Seat belt laws - for "classic" cars....

Factual Questions
1

I was watching a video about a woman and her 1957 Chevy, and I noticed there were no seat belts. It wasn’t a “show car” - she used it for regular road/highway driving.

From what I understand - if the car wasn’t originally equipped with seat belts (pre-1965) - there is no obligation to install/use them, unless you are travelling with a child that would need a special restraint.

Do various jurisdictions interpret this law differently - e.g. do any require seat belts in all cars used for regular driving?

Our family had a 1960’s “Rambler” that had waist-only seat belts. Would there be an obligation to upgrade to shoulder belts?

2

I had a 1966 Cadillac hearse with no seat belts. I called the highway patrol on this same question. THey sent me the statute that allowed me to operate the car on the road. It was grandfathered in because it was manufactured before the seatbelt laws. I was told to keep a copy of the statute in the car in case I ever got pulled over.
IT might vary by state, but I’d guess most states allow for such things.

3

I have several old cars, as of right now 2 of them are pre-'65.

My understanding is you go by the model year of the car, so even if your daily driver is a 1962 Studebaker Lark you are not required to have seatbelts. Same with a car that has lap belts but not shoulder belts if it was built before shoulder belts were required. Not saying you shouldn’t have seat/lap belts, just that they are not required.

I have a 1959 Chevy 4 door and when my 1st kid was born I inquired to the Iowa State Patrol about child seats and how it applies to my car with no required seatbelts. The State Patrol said my child is required to be in the car seat per state law but the car seat does not need to be buckled in as the car doesn’t need to have seat belts per state law. Ended up getting 3 sets of lap belts, grade 8 bolts and nuts, some big flat washers and cut out some 3"X3" 7ga steel squares at work. Installed them in the back seating area of the car were seat belts would have been. Didn’t make sense to have a child in a car seat that wasn’t buckled in.

Was at a car show and a “know it all” started to rag on me about my seat belts and how they were illegal because they weren’t “factory engineered” and was going to report me to the DMV. I asked an off duty policeman who was working the show and he replied that illegal or not he doubts they would waste their time on something like this due to the reasons for me installing them.

4

My father routinely installed seat belts (lap) in the family cars from the late 50’s until they became standard equipment in the mid 60’s.

He was cheap uh, thrifty :wink: and transferred the belts from one car to the next.

5

A lot of people (like my dad) installed belts in their cars.

It shouldn’t be that unusual to find after market items in classic cars.

6

I learned to drive while working part-time at the old clay race track in Nazareth, PA. I installed seat belts in my first car, a 59 Rambler, when I bought it in 1967.

7

I had a '61 Falcon, in Indiana. Considering that we have no inspections here, and cars in all kinds of crap shape, plus, no motorcycle helmet law for people over 18, surprisingly, I was required to install lap belts. I was not required to install shoulder belts, because it was not physically possible-- there was no where to attach them. I don’t know that if there had been, I would have been required to install them.

There was no seatbelt law in the state at the time for people over 16, so I don’t know why I was even required to install them. I guess the passenger side made sense, but I had to install one on the driver’s seat as well.

Never got into an accident with it, but I did have a few short stops, and they always held.

However, the Falcon was registered as a regular car.

When you register a car more than 25 years old in Indiana, you can register is as a regular car, pay the usual fees, and must have all the usual requirements, which include seatbelts (but not, apparently, doors). There may be a few things you need that I don’t know about because the Falcon wasn’t THAT old.

Anyway, if you register it as a vintage car, it’s cheaper, and you get a special plate, and the insurance rates are totally different (you can’t insure it for its replacement value as an antique, unless it’s registered as an antique); they go up, not down as the car gets older. You also are limited to putting only something like, 500 miles a year on it, if it’s registered as an antique, so the highway fund, or whatever it’s called isn’t part of the registration-- one of the reasons it’s cheaper. You also do not have to make “modifications” that make it “roadworthy,” or conform to safety laws, which I presume would mean putting in seatbelts.

At the time (1995-2005, more or less), I didn’t have to put a passenger-side mirror on it, but that may have changed, now that there are so few cars on the road that did not come with one.

FWIW, had I not been required to put in lap belts, I probably would have anyway.

8

I remember my father crawling under the car to drill holes in the floorpan and install belts with big fender washers on the bolts. He was delighted when the next car – still with no belts as OEM – had anchor points spot welded to the floor; no more drilling.

