BIG YES BOMB!!!!!

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BeepBopARebop · 2025-02-09T09:06:48+00:00

You survived car accidents by your mother flinging her arm across your chest right before impact.

genek1953 · 2025-02-09T07:51:42+00:00

My father installed seat belts in our family cars when I was a kid in the 50s. He was an aircraft engineer and knew the value of safety harnesses.

cofeeholik75 · 2025-02-09T08:52:50+00:00

My mom’s arm. I was 5. Mom driving. I was in passenger seat. Making a left. Passenger door opens. I start falling out. I remember seeing car tires. Mom grabs me by my shirt and yanks me back.

‘Mom arm’ was the original seat belt.

Oddly, I do the ‘Mom arm’ thing when I am driving, got a passenger and coming to a fast stop. They already have s safety belt on. Maybe the ‘Mom Arm’ is a survival instinct?

Waste_Worker6122 · 2025-02-09T07:05:36+00:00

No question, cars and roads and drivers were more dangerous "back in the day". But then, as now, most accidents were lower speed fender-benders. My first accident was in the 1970s when I passed in a suburban intersection (naughty me) and was T-boned. Significant damage to my car and her car but no injuries. Because I was still a juvenile I had to go to juvenile court with my Mother which was very embarrassing. The judge dismissed the case because the police didn't witness the accident and the driver I hit didn't show.

What did I learn? Don't pass in an intersection.

SK482 · 2025-02-09T13:58:06+00:00

Don’t forget that, in the very old days, the steering was a straight shaft into the engine compartment. In a front end accident, the steering wheel would crush the driver

OtherTechnician · 2025-02-09T10:27:45+00:00

In high speed accidents, the occupants were often ejected from the vehicle. Survival depended on what your body ended up hitting. Drivers were prone to getting impaled on the steering wheel and passengers that didn't get ejected hit the hard/ unpadded surfaces in the car.

Car accidents were Darwin moments played out Vegas style.

scuba-turtle · 2025-02-09T07:10:18+00:00

My first car doubled as a tank. My only accident in it involved a small thud.

2025-02-09T11:28:14+00:00

Not me, but one of the kids I went to school with was riding with her father in their brand new 1962 Chevy II when they were broadsided by a speeding dump truck that ran a red light.

She suffered severe injuries, a broken leg, dislocated shoulder, a fractured skull and the glass cut her face to shreds. Her father broke his nose.

She walked with a limp, her face looked like a road map with red scars and the bastards in school taunted, calling her ‘Monster’ and ‘Ghoulie Girl.’ I broke a couple of noses when the bastards wouldn’t stop.

Algernon_Asimov · 2025-02-09T13:03:59+00:00

My first accident was in 1987, in a 1970s-era Datsun 240K. I rear-ended a big chunky 1970s-era sedan, which also push forward into a small 1980s-era hatchback.

I crumpled the front of my Datsun, but the damage only went about 1 metre into the chassis. I was fine, with my seat-belt on.

The big chunky car in the middle had less damage than mine, even though it made impact at the front and the back.

The hatchback at the front of the threesome was a total write-off.

You want to know the difference? The two 1970s-era cars were made of solid heavy metal. The 1980s-era hatchback was made of lighter softer material. Our solid cars protected us humans from damage.

Ok-Afternoon-3724 · 2025-02-09T15:18:12+00:00

It was 1975. I was driving a 1973 Chevvy Malibu with a 350 cu.in. engine. Going southbound on IH 35 through San Antonio Texas. Some lady came down an on ramp, I saw her as I was passing but didn't pay any more attention. She was accelerating down the ramp to get on the highway, which was 3 lanes each direction at that point. And I was in the fast lane. So I didn't think I needed to be concerned with her.

But I was wrong about that. A car behind me had an off duty cop who saw the whole thing. The driver coming down the ramp kept accelerating got on the highway at an angle crossed all lanes and rammed into my right rear. Come to find out, her car bent the metal around the tire into the tire, locking it up. Which if you know about cars, meant there was virtually no way I was going to regain control. From my point of view, the slam into my side slammed by body to the side violently, almost causing me to lay across the seat, managed to get upright and no matter what I did, I couldn't stop the fish tailing. Then the car was headed into the median.

