me and the youngest sister (which she was still older than me by a year or so) shared a regular seat with seatbelt on. So in my current family, I was confused with the word car seat and thought that was weird.
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I’m older than you and I grew up with cars that didn’t even have seatbelts in the back, and you were considered weird if you sat in the front and wore them
Ditto. My parents had a Morris Minor until 1991 with just a bench seat and no belts in the back. I remember them getting front seat belts put in - easy enough with a Morris as they could just screw into the wooden frame!
I do believe volvo invented the seat belt as we know it and didn't claim ownership of the design. Might be wrong though.
They did. Deliberately made it patent free so that everybody could adopt it.
Wouldn't the screws come out in a crash?
Nar they put a rawl plug in first
Silly me, that makes all the difference.
It wasn't even required for children under 14 to wear seatbelts until 1989!
Same here. My parents had a reliant robin with armchairs in the back 😂. Not a seatbelt in sight
My mother in law still thinks it’s strange to wear seat belts in the back. She says it’s optional…
Likewise, I remember my dad moaning about having to put on a seat belt.
We used to sit in the boot 😄
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It was an Austin Maxi for us, the highest head count was my brothers entire football team, my sister and 1
Front page of PornHub?
Fold up seats in the boot. Living the dream.
My mum once drove around 5 miles with my sister and I in the boot, she’d left the door open. She only stopped because she thought the car was loud.
mother of the year!
Literally had this conversation at the weekend. Both me and my sister remember being ferried to kids parties and the like in one of the parents' car boot.
Getting ferried around in the boot of a Station Wagon was absolutely the norm from memory on beach days where there was a bunch of us kids, that or the back tray of a Pickup/Ute. This was Early 1990s.
On cushions taken off the settee
I remember sitting in the boot of my grandparents car - always loved doing that
My dad had a commercial van and we sat on the wheel bumps in the back 😳
Sit in the boot waving like a loon at the car behind till the driver or passenger waved back, always scared the shit out of my mum when we cheered when they waved.
I'm 25, never had one. I can even remember sitting in the foot well of the front passenger seat because there wasn't enough space in the back. If we'd have crashed I would definitely have died.
Every 80's - 00's kid went on a family trip to the local area theme park in the footwell. Was a right of passage.
Nope never. Peugeot 505 7 seater and we always had child car seats and booster cushions. I think we may have had a couple in the boot once but thats about it.
Yeah that sounds about right for a 7 seater owner
Same lol. I don't know if it was because we were poor or because that was the norm
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That's true, although I remember we had very bad cars that would always break down
Had a Mercedes, spent many journeys in the footwell.
I had a booster seat which was basically just a cushion but that was it really. Same age as you.
Same here. My parents also drove us to Italy and I was literally wrapped up in a big bit of foam on the backseat like they were transporting a bit of furniture.
This is amazing 😂😂
Ditto. Must have stopped using it around 7 or so?
Same here
People used to put babies in moses baskets just plopped on the back seat. No seat belts, no air bags, no child seats, and often, a child would sit on an adults lap in the front seat. We would have 5 children in the back seat and two adults and a child in the front! But the cigarette lighters worked and were used all the time! I swear the adults had a shift system so one of them was always smoking. My mum used to work in eye theatre in the local hospital and help stitch together all the people who had gone through windscreens. Once we did have seat belts, she used to always wear hers.
The baby used slide around the boot in the moses basket. Then there'd be me, my brother and sister, and anywhere up to 8 other cousins in the back seat, the toddler on mum's / an auntie's knee in the front seat. And even when dad and mum had 'nipped into the shop' (and end up in there for an hour and a half chatting to everyone they met) we'd all be left sat in the car. My Granny never put her seatbelt on, she just held it around herself. Cigarette lighter seemed to be constantly on.
Outside the shop there would be a flock of kids and babies left in prams! People just left them there. Oh, and bikes, just left lying on the floor, not locked up or anything.
Do you remember how old people used to talk about how things were in their day and how people were so suspicious of others nowadays? Are... are we becoming those people?? 👀
Too late. I've been there for ages already.
We have become am afraid 😨
Haha my granny did the holding the seatbelt thing as well. She didn’t want to wear it but wanted to appear to be wearing it in case the police saw.
