"hugh" ] wrote in message
...

Nope they were abandoned, seat belts were mad compulsary and much much
later air bags were reintroduced as they were very effective when used in
conjunction with a seat belt
I know cos I was there
End Of.

You don't need seat belts for airbags to work.
Look at side impact bags, the seat belt does sod all but the air bag still
helps you to survive.
What seat belts do is keep you out of the danger area when the bag goes off.

Of course cost was a big reason why they weren't popular in the '60s.
They were expensive and they didn't have microcontrollers to make them
reliable.