I felt a little relived at that point. That median had a concrete surface of the road proper wide enough to hold a car so it was out of traffic flow, and there was a concrete barrier. I remember thing 'Great', my car was going to be toast but at least I'd be out of traffic and not slamming into other cars. BUT ... some bright engineer had decided the pull off area should be raised 4 or 5 inches above the rest of the highway, and there was a curb. My car hit the curb, probably still going 60 mph, and it bounced up and went air borne clear over that darn barrier. The car launching like that again caused me to almost lay sideways on the seat, pulling myself back up using the steering wheel I could see I was coming down southbound, into the northbound lanes.

This was morning business hours. All three lanes were solid line of cars for as far as I could see, CRAP. Car hit the ground with enough impact, that with the grip I had on the steering wheel, the steering wheel broke and came free into my hands. There was a blackout moment, probably just a split second, but as soon as I could see out my windshield I was staring at an 18 wheel truck like a half second before impact. Couldn't think of anything else, dove for the floorboard. Good thing, too. Impact knocked me out. It also sent the engine through the dash and into the passenger compartment, shearing the top of the seats, impact was also so violent and my stop so sudden, mounting bolt holding the seats in place sheared and the front seat moved forward pinning me in place.

Anyway. emergency crews had already reported me as PROBABLE DOA, since when they examined the wreck they couldn't see a place where I could be and not be mangled beyond hope. After my insurance agent measured the vehicle. It was 4 and a half feet shorter than when it was made. With the engine in the passenger compartment. But as it turned out, at the hospital they xrayed me multiple times, they were convinced I had to have multiple breaks and internal organ damage. Impacts like that can cause blood vessels and arteries to tear apart. But, while I had a few cracked ribs, which is nothing. I was otherwise fine. Except ... I had severe contusions (bad black and blue bruising) over almost 100% of my body. I had one doctor who asked if he could bring in some interns to look at me. Said that a doctor could spend a lifetime in the career and never see a case like that except as a picture in a text book.

Safety equipment? Standard lap type seat belt, which I was not wearing. Almost no one wore seat belts in 1975.

2025-02-09T16:26:24+00:00

I was 9 years old and someone hit us head on. They were passing on a 2 lane road. My SIL was driving my brother’s brand new Austin Healy. They told me I hit the dashboard, then the door which opened and I landed on the road. Serious head trauma.

I was in a coma for 3 days. I woke up to see my father sleeping in a rocking chair next to me. I still remember thinking he looked comfortable and I shouldn’t wake him.

They wouldn’t give me a mirror. My face was all scraped up and swollen. I was wearing a sweatshirt when the accident occurred that my brother and SIL had just brought home from their honeymoon. I was so sad when they told me they cut it off of me.

The car was totaled and my brother made a point of buying a new car with seatbelts.

unclefire · 2025-02-09T21:17:38+00:00

I was lucky enough to have never been in an accident before seat belts were required. As long as I can remember there were always seat belts in cars, not air bags though (or antilock brakes).

When I did have an accident I was wearing a seat belt and it felt like somebody punched me in the chest. I would have been totally screwed if I wasn't wearing one. Some guy ran a stop sign from the island of a divided highway and I t-boned him (it was wet and I wasn't even going fast). My Mercury Lynx (actually my wife's car) was totaled. He drove away with his land yacht having a Lynx/Escort size dent in the side of his car. This was probably around 86 or something like that.

DestyBitch · 2025-02-09T07:23:38+00:00

My first wreck was in one of those two door trucks where the middle seat only has a lap belt. Dash happened to be cracked too, and I got 8 stitches on my chin from a fender bender. Still have the scar to this day!

challam · 2025-02-09T07:30:36+00:00

It wasn’t exactly an accident but I kicked a rear car door open and fell out of the car onto the highway, 1945, I was three. Broke my scapula; survived.