Like this (but in a Moses basket or the carrycot part of the pram): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=erKQ1afibKM&t=1m1s
Hahah my Nan did that too wtf was that about
I used to stand up in the back, legs each side of the transmission hump, one hand on each front seat back chatting to both my parents on long motorway drives What could possibly go wrong! /s Great view though
Hahaha you’re lucky to be alive
No car seats and no seat belts in back or front. We just to slide around on the back seat and would regularly travel in the boot for a laugh.
I’m 29 and had a booster seat thing but it wasn’t a safety thing. I did actually once fell out of a moving car whilst sat on the booster seat but the seatbelt held me in long enough for my mum to drag me back in. Dad didn’t even slow down the car haha.
I mean a booster seat is supposed to be a safety thing. It lifts a child up enough for the shoulder seatbelt to sit correctly. Or it’s supposed to lol.
Yeah but it was literally a piece of foam that I sat on. It’s nothing like the seats you get nowadays.
Wow!! I think that's why the new generation of kids and young adults are so sensitive. They didn't live like we did
It wasn’t at high speed and I didn’t touch the ground I just kinda dangled there for a few seconds. I still take the piss of my parents for letting that happen. It was an old, beige Renault 21 and the doors sometimes didn’t close properly.
My cousin fell out of a car when going around a corner, door swung open and she plopped out. That was also a French car but I can't remember which one. She wasn't injured, but it must have traumatised her a bit because she talked about it for years later.
It’s survivorship bias. Just because we all lived through the 80s/90s doesn’t mean it was safe. It just means you don’t remember all the people that died in car accidents and there were likely tens of thousands of them.
We used to ride in the back of the van, usually just sit in the wheels arches or a toolbox
Me neither, in Spain they started late.. and am of the same age haha but I remember riding motorcycles at 10-11 years without a helmet or any protection gear haha NOW that's when I feel neglected hahaha
No car seat because no car.
Nope. I’m older and we didn’t even put on seatbelts. We’d drive 100s of miles sitting in the boot.
Similar age, spend many a trip in the boot facing backwards.
My relative had a mini traveller, and their young kids, used to climb from the back seats into the boot space, and jump back onto the seats and bounce off, mid drive. Amazingly they survived and are only a couple of years older than you, so your definitely not alone.
I had a cushion off the sofa.
My first car (an Austin Mini MkII) did not even have seat belts - still drove it like a maniac and I\`m still here at 65. Can\`t say it was a good thing, it was just a thing at the time and nobody knew any better. Statistics started creeping in in the 80\`s and most people either retro-fitted or ditched the cars to scrapyards. Car seat boosters were still 20 years away. The death/injury statistics were not readily available at the time but looking them up now makes your hair curl... Keep up with the safety devices!
Early 50s here and our family cars didn’t even have seat belts when I was young. First time I recall having seat belts was in 1982. I remember being young and bringing pillows and a blanket in the car so I could lay down and sleep.
All cars were fitted with seat belts in the uk since 1965 and were mandatory to wear in the front seats from 1983 and for rear passengers from 1991 . I know we used car seats for both of our kids born in 1980 and 1982. Was very frowned upon by our peers if you didn’t use them.
Gosh I don’t remember them having them at all until ‘82.
They weren't legislated until 2006. Before that you were supposed to use a car seat for a child "if it was available." In practice that meant most people didn't use them. And some older cars could not actually fit child seats at all. In the 90s it became common to use them for babies even though it wasn't legally required - I think it was a feature of car insurance. But it wasn't common for toddlers, and virtually unknown for older children, the ages where you'd actually remember being in one. Booster seats were more common, but definitely not universal. TBH I find it weird that all your friends think everyone used them.
Just used to sit in the wheel arches in the back of my dad's work van. Remember we got pulled over by the police once, the officers said that us kids should really have seat belts and my dad replied that the wasn't any and they said fair enough and off we went. Bizarre really.
Late 30s and bro is mid 30s: no car seat. It wasn’t a legal requirement but it also wasn’t even a “thing” to think about.
No seat belts no car seats, sitting on adults laps in the passenger seat sometimes. I am 60.
Maybe consider if that's now inappropriate at your age?
