Originally Posted by vwnate1

Uh, oh ~ here we go talking about big American cars of days gone by .

Although I prefer to drive small cars I loved riding in those old cars, be they '54 Chevies or cushy land yachts ~ they were simply glorious if expen$ive to feed .

I had '63, '64 & '65 Lincolns, MASSIVE machines that were so well built I loved them .

The '65 was the best of the bunch .

I foolishly allowed a 1959 Cadillac convertible in white W/ black leather interior and every possible option to be towed away and impounded by L.A.P.D. .

Plus of course many more as did most of the over 60 crowd here .

all of them were death traps make no mistake .

Nevertheless the inherent danger could be mitigated by simply wearing the seat belt properly adjusted .

I learned this when I fell asleep in my 1965 Chevy Malibu four door base sedan and when the road gently curved left, I went strait, jumped the curb at 40 MPH or so and hit a light standard, instead of breaking off as they now do (this was in the 1970's) the light standard went between the InLine 6 cylinder engine and the right front wheel not stopping until it embedded itself in the firewall, severely denting it .

I was wearing the factory lap belt and still hit the center of the steering wheel so hard I cracked my breastbone (or whatever they call it) and turned it black, the bruise remained for several months and I couldn't take a deep breath for close to a year (no health insurance back then) .

I also held onto the two spoke steering wheel so tightly I bent both sides of it back until my knuckles hit the steering column and split the skin across all of them .

I'm quite sure I'd be dead if not for that seat belt, properly positioned low on my hips and not loose .

I'm not allowed to post photos else I'd find a few of what occurs when you're too hip to fasten the seat belt and post5 them to drive home the reality of it all .