The first accident I had while I was driving was in 1963, at age 21. I and a friend were in shock a day or two, the car I hit got messed up & a college kid was hurt a bit. My car was totaled. Wasn’t my fault— long, boring story.

hondanlee · 2025-02-09T07:36:27+00:00

I've only ever been in one car accident, and it was a long time ago (summer 1969), although I was extremely lucky to survive. I wrote about it here:

https://dennishodgson.blogspot.com/2010/02/near-death-experience.html

MsTerious1 · 2025-02-09T08:40:46+00:00

Even if a car had seatbelts, people often didn't use them. The earliest incidents I recall weren't accidents, but were noteworthy....

When I was about 8, maybe 9, a couple other kids and me were riding in the back of my dad's pickup. This was legal at that time. Someone hit the brakes in front of him and he had to swerve, bumped up on a curb then back down. That was scary, but no injuries that time.

I was a few years older when my stepmother had her toddler son with her while driving home from wherever. She turned a corner, never realizing he was fooling with the door handle, and he spilled out the passenger door into the street. No injuries, but also a scary moment.

TheRealMadPete · 2025-02-09T09:03:24+00:00

I had 3 accidents in 1989 where I wrote off 4 cars. 3 were mine and the fourth was the car I hit in the first accident. I had no injuries. I haven't been in an accident since

ConsistentDepth4157 · 2025-02-09T09:21:09+00:00

The first accident I was in, I was around 8 years old. Sitting all the way in the back of a Pontiac station wagon. I went from the back all the way to the back seat on my elbows across the metal. I was a bit bloody but nothing serious

ZaphodG · 2025-02-09T10:18:22+00:00

My mother ran a stop sign and T-boned a pie truck. I was in the way back and launch into the back seat. One person got a few stitches from their head hitting the mirror. That was a Ford Falcon wagon with fake wood siding.

FrauAmarylis · 2025-02-09T10:30:07+00:00

I had a giant metal car back then. It was a beast! Speed limits were only 55. There were fewer people so fewer cars on the road.

There wasn’t any traffic!!

I stopped driving in my 40s. In my city in California there is free rideshare app for all residents, it’s walkable, there’s a free year-round public trolley, and the bus is super cheap.

I have also lived car-free in Northern Virginia in my 30s.

I live car-free when I live in abroad in Asia and Europe, like right now, too.

Drivers are too distracted and the number of accidents has increased. It’s nuts.

Stardustquarks · 2025-02-09T12:54:14+00:00

16 - weather related spin out slamming sideways into a work truck. No injuries. 1984 Ford Thunderbird (and, no, the Tbird wasn’t my first car)

Wizzmer · 2025-02-09T14:35:09+00:00

I rear ended a lady who stopped at the end of an entrance ramp on the highway in the late 70s. No injuries.

2025-02-09T14:42:32+00:00

Pure luck, especially since the group I hung out with, including me, thought nothing of throwing a case of beer in the vehicle and driving around, or out to the dirt roads in the forest. Yes, I am aware of how selfish and stupid that was.

In 50 years of driving, I have never had an accident on the paved roads, or with another vehicle. I had one off road incident in my Jeep where we ended up in 12 ft of water in a river. We found another 4x4 and got it pulled out. After a day of changing all the fluids twice, it was back on the road.

We did a lot of stupid stuff, and did lose one friend drunk on a motorcycle. That was bad. Otherwise we were all extremely lucky.

tigers692 · 2025-02-09T14:50:37+00:00

Cars were slower, I sing I can’t drive 55 when I run my ‘55 pickup around the block. They were huge steel tanks. But not safer in anyway.

lpenos27 · 2025-02-09T16:28:38+00:00

This probably wasn’t my first accident but the most interesting one. It took place in 1971 on a Friday. That day I had just bought a 1965 VW bug. Because I would not have time to register it the previous owner said I could use their registration till I got mine. The car had North Carolina plates. My girl friend was driving, her license was from New Jersey. We were on the Cross Bronx expressway in New York. We came over a bridge and the car in front of hit the brakes, my girlfriend hit our brakes and we stopped. The car in back of us did not stop and pushed us into the car in front of us. Of course the VW folded like an accordion. I caught a notice from the New York DMV. Because the car had North Carolina plaits,was owned by a person in Massachusetts, driver had a New Jersey license, and the accident took place in New York. I lost my drivers license to drive in New York for one year. Another footnote, after the accident I was looking for someone to help us and saw a police car under the bridge. I when down to the police car, told them I just had an accident on the bridge and the asked was I going up the bridge or down the bridge. Because if I was going up the bridgeI was in a different precinct. Last footnote, a few weeks after the accident I, with my father, when down to New York to look at the car. It was parked in the street next to a junkyard. It had 5 or 6 parking tickets on the windshield.Someone had stolen the front seats. I wanted to get the spear tire. So I got a crowbar out and was pulling the tire out and a police car drove by and didn’t stop to ask any questions. The junkyard said they would take the car but would have to charge me to tow the car into their yard. My father put a rope on the front bumper I kneeled in front of the steering wheel, no seats, and we pulled the car into the junk yard.

