My Dad's tiny Metropolitan held all five of us kids plus Mom and Dad. Nearly panicked the new neighbors when we pulled up and started unloading one at a time, on the side where they could see. By the time we finished, even the neighbors were laughing. No seatbelts!

We had a ford p/u and 6 kids.
One seat. One brother sat at my moms feet, and I sat on her lap. 4 people across the seat.
LOL.

We once went to the beach. We had 13 people in the dodge 2 door car. Because all the kids wanted to go, and we had the $5 annual pass on our car. (3 moms each gave my mom $1 every year, and my mom put $2 towards it). Best investment ever. We would go many times every season to the beach.

Eventually closed do to sewage and needles.
But 13 kids. We had 4-5 in the front seat and double/triple stacked in the back.

I don't think the back seat even had seat belts.
An Old Dodge Coronet. That Trunk could hold 4 people... 2 Comfortably. LOL. Great for the drive ins (NOT that we EVER snuck someone in that way! That would be wrong!)

Man I miss drive ins... Everyone running their cars for EITHER A/C or HEAT. LOL. Just BROWNING the planet...

I am that….. and a proud Qtard.

Made in USA, too!

I’m leaning on a lamppost , thinking what a Great concert.

Impressive.

LOL! The first concert I ever attended was in the early/mid '60s to see Herman's Hermits perform that live. Had front row seats, too! I think I was 13 or 14 at the time.

Still have a Frigidaire side-by-side from 1982! Working fine!

In the 1960's seatbelts were optional in new cars.
We could only afford cars from the 50's.
Six kids rolling around in the back of the wagon. No problem.
When we went in Uncles pickup for an ice cream, 12 (or more) of us rode in the back singing "I'm Henery the Eighth I Am, Henery the Eighth I am, I am"

Back in the 1950s things started getting bad for kids. You could still make match shooters from spring clothespins but too many fires and burnt skin from a kid shooting a match down someones shirt. Wasn't long before the springs were weakened so the match would not light. Homemade bazookas became a no-no. A cop didn't even knock, didn't need to lock doors in those days, just marched into the house and took mine. We all had pellet rifles that are illegal now in my village along with bows and arrows. Our, me and 6 siblings, mother died and a neighbor lady reported us as not having a mother so my dad had to quickly find us a mother to keep us out of foster homes. We thought that we were doing fine by ourselves. My dad found a lady at a bar who wanted kids. He took a while to tell her that there were 7 kids. A teacher could still touch a kid who was acting up and knock him against the lockers or in my case, take my arm and take me to the library to the bibles as a senior to tell me that that was where I should start. She knew that I wasn't religious and didn't like the books I wanted to report on like 'On the Road' or ' Not as a stranger', the latter a novel about medical students who had to deliver a baby. She knew that I loved science, so to counter that, assigned me 'Science is a Sacred Cow'. She was a good English teacher though no one seemed to like her.

In general things through the years got more and more illegal leaving what we have today, a kind of rotting society where there is a regulation dealing with nearly every activity leaving everyone a criminal in some way.

In the sixties had a Schwinn Heavy Duty - used it to carry papers and get to work or wherever else I wanted to go - severely tested that bike and you are correct - they made stuff kid proof!! Finally broke it racing down a hill - no helmet - and lost control in loose gravel about halfway down on a curve. Buried the left pedal 1/2" in a tree - the pedal saved my leg - but that bent it up pretty good.....

And appliances would last for more than three years...

I grew up in the 80's. We'd go out at night with the kids in the neighborhood and play games until well after 10 pm in the summers (it didn't get dark until almost 10 pm). We watched cartoons after school like He-Man, G I Joe, and Transformers which all had uplifting moral lessons at the end. We left our doors unlocked because there was no theft in our area (except once from a kid of a single mom - who was a police officer(. Kids didn't start wearing skanky clothes until high school and no one walked around with their pants around their knees. You didn't assume that every strange person you walked past was secretly a pedophile or human trafficker. And if you saw a Mexican person, it was probably because they had emigrated legally and spoke reasonably good English. You could go to high school with a long rifle and shotgun on the rack in your pickup and not get a second look - most would think you had brought it for practice after school.

Ah, how things have changed. :S

It would be scary to see this comparison from the 1950s and 60s to today. My parents would still be in prison for child abuse. Come to think about it, it's a good thing I never had children.

In the late 60's they started insisted seat belts without the shoulder of course so my Dad just before leaving for CCD put them in our 63 Chevy. Was about 65 me being always a problem in some way hooked the latch upside down. Yes, to get me out of the seat we have to cut the seat belt my Dad had just put in the car :/

I'm already called a terrorist for voting thins MAGA.
I can only get away with killing Jews who I have nothing against.

On an asphalt street in front of my folks' house, I with no helmet used to bail off my bike into a pile of dead leaves my dad had raked.
Bike came with a thickly wired school book basket and even that did not get bent for bouncing off pavement.
They could make stuff kid proof way back during the Fifties.

There was a couple hills I'd ride my bike down where I know I was hitting 60 mph. No helmet. Coulda killed me. Haha! I also traveled many thousands of miles in the back of a pickup.

My wife and I just read this and roared. Thanks!

This one has a nice photo...some genocide is ok, I guess...
https://babylonbee.com/news/ivy-leagu...

Also, seating 6 on a single bench seat and still using a 3-on-the-tree gear shift.

Me an old dino recalls that when seat belts first appeared in cars (without a shoulder harness) there were no laws to make you wear them.
Seat belts in school buses took their time keeping up with seat belts in cars. As a parent I once rode on an Alabama school bus one fine day during the early Nineties. No seat belts.

Strapping excess kids to roof of car reminds me of many trips in the bed of a p/u and with an old blanket if it was cold. The view of where we had just been was marvelous. Ahh those were the days...