Because they both died in a fender bender.
Bench seats had seat belts in the middle.
bench seat injuries were often from people whipping their skulls and limbs into the ones next to them, even when seatbelted.
seat belts alone are not as safe considering the side bags and front bags you get with a bucket seat
It’s all good until safety is a consideration
This exactly.
Bench seats are great for hanging out with afore mentioned dog and/or girl.
Bench seats are super shitty in any sort of side impact collision. There’s nothing keeping you in place except your safety belt.I mean, isn’t that what the seat belt is for? I can’t imagine the typical front seat in a modern car keeping you put in a collision either. They’re definitely shaped comfort-first, and at best keep you from jostling around on uneven roads.
I think they’re talking about sideways motion. Seat belts do their big part but the seat can stop you from going off one side when the belt presses you into it.
It’s one of the benefits of a bucket seat, and you’ll note front seats have a bucket shape both on the back and the bottom. This does a LOT to keep a human in place, especially if the seatbelt is holding the human down into the bucket. Lots of surface area on the side of the leg and torso for the bucket shape. OTOH with a bench seat there’s nothing at all keeping the human in place, there’s just the 3 places where the strap crosses the human and those don’t do very much. Seat belts are designed to keep you down in the seat.
Most passenger cars don’t really have bucket seats. Bucket seats like in race cars have hard, deep structural sides, whereas in passenger cars they’re just soft pillows in a very shallow bucket shape. This is obviously because getting in and out of an actual bucket seat is difficult and consumers don’t like it. Because the pillows are soft, they’re not going to stop you from sliding out in an impact.
I imagine the vaguely bucket shape of modern passenger cars has basically nothing to do with safety, at least not in the “stops you from flying sideways out of your seat” sense, and is mostly just a comfort thing.
Having been in accidents in both a bench seat and regular car seat. I can say the car seat did a much better job of keeping my ass in place. Though having the center console to brace against may also have played a part in that.
Those are both bucket seats, just to different degrees.
Imagine a camera placed where the spine or leg is looking at the side of the seat. Look at how much exposed surface area faces the camera. Let’s call that surface area the ‘side restraint component’. (IE, if the side panel comes ‘up’ out of the seat 2", and extends out 4", the side restraint component is 2").
On a seat belt, you’ve got about 2" x 4" surface area on each side. So 8 square inches on each side. That’s all a bench seat gives you.
On that car seat you’ve got about 2.5" x 8" on the back, plus an average of let’s call it 2.5" x 4" on the seat. So that’s about 30 square inches on each side.
On the racing seat you’ve got about 14" x 20", but cut in half as a triangle, and let’s say the shoulder bit fills in the missing part by the belt opening. So call that 140 square inches per side.
The car seat may be designed for comfort, but the side bolsters do have a restraint effect.
I think it’s for safety. A bucket seat is less mass under your ass in a crash.
And yet I find them uncomfortable as hell! For long drives anyway. The headrest bends your head forward, so then you’re forced to recline the seat to counteract it. Even your arms go a bit forward due to the bucket shape. I get the safety reasons, just can’t stand the bad posture.
Honda bucket seats are much deeper than say a random US model. Not talking about racing buckets.
I drove a Mercedes a few months ago for a work rental. Terrible hard flat seats like sitting on a park bench
TIL
Thank you modern engineering
That’s why I got the car with naturally aspirated 460hp. The bucket seats. Safety first every time!
We rented a van last year and only the front seats were bucket seats, the backseat of our car is a bench seat too. In both cases they’re not smooth across the back anymore like the one in the picture, all modern bench seats have divots too.
So kind of like the backseat of most modern vehicles?
Ever look at the back seat of a modern vehicle? It’s almost never a flat bench. There’s indentations, they’re just less deep than the front seat.
Yea, I own several. And they are not indented.
Sliding around is one part, the other is the lack of functional headrests in old trucks.
Idk GMC smoking crack putting those fakers in my 1994 K1500, they’re below my neck and not adjustable. Regulatory compromise, no care.
Then why is the middle seat the safest car seat?
People rarely sit there without someone on either side acting as a buffer
If you mean the middle rear, probably because there’s nothing in front of you. It may be the safest overall, not necessarily the safest in a side impact.
What additional factors does a bucket seat have to keep you in place during a side impact that a bench seat doesn’t? I don’t imagine the extra shoulder rest material really doing that much work.
actually that little extra material makes a big difference.