Maleficent_Scale_296 · 2025-02-09T16:57:20+00:00

We didn’t have a car, so every other Friday (payday) my uncle and aunt would take my mom, sister and me to the grocery store for “big shopping” in his Datsun. It was quite small so I rode on my aunts lap.

I was three, riding along, my aunt and mother deep in cigarettes and conversation didn’t notice me fiddling with the door handle. Suddenly I wasn’t in the car anymore, my aunt and I were lying in the street scraped up but fine. We got back in the car and continued on to the grocery store. Yeah, things are better now.

wwaxwork · 2025-02-09T17:02:37+00:00

You went limp, though I was a kid in the one serious crash I was in so I think it was just a natural reaction. There were only seatbelts in the front so I learned I really really am grateful to Volvo for the 3 point seat belt keeping both my parents alive and still wonder why they took so long to get in the back seat of cars as well as the front.

EightBitDo2025 · 2025-02-09T18:13:20+00:00

Seat belts (non-retractors). Crashed my 1970 Maverick on hwy 94, 40 MPH into the left lane guardrail at a 45 degree angle. Broke my collarbone and cut my head open on the door frame. Bent the car like a banana. Was waiting for the inevitable hit from behind but it never came. The car would have likely burst in flames ala the Pinto as it had the captive gas tank. Apparently it wasn't my turn to die.

Haunting_Law_7795 · 2025-02-09T18:43:36+00:00

17 years old driving 2 friends home after playing in local TV show band. Drunk lady came down the wrong side of the highway with no lights on. Oil tanker was flashing lights to warn people. I yelled look and put both feet on brake. My sister leaned forward asking if we were going to hit them. I did the mom thing. Drunk lady and I stopped but the guy behind me was watching the oil tanker. I looked up after impact and she was about 50 feet away. I ricochet her up the highway. Chevy Suburban will do that. Lot of damage but not totalled. The guy who hit me left his engine in the road

Blues-Daddy · 2025-02-09T19:02:45+00:00

My first accident was in a Ford Pinto. I am lucky to be alive.

Appropriate-Text-642 · 2025-02-09T20:55:07+00:00

We had far less vehicles on the roads.

Phil_Atelist · 2025-02-09T21:00:50+00:00

Pure, blind, dumb luck. Or grace, depending on if you're religious or not. I was in the back seat with my legs between the front seats because of a knee injury earlier that day. The car blew a tire and slammed into the cliff on the side of the road just after I had moved my legs to sit up in the back seat and adjust things. I flew. Broke my hand. Driver was fine. The trunk of the car was pushed up to the roofline.

floridianreader · 2025-02-09T21:52:12+00:00

I don't know what the car was, something 1970's but my Dad was driving me and my brother home from a visit to see an uncle in Kansas City one evening. There was a blizzard warning and I really don't know what possessed him to take us so far from home in that weather but he did. Coming home the interstate was just glassy ice and the car spun around in 3 complete circles, miraculously not hitting anything but the guardrails. I just remember being terrified even at the ripe old age of 8 by the car spinning around.

IdealBlueMan · 2025-02-09T23:02:45+00:00

DUI/DWI were illegal in most states well before the 1985 that you'll see if you look it up. I don't remember driving drunk ever being legal at all.

My first wreck was in a Beetle. There was snow on the ground but the road was just damp, as if there had been a light rain.

I was going under the speed limit on a main country road. A pickup turned onto the road in front of me from a side street.