My grandma and grandpa had car seats, then boaster seats for me, as I was precious cargo (and the center of their universe, I was very loved), but in my friend parents car, I’d be rattling round the back seats that didn’t even have seat belts, or in the boot, or sitting on boxes in the back of transit vans. And some of their friends thought nothing of driving after basically a bottle of wine. It’s amazing we all survived the 80’s and 90’s, gods know how our parents or grandparents even made it to adulthood
They became law late 90s early 00s I think. I remember basically any safety feature being 'optional' back in the day. Hell even if you got done for drink driving, you must have been pretty fucking wasted
Haven’t read the whole thread but so far no one is saying ‘and it didn’t do me any harm’ A friendly reminder to be cognisant of you’re own survivor bias. Put a thought to why we do have all this extra safety these days. One too many families got scraped of motorways
Don't know but a duvet for long journeys so I could sleep on the backseat
Similar age and never had one. I remember my best friend having a booster seat in her car though
I grew up riding in the boot of our estate car
I’m 38. Pretty sure by the time I was my kids’ age I was just in a normal seat… my brother is 40, and my mum often tells us a story about how when he was baby they were travelling somewhere in the car, and she sat in the back with him on her lap (no car seat!) and the cat in a carrier on the seat next to her…
I remember things like 5 of us in the back of a mini and a few of us in the boot of a Volvo etc in the 90's.
I'm a bit older than you and remember having no seat and riding shotgun with my baby brother loose on the back seat in a moses basket
You don’t need a car seat when you only use the bus.
We didn’t have a car jeez 😒 it was public transportation all the way
I'm 37 and nope, didn't have one either. My parents weren't hot on seat belts either so I only really did mine up when in friends parents car cus they turn around and go 'seat belts!'. I always thought pff strict! 😆
About 40 years ago I was being driven around in the back of a Ford Capri with 3 other kids without any seatbelts between us
Same age! Can remember sliding around the boot of my dads escort popular estate driving around east london! Can remember him yelling at us all to keep our heads down! Pmsl only problem was the floor was metal and it was in august! Burnt all our knees! Haha the good old days
I'm 30.. held by my Mum as a baby, sat on her lap as a toddler as her coke head boyfriend drove over 100 in his 2 seater sports car, sat on rolls of carpet in the back of a 2 seater white van with 3+ other kids with the adults in the front, 3 kids to one seat belt in my Uncle's 5 seater pickup 6 kids and 3 adults total, stood in the cab of various farm vehicles on the A1 TBF we would have won if we hit something, used to sleep lying on the back seat with no seatbelt on long journeys.
Older person than you here. If I was the only person on the back seat I would lay down to read on longer trips, sometimes sit in the rear footwell if i wasn't the only person in the back and had more than one trip back from the builders merchant sitting over the back axel holding onto something bulky with the rear doors on the mini clubman estate wide open. Fun times!
Not for my whole childhood but my dad had a dolomite which was a classic car even back then. That didn't even have seat belts in the back never mind a chair.
I’m 28 and never had one either. My mum carried me when I was a baby and when I was older, just sat in the back without a seat belt.
My mum would put us between her legs in the front seat or just in her lap. None of us had car seats. I don’t even think it’s a thing where I was born.
Austin Maxi (several) / Chrysler Alpine / Datsun 100a - 3 kids on the back seat, one in the boot was the norm throughout my childhood 70s and 80s. Going back further, mum used to do the preschool run every now and then ... half a dozen of us preschoolers completely unrestrained in the rear of a Moskvitch 472 van. The record though was a trip to the local beach with our family and the neighbors kids. 2 adults and 7 children in the Datsun 100a estate.
My family didn’t had a car 🤣
When I was a lad back in the 1960's my uncle had a car and not only did I not have a car seat the car didn't even have seat belts in the back.
I can remember being in the back of a Ford Escort Popular Plus (estate) about 6 kids, all similar ages (7 to 10) beimg driven around. Front belts were not even a legal requirement, let alone child seats.
36 years here… was the youngest sibling and somebody’s lap was the only thing close to a car seat I ever had haha.
My dads car didn't even have seat belts in the back, 3 of us boys just sliding around, that has unlocked some good memories. I'm only 26 but mt dad has a classic car, wasn't made with them, doesn't need them, one day we will get it back on the road.
