A closer look
American car manufacturers fiercely opposed the mandatory installation of seatbelts for decades, arguing that safety features would scare customers away. Executives in Detroit genuinely believed that putting restraint devices in their vehicles would silently imply that driving was dangerous, thus hurting their precious sales figures. They spent millions lobbying against federal safety regulations, claiming it was an infringement on personal liberty to force someone to survive a head-on collision. It took massive public outrage and indisputable crash test data to finally force the industry to care about human life. Even today, they only implement the bare minimum safety standards required by law, preferring to spend their budget on giant touchscreen consoles rather than keeping your skull intact