I swerved to the right to avoid the pickup. Took my foot off the accelerator. I was coming up on a tree, so I swerved right to get back onto the roadway (no trees there!).

The side of the road surface was a couple of inches above ground. That caused me to lose control of the steering. I drifted into the oncoming lane and got hit in quick succession by three cars. That spun me out. I corrected as best I could. I ended up off to the right in somebody's front yard.

I'd had my seat belt on, and there was no head-on impact, so I was just bruised and shaken.

The car was a crumpled heap.

2025-02-09T23:08:56+00:00

68 years old , no accidents or tickets, still trying to break sound barrier on motorcycles.

Intelligent_Put_3606 · 2025-02-09T23:10:25+00:00

The only times I've had accidents, the other vehicle was stationary, and the collision was low speed. I always wore a seat belt.

Utterlybored · 2025-02-09T23:26:28+00:00

Never been in a serious accident. Just a fender bender or two.

BabaMouse · 2025-02-09T23:44:42+00:00

It was my dad’s arm. We rear ended a guy trying to make an illegal left turn in front of us (turning middle of the block/trying for a U turn). What saved me was the windshield and good Detroit steel. It took my two front teeth as payment.

Key_Read_1174 · 2025-02-10T00:05:48+00:00

Those cars were built like tanks! I had an automatic seat beat. It was my mother's right arm slamming across my gut while I stood on the front seat. Otherwise, I fell backward into the backseat where my siblings would start kicking & screaming. Built safety features? Silly, you! Bah ha ha ha ha! We also used spit as a disinfectant!

TTTenor · 2025-02-10T04:23:06+00:00

I was eleven years old in 1957 when our family car was hit by another car that ran a red light. Fortunately, we we hit in the side of the hood area. Nevertheless, my mother, who was driving, was thrown out and broke her pelvis. My sister in the middle of the front seat had the heater control knobs forced into her lower leg, and was also ejected. Another sister in the front seat was not seriously injured. I and my younger sister in the back seats were just bruised from being jostled around.

My father had died three years earlier. My sister's first words were, "Mom's dead, and (older sister's) dying." I thought we were orphans. My mother spent six weeks in the hospital while we girls were shuffled around staying with relatives.

If we had seat belts, no one would have been injured.

Mentalfloss1 · 2025-02-10T04:46:30+00:00

I was going 5-10 mph.

PragmaticPrime · 2025-02-10T06:18:14+00:00

Mid 1980s - I was sitting in the center of a truck bench seat, boyfriend driving and we T-boned a truck who pulled out in front of us, we were going maybe 5 miles an hour.

My boyfriend bent the steering wheel into a U shape and split his lip. I smashed the dash with my body and spidered the windshield with my head. I'm pretty sure I saw the tunnel of light people talk about but my boyfriend yelling my name brought me back. Boyfriend's dad joked I had broken his favorite coffee mug.

The guy who pulled out in front of us - he didn't want to take the time to clean ice off his side window and didn't see us. He ended up with a broken shoulder. I've had problems with my neck for many years - all because I didn't wear a seat belt but at that time no one even talked about.

I also totaled my mom's Cadillac earlier that same year - driving too fast on a dirt road, started sliding, car did a 180° and then flipped into an electric pole, bent the car frame and broke the pole, also not wearing a seat belt and didn't have a scratch.

My guardian angel must be exhausted because there was also a motorcycle accident that should have killed me in the 1990s.

The reason why I survived them all? No clue. Luck I suppose.

Otherwise_Elk7215 · 2025-02-11T21:16:57+00:00

We generally avoided driving into things, as I recall.

Gogo-sox · 2025-02-13T15:58:24+00:00

Age 16, passenger in my friend’s car on a snow day from school, roads weren’t plowed and someone had gotten in the one car track. He couldn’t move, we couldn’t stop. Smashed his ‘51 Chevy( this was December of ‘64 ). No seat belts, of course, bounced my head off a few things in the car and admitted to hospital in fair condition. A few more concussions from sports and auto accidents. Finally, seat belts, air bags, safety features galore. Been wearing my seat belt faithfully for 50 some years now. Buckle Up.

amiga500 · 2025-02-09T14:24:26+00:00

It was more civilized back then, asshats that drove poorly and crashed were dead and removed from society by their own idiocy. Now these dildos get to crash and total their cars over and over again and the car companies see this a huge profit so they make them as safe as can be. Bad drivers were eliminated faster and folks drove safer.

wikkedwench · 2025-02-09T08:30:35+00:00

Steel cars and Soccer Mom saves.