Look at it from the side (IE put a camera where your spine would be), same on the bottom where your leg would be. There’s several good square inches of ‘wall’, much more than just a seat belt.
And while it is angled up somewhat, the seat belt is doing a great job pulling you back down into it.
Cute girls > Safety
This is a fundamental law of nature I believe.
We are literally programmed (via neurochemistry) to have reduced concerns about safety in the presence of cute girls. A cute girl literally has more effect on ur brain chemistry than some drugs.
Inject cute girls and boys directly into my veins
Which is the answer to much of “why modern cars are the way they are.”
There’s a bit of a survivor bias for old stuff.
I’d love to own a Chevy suburban from the old days. I’d just drive it slow lol
Safety goes out the window when you realize that hiway blowjobs are a thing.
That won’t be the only thing going out the window when/if a crash happens.
Safety goes out the window when you realize that hiway blowjobs are a thing.
I have never met a country boy who’s first concern was safety.
Add a fold-down console that locks into place safely in the middle.
Best of both worlds.
Sorry bud, all I’ve got are good girls who are cute dogs
good girls who are cute dogs
That may not be what they meant.
Drop speed limits back down to 50mph and you’ve got a deal
You need 30kmph for it to be safe, and I’m talking proper 30 kmph, not “the sign says 30 but the road is straight and I feel quite safe being two drinks in” 30 kmph
safe for whom? Getting smashed by one of these at 30kmph is still gonna do a lot of damage
For everyone. 5% pedestrian fatality at 32km/h vs 85% at 64km/h.
And in yeehaw units, that’s… 20 vs 40mph
forgive me, but i have to ask. how does speed affect the type of seat that is used?
Not a car expert, but i presume that actual seats provide more stability when turning/ more safety when having an accident. Both of which gets worse when speed increases.
that was my first thought too, but i dont recall ever taking corners that sharp at 60 or 50 mph.
edit - oop i missed the part you said better safety for crashes, that sounds reasonable, and im curious about how its more safe.
Modern cars bend and flex during a crash, and they do it in such a way to keep occupants safer. Bench seats can’t do that as well. They also don’t work as well with modern air bags and seatbelts, and they often lack headrests.
Without a headrest a relatively low speed impact basically snaps your neck and whips your head into the dashboard.You want your seat to basically hug you and lock you into place. There’s a reason racecar seats look like they do.
had an 83 f100. the first time I took a turn too fast I got thrown into the passenger seat.
I’m lucky it was a back road and I had legs long enough to still press the brake enough to slow down enough to get back into the driver seat and carry on.
wasn’t long after that and I got a newer truck with bucket seats.
sure, benches were fun and easy to
fucksleep on but the safety trade off made it an easy choice to make.No seat belts?
I’m sure it had one, once.
keep in mind this was an f100. it had lights, wheels, a windshield, and a steering wheel. I was lucky it had a radio and heat. zero power steering.
so when you turned, you had to put everything into the turn. that day I just didn’t have enough for the turn and to stay seated.
Yeah I had a manual steering car before, it sucks. I had a wrist cast and almost at the end of the cast time I was turning the steering and felt the bone crack again.
Airbags and shoulder harness seat belts are a lot easier to place with bucket seats.
that makes sense
Because as with most car designs back in the day safety was a secondary consideration (if at all) to style. Firstly because these types of seats provide absolutely no stability so everyone goes sliding all over the place the moment anyone goes around the corner at speed, and secondly because there are no actual independent seats it encourages everyone to bunch up, even if there’s only actually enough seat belts for two people.
These problems are mitigated if you slow down although they’re still there.
Car accidents. All collision types become more likely as speed increases, and injuries increase with that - not chance of injury, total injuries. Bench seats were abandoned for bucket seats because bench seats are objectively more deadly when analyzing car crashes.
You need to limit the speed a vehicle can go if you’re going to make unsafe designs acceptable again, otherwise you’re just gambling with lives for fun cabin interiors.
Sounds like a win/win.
Yeah because that engineers cute girl and dog probably died in a T bone accident.
Road head must have been so much better back in the day.
It was. As was watching the submarine races since there were multiple viable, errr, seating arrangements. A glorious time to be alive.
As was watching the submarine races
… This sounds like a euphemism uh… Beyond my