As the saying goes...

I was going through some pre-school things my mother gave me that she had put together when she had small children. I came across some old magazines including this March 1975 edition of a car magazine. It was very amusing to look at the advertisements but this letter written in by a reader was down right hilarious. It got a little confusing for me the first time through. Just keep in mind that back then the shoulder belt and lap belt functioned separately and you could use either one or both. Hang in there to the end of the letter...that's the best part.

A Modest Proposal

May I submit my solution to the problem of discouraging the use of space- and fuel-wasting cars? There would be no complicated limitations upon weight or engine displacement. The answer is to prohibit power steering, the device which made these huge cars possible.

I also have a solution to the belt versus airbag controversy: install both the bags and lap-and-shoulder belt assemblies, but arrange the bag firing circuit so that wearing the shoulder belt (detachable from the lap belt) disarms the bag. The cost would be negligible over the cost of bags alone, and there would be full protection for all classes of motorist: those who believe and trust in belts, those who rely on airbags (with or without lapbelt) and those too vacant or too drunk to think about the problem. Why even those diehards who want to "take their chances with the dashboard," as the saying goes, could be utterly and stupidly without protection by the now common method of pulling the shoulder belt out of its reel and preventing its retraction. The system would be made failsafe, so that if the belt-switch failed, the bag would remain armed.

Tom Jennings

Nashville, Tenn.

Check out this ad from that same magazine for this very cool gadget. I don't see why this is so great for "West Coast Living". Isn't the weather supposed to be nice on the west coast so people wouldn't mind getting out to open their garage? Seems like it should have been engineered specifically for winter Midwest living. oh well.