Shiggens · 2025-02-09T10:48:29+00:00

I was 7. Dad and I were coming over a rise in the road. A car had stopped coming towards us and the car behind it came into our lane to go around it. Dad avoided a head on by leaving the road and going up an embankment. The car rolled over one and a half times. When it stopped I was on the roof. Dad had managed to hang on to the wheel and not fall on me. I cut my fingers crawling through the windshield opening. Otherwise we weren’t injured. The car was a 53 Packard and was totaled.

ArtfromLI · 2025-02-09T17:25:01+00:00

Not until 1970, I rear ended another car.

Gogo-sox · 2025-02-14T00:55:46+00:00

Lessons learned ? Wear a seat belt , and repeat!

Randygilesforpres2 · 2025-02-09T08:52:06+00:00

They were more dangerous yes but cars didn’t crumple, so unless it was a big one you just got jostled and whiplash.

Scuh · 2025-02-09T09:46:09+00:00

The car was made out of thick metal back then. If you had a small accident, nothing really happened. Cars these days are made differently because when bad accidents happened, it was hard to get people out. The roads were not that busy unless you lived in a city.

masterP168 · 2025-02-09T09:22:25+00:00

cars were a lot bigger, heavier, and had metal bumpers so your car didn't crumple up the way new cars do. in that way it was safer

I can remember when power steering and power brakes was an option.

there was no ABS brakes, no traction control, the tires back then were terrible, cars didn't handle very well around turns or corners

I had a 1981 Camaro and if the road was the slightest bit wet the rear end would go sliding sideways. I had so many close calls and a few accidents

cars were dangerous back then, but we survived

ncminns · 2025-02-09T09:31:39+00:00

We learned to drive properly and didn’t act like twats

waynofish · 2025-02-09T08:33:43+00:00

First wreck was when the 80' Bronco (F150 based) I was in rear ended an 80'ish station wagon (Caprice based) at a red light at speed. We walked away from the Bronco and the couple in the station wagon went to the hospital, but for minor injuries. Of course, both vehicles were totaled!

The Bronco had high back captains chairs, seatbelts but no crumple zones or airbags, but both were large vehicles, so they were a lot safer than what people today say they were. Are todays vehicles safer? Yes, they are, but I'd rather be in that Bronco today in that kind of wreck then a small car or modern smaller SUV. These smaller vehicles need those airbags because the aerodynamics put the windshield in your face practically. Those types of older vehicles, the dash and winsdhield were a good bit in front and I feel the weight of them made the front end a crumple zone. 5000lbs at 50 MPH is going to crumple upon impact with something else heavy and hard.

Those older vehicles (trucks and larger cars) were built better and were safer than many today think.

And they even had a few safety features most vehicles don't have anymore. Such as;

Passenger side imaginary brake pedals. The driver would know exactly how much braking force to use by the reaction and tenseness of the passenger pressing the imaginary pedal he had!

a push and prey brake system to get a higher power involved.

Dad's arm reaching across was a dual purpose restraining system which would double as a valid excuse to punch his son in the chest for being bad.

Straight-Mess-9752 · 2025-02-09T22:58:43+00:00

Wtf is wrong with you?

ArtisticDegree3915 · 2025-02-09T09:27:21+00:00

I flipped my first car. I survived by wearing my seatbelt. I walked away.

And to this day I don't wear my seatbelt because I just don't care anymore.

BIG YES BOMB!!!!!

Sunday, February 09, 2025

In the era before airbags and even seat belts, it was easier to die in a car accident back then, so when was your 1st car accident (as a driver or passenger) and how did you survive it before those safety features were around?

In the era before airbags and even seat belts, it was easier to die in a car accident back then, so when was your 1st car accident (as a driver or passenger) and how did you survive it before those safety features were around?

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