Belts for Autos

Great majority of injuries, both minor and serious, received by people in automobile crashes are due to their being thrown forward against dashboard, windshield, steering wheel or seat by their own inertia when their car suddenly slams to a stop. Last week Major Alford Joseph ("Al") Williams, speed flyer of note and writer of ability (TIME, Jan. 11), proposed a simple remedy in his daily column in the Pittsburgh Press. Excerpt:

"Rear-seat riding in an automobile gives me the fidgets. And while I was voicing my opinions to a companion in the rear seat of an auto the other night, we collided with another car ahead of us--at a rate of about 35 m.p.h. ... I saw what was coming and braced myself. My companion in the back seat had not been watching, and he bounced forward and banged his nose on the back of the front seat. The passenger alongside the driver bumped his forehead on the windshield. Then blood and all the usual details. An ordinary aviation safety belt could have prevented every single human injury in that case."

Fidgety Al Williams did not say so in his piece, but for years he has worn a safety belt in his own automobile.

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