Don’t remember him taking the belts with him, though.

9

My memory of seat belt installation back when: One civic minded group (Elks? JayCees?) did a thing in a bowling alley parking lot one weekend. They had the tools and belts. For a modest fee they’d install the belts. Went with a neighbor kid and his dad to see what they did. My family didn’t do that. Oh, well.

BTW, that car was a Covair. Yep, completely safe now.

I think a group like that would have at least a couple good gearheads who knew where to put things, what size washers to use, etc. and would at least supervise things.

Better than a random guy DIYer, I figure.

I remember driving around in seat-belt-less cars on a regular basis into the early 70s. And then an occasional ride in an “antique” car.

(I had a car that qualified for antique plates here. My current one will be eligible in a few years. The main thing is that after 25 model years, no emissions test.)

10
I saw this a few years ago and it still makes me shudder, and I wonder if even full 3-point shoulder/lap belts would do much of any good in anything other than a minor finder-bender. I wonder if all the GM "X" frame cars of the era were like this.

I have an older ( 1970 ) muscle car. Though it has shoulder belts ( though not integrated with the lap belts ) and a collapsible steering column and even rudimentary crush points on the front fenders, I’m still paranoid about driving it in traffic.

11

The X-Frame design was one of those “what were they thinking” things, kinda like when they put gas tanks behind the seat in pickups. Wonder if the GM convertibles from this era would have had a full frame as they usually need more bracing?

I know accidents can happen anytime but my '59 was a “go for ice cream on as sunny Sunday afternoon type car”, not my daily driver

12

The gas station where I worked in the early 60’s installed seat belts regularly. We had a punch with a shoulder to make the hole and the kit came with bolts and very large (larger than fender) washers. I put them in my '49 Chevy when I spun out on a wet curve with bald tires, went through a barb wire fence and ended up in the lap of my passenger. Made me into a believer!

13

Yes. When there are multiple-fatalities from a bunch of kids driving fast late at night here, or country road fatalities, “thrown from car” is still likely to describe one of the passenger fatalities.

High-speed head-on crashes, including the driver-side head-on shown in that link, were fatal until the addition of driver-side air-bags. That’s why driver-side air-bags were introduced. But there were also a lot of other fatalities.

If you drive a big old car because you want to, and can afford to, you can fit modern brakes and a explosive-tightening seat belts, and possibly even a steering-wheel air-bag. It’s not completely authentic, and in a crash you are less likely to be authentically dead.

14

In my state, the law specifically does not apply to older cars:

Emphasis added.

15

Although in that example the passenger compartment completely collapsed: The roof buckled in, the firewall caved in, the floor bulged upwards, and the steering column was displaced rearward and upwards violently. Unfortunately, restraint of any type would not have helped. There was plenty of material absorb impact, but the car collapsed into a jagged horrid mess. The damage was not controlled because the cars then weren’t designed to yet. The only protection then was likely the hope of sheer bulk.

16

The Federal rules, and most state seatbelt laws, allow old, classic cars to be
grandfathered’ in without seat belts.

But that often doesn’t matter, because … insurance companies are requiring them.

Some auto insurance companies want you to install aftermarket seatbelts in older or classic cars before they will issue insurance, or they will write ‘exclusions’ that limit the policy coverage.
And some medical insurance companies are calling driving a classic, non-seatbelted car a ‘dangerous sport’, which is not covered under their medical policy. (That’s a provision that the insurance companies sneaked into the Obamacare legislation.) This is becoming a problem in the equine industry, where horseback riding is being called a ‘dangerous sport’ and thus not covered.

17

I remember during the period reading some motor magazine’s letter column after an article debating whether small cars were adequately safe. One writer earnestly claimed larger cars had more room to dodge the jagged car parts that intruded into the cabin.

18

Here there is no compulsion to fit belts to pre-1965 cars, and the insurance companies don’t seem worried about it (probably because so few get used as daily transport)

19

My father-in-law remembers one of his buddies growing up that always wanted to own a 57 Chevy. Around 2000 he finally got a chance to drive one. his reaction? “What a piece of junk!” (or words to that effect).

20

The Beach Boys little deuce coupe would do 140!

“I get pushed out of shape and it’s hard to steer When I get rubber in all four gears”.

Yep, I’ve driven old cars, and 140 mph would have been insane