When my father was 18 years old, he fell asleep at the wheel while driving home late. That’s never good, but it was particularly bad then, in 1954, the year he crashed his car on the early-morning Milwaukee streets. Seat belts weren’t common until the 1960s, and federal law didn’t mandate them until 1968. Dad’s unharnessed body was thrown out the windshield, through the quiet night, and onto the pavement. He survived—otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this—but not without permanent disability.

The road to mandatory seat belts was a long one, involving decades of medical and military research, legislative intervention, and corporate acquiescence. But today, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 90 percent of Americans use seat belts, which, the agency claims, save some 15,000 lives a year. They are almost automatic for most drivers and passengers.

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