AHC: during WW II U.S. becomes serious and effective about roadway safety?

Big safety items

Brakes on each axle, with redundant hydraulic circuits. Extra points for being fade resistant. If you can stop, you won't hit objects.

Seat Belts. So you don't get ejected if you do hit something

Laminated Safety glass. For when belts aren't worn, and you don't get cutup on regular glass.

positive door latches, so door won't open in a crash

Padded Dashboards and collapsible steering columns. So you don't get impaled or beat your head against a steel dash, even if belted in

Fuel tanks moved away from the cowl or under the front seat.

These simple items didn't all come together til the 1960s, and could have been done decades earlier.

But Safety didn't really sell, Styling and Power did
The laminated glass seems like a gimme.

I think it's market indirectness. Buying a car is a complex transaction. You don't get to pick stuff a la carte. And unlike shopping at the grocery store, where the economic theory is that you have balanced your overall utility and are indifferent on how your last dollar is spent, with cars or housing and perhaps other large purchases as well, sometimes people will freely admit that they have made a mistake.
 
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youtube: Making Safer Roads

This is about reducing roadside hazards. For example, making them breakaway or placing slow-down barrels in front of them.

Bonus Points: If you can find the video on the same topic from about 1970, in which the guy has the cool nerd glasses!
 
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