Car Safety
During his work at Holloman Air Force Base, Stapp became interested in the implications of his work for car safety. At the time, cars were generally not fitted with seatbelts, but Stapp had shown that a properly restrained human could survive far greater impacts than an unrestrained one. Many traffic-accident deaths were therefore avoidable but for the lack of seatbelts. Stapp became a strong advocate and publicist for this cause, frequently steering interviews onto the subject, organizing conferences, and staging demonstrations (including the first known use of automobile crash test dummies). At one point, the military objected to funding work they believed was outside their purview, but they were persuaded when Stapp gave them statistics showing that more Air Force pilots were killed in traffic accidents than in plane crashes. The culmination of his efforts came in 1966 when Stapp witnessed Lyndon B. Johnson sign the law making manufacture of cars with seatbelts (lapbelts at that time) compulsory.
Read more about this topic: John Stapp
Famous quotes containing the words car and/or safety:
“Between here and that old car outside there are twenty-five paces. Make them. Now.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)