TY - JOUR
T1 - Delegating to the automobile
T2 - Experimenting with automotive restraints in the 1970s
AU - Wetmore, Jameson
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - This article explores the attempts in the United States in the 1970s to implement a new paradigm for automobile safety—crashworthiness,the idea that automobile passengers should be protected in the event of a crash. A large number of strategies were proposed, including air bags, seatbelt modifications, mandatory belt-use laws, and ignition interlocks. Many of these did not initially come to fruition, but they did give the automobile safety community a chance to experiment with different ways of distributing responsibilities between automobile occupants, automobile manufacturers, and, to a lesser extent, government agencies. These experiments helped pave the way for the successful implementation of a number of new strategies in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
AB - This article explores the attempts in the United States in the 1970s to implement a new paradigm for automobile safety—crashworthiness,the idea that automobile passengers should be protected in the event of a crash. A large number of strategies were proposed, including air bags, seatbelt modifications, mandatory belt-use laws, and ignition interlocks. Many of these did not initially come to fruition, but they did give the automobile safety community a chance to experiment with different ways of distributing responsibilities between automobile occupants, automobile manufacturers, and, to a lesser extent, government agencies. These experiments helped pave the way for the successful implementation of a number of new strategies in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
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U2 - 10.1353/tech.2015.0057
DO - 10.1353/tech.2015.0057
M3 - Article
C2 - 26005087
AN - SCOPUS:84929628148
SN - 0040-165X
VL - 56
SP - 440
EP - 463
JO - Technology and Culture
JF - Technology and Culture
IS - 2
ER -