Our overlords and would-be overlords have hated automobiles for quite some time. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
I find myself in an interesting position – personally as well as professionally. I have loved cars long before I was old enough to drive one – and I have been fortunate to have spent most of my working life so far writing about them (and the closely related issues of being free – or not – to buy and drive them).
Over the course of going-on thirty years behind the wheel – professionally – plus all the years prior, personally – I have seen how people who do not like cars and want us to stop driving them have worked toward that goal, one step at a time, with a doggedness and single-mindedness I have to respect, much as I despise them for it.
Their first and arguably most important victory – small as it seemed at the time – was to get a federal regulation enacted that required all new cars to come equipped with seat belts, never mind whether the buyer wanted them. This was in 1968 – per Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208.
Before 1968, if a buyer wanted seat belts in his car, he was free to buy them. Imagine that. Taking away that freedom to choose was the precedent set by FMVSS 208. The latter word is italicized to emphasize the fact that FMVSS 208 was not just about making seatbelts mandatory to buy. It was about making it mandatory to wear them, too. Because it follows – which is what precedents are all about.