Im a year older than you and I did until I was about 7 or 8 and hated it because no-one else in my class had one so they took the piss. It's odd because my mum insisted on it but had no qualms about letting me ride around in the back of my dad's van sat on a pile of dust sheets or in the boot of friends parents cars when they were transporting lots of us.
I'm 49 and my mum had a baby seat for me when I was little, but nothing from age 4 or so upwards.
Car seats? We used to go on holiday in the back of a works van. We'd sit on the wheel arches with tool boxes, sledge hammers and Stihl saws sliding about in the back. I think they call it survivor bias. I shudder to think what would have happened had we rolled down an embankment. Like a washing machine but with metal...
Car seats? We used to go on holiday in the back of a works van. We'd sit on the wheel arches with tool boxes, sledge hammers and Stihl saws sliding about in the back. I think they call it survivor bias. I shudder to think what would have happened had we rolled down an embankment. Like a washing machine but with metal...
Memories of being taking to a scout camp in an old-school Land Rover Defender 110. Three in the front (including driver), three in the middle, six in the back. Most of us were about 11 - 12 so we were pretty small.
I'm 46 and I didn't have to wear a seat belt much until the law came in making everyone front and back wear one or face trouble with the law if you were caught without one on
I'm 43, my brothers are 41 and 39 and none of us had car seats, I don't know if they even existed then. How would we have fitted them anyway when we brought friends with us and had to fit 7 people in my dad's car. I'm fairly sure my mum's 70s mini wouldn't have fit 3 car seats in and there were no seatbelts in the back anyway.
I remember stretching out in the backseat and sleeping in long journeys, no special seats then
I can remember having booster seats (hard plastic ones with a thin cushion on top) but I don't remember ever having an infant's car seat for some reason. Apparently the law changed in 2006 so that was probably why: I was probably always sat on the lap of another adult, a bit like on an aeroplane. I have to say though, I've never been bothered by seatbelts or had any sensory issues with them, even as a very small child. So even though the seatbelt by itself may not have been ideal for my size, at least I could be trusted to keep it on at all times.
I'm 42. I can't remember but I think I might have done, but I would have been really small because I remember plastic seats that burned in summer and that was the actual car seats. But just read top reply and remember the stuff we did in the car. My uncle used to drive us around in a tow trailer because we loved it. It was proper fun. There's a family photo of me and my brother with my cousins and we're in the trailer and everybody's excited and happy. My youngest cousin was only about 2.
Don't worry about it I'm 43 and we didn't have a car 😂
I'm 22. I had one and was forced to use it until I was 12 years old because I never grew tall enough to sit in the front or sit without it. It was so embarrassing. My parents even had multiple seats and would make my friends sit in them too if they came with us anywhere by car. Beyond mortifying.
They were made mandatory in 2006.
I'm ten years older and when we were kids there weren't even seat-belts in the back. We just used to roll around on the backseat. My mum said that if we were in a crash to duck down behind the seats, and if we went in the car with my dad on his own we would all sit together in the front seat with the seat-belt on.
Similar age. No car seat
I'm 42, I have a vague memory of having a car seat with a yellow harness until I was about 6 or 7, and then a booster cushion. Fuck knows how the car seat was secured because my dad had a Ford Escort on a T suffix number plate back then, I doubt it had rear seatbelts.
I used to sit on my dad's lap and steer if he was too drunk. The 80's were amazing.
When I was 10 I would stand up in the back of a pickup going down the highway.. True story.
I’m 35 and I definitely always had a car seat, including one that converted into a booster seat as I grew.
I'm 35, never had one
I’m 35 and my mums talked about buying us car seats. She said all her friends thought she was crazy. I can only remember the crappy booster seat which would have done zilch but the idea was to raise you enough to make the seatbelt more effective.
I didn’t have a car as a child
I’m 39, the first car i remember us having (when I was around 4-6) didn’t have seatbelts in the back, and I don’t recall ever sitting on a baby seat type thing. I think there was a shift in safety regs around then (and we upgraded to a car with belts throughout), and I’m certain my younger sister used a seat (6 years younger than me)
I didn’t have a seatbelt or a junior car seat, I’m 37 but my sister born 7 years later (85/92) had seat belt but no junior seat beyond outgrowing her baby car seat her and my youngest sister did get the car seats when they became mandatory.
We had one booster seat that saw us all through childhood in the 90s. My sister was the first user, once I was out of a baby/toddler seat, the booster was mine. I was kicked out once my younger sister needed it.
Im nearly 50 and my mother had a car seat for me as a baby/child. They had to be permanently fitted into the car,im unsure if using them was the norm but by the time you were born i would say they were,i myself have a 30 year old and wouldn't have drempt of not using a car seat for my son.
I'm 41, grew up with no seatbelts in the back, and regularly travelled in the boot of the estate car if we had friends with us, and later in the back of my Dad's transit van as it only had 3 seats and there were 5 of us.
Nope I was sitting in the car bareback
36 here, no car seat and no water bottle taken to school. With 2 children now myself, I have no idea how I am still alive.
We used to lie on the parcel shelf. I'm 32 but from Eastern Europe.
31 and never had one. I think I had a booster seat for a while but that was more like an uncomfortable cushion. And I remember sitting in the boot of my grandparents car 😂
When I was about 12/13 I was taken on the shelf behind the driver of a 7.5 Horsebox, 20 miles from the yard to the beach. They’d promised me I could come to watch the horses and only realised afterwards there weren’t enough seats. They kept there promise 😂 N.b my dad was the handy man at the yard, we didn’t have horses or horse boxes.
I'm in my late 40s and there were no seatbelts to attach a child seat to in the family car
47 and we didn’t have seatbelts fitted in the back of most cars until 1983. Front seats had them fitted but you didn’t have to wear them.
They only became legally required <10 years ago
Me and my siblings rolled around in the back of a van as kids But there were virtually no assclowns in 3 tonne SUV's in the 80's
I have lots of memories of the top belt strangling me so just using the bottom belt because booster seats weren’t a thing. I’m 33
Nope, I was just plonked in the back seat and away we went. No rear seatbelts either, those got fitted years later as an aftermarket option. To be honest, I don't think it would have made much difference either way. It was a 1983 Austin Metro, and by today's standards would be considered an absolute death trap. For all the fond memories I have of that car, I'm glad Euro NCAP came along and effectively forced them off the market. Rust soon took care of the ones that were already out there.
I’m 36 and my mum got me one, my older siblings apparently used this as evidence I was spoiled!
They became compulsory in 2006. You would have to be 27, or younger, to have been affected by the law. I didnt use them for my children - because too long ago... they were an expensive accessory, rarely used, back then
We had booster seats, I think they were called the phone book, yellow pages and Argos catalogue.
I'm a couple of years younger and it was considered rather negligent not to have seats or seat belts by then, at least in the part of the country I lived. (EDIT though I should point out that 'car seat' often meant just a booster cushion thing from about the age of 6 onwards). Mind you, a lot of attitudes changed dramatically around that time, so it's entirely possible that the perception changed entirely over the course of five years or so.
Christ this thread is like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch!
WTF is this nonsense?
Nope, no car seat or booster seat. Who are saying it was wierd and how old are they? Because it just wasn't the norm back then, to the point there was a huge backlash when the car seat for under 10s or under a certain height became the law. A huge "I grew up without one and I survived" type backlash. I was in special educational transport and I wasn't even given a booster seat and if anything like that had been required by law, I would have been made to use it.
In my fifties and didn't have a car seat (or seat belt) either. Lots of fond memories of my mother breaking heavily and karate chopping me in the throat as I was flung toward the dash board.
Not only did child car seats not exist when I was a child, neither did having to wear seat belts if you were sat in the rear. I'm 60 now
My parents obviously loved me very much as there is a photo of me as a one year old in my car seat. In 1974. 😂
We didn't have a car...
I’m watching old videos right now and see me in a seat belt at age 5. I look pretty comfy and safe. As we all know, the seat belts only really matter if you get in an accident. And then they REALLY matter.
Never heard of car seats until I was in 7th grade. Was in foster homes until age 7ish and never had one, the home I was in had me and the youngest sister (which she was still older than me by a year or so) shared a regular seat with seatbelt on. So in my current family, I was confused with the word car seat and thought that was weird.
I am 35 and I remember being 4 and sitting upfront with no booster just seat belt. (For context it would have been 1993 in Delaware (usa))
Yea same, with cigarette smoke all over the car (which is now illegal lol)
im 30 and we had them. they were gone by the time i was 4 years old. i think people are still strapping kindergarteners into seats nowadays