[Sandy G]

Yeah, Daimler-Benz started focusing on vehicle safety not long after the shooting stopped in 1945.The "Pontons" had extremely rigid floors, & I think, collapsible steering columns, long before anyone else thought of them. They soon redesigned their interiors so that the knobs were either soft, or wouldn't penetrate an eye socket, rear-view mirrors would break off easily rather than embed themselves in yr forehead, they had pretty decent seat belt systems, the door locks were virtually unburstable, & wouldn't spill the people bouncing all over the road things like this. Ford had a safety campaign in 1956 where they offered seatbelts & a few other items, & Chevy ate Ford's lunch that year, saleswise, anyway. Actually, virtually NO US cars were safe, really, til the late 1960s, when they started putting radial tires & disc brakes on some cars. The drum brakes, you had 2, maybe 3 panic stops, & you were done til they cooled down a bit. I still shudder whenever I watch that video of a mint 1959 Chevy "Kissing face" w/a 1994 Chevy...I think they hit at 45 MPH, the people in the '94 car might have walked away, but everyone in the '59 would have been hamburger..