AUTOS: Safety Straps

Traffic safety experts, whose studies show that seat belts in automobiles can reduce deaths and injuries on the highway, won a victory last week in Illinois. Governor William Stratton, who has been strapping himself and Mrs. Stratton into the seat of his Cadillac since last fall, signed the first U.S. law requiring new cars, after next July 1, to be equipped (i.e., with frame holes) so that seat belts can be fastened to the frame. In Detroit, Ford Motor Co. last week followed Chrysler’s lead by making seat belts available to dealers as optional equipment for all post-1951 models (price $11.95 each).

Seat belts drastically reduce the most common causes of death or injury in accidents: being thrown from a car, mutilated by hitting the windshield and dashboard, crushed against the steering wheel.