Comment by hiimnate

I think another aspect of it is the auto industry's reluctance to admit that cars are dangerous. Before seatbelts were introduced, manufacturers didn't want to include any overt safety systems, because they introduced the idea that we needed protection from the cars. There were no dangerous cars, just bad drivers. There's a great 99% invisible episode about it: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/nut-behind-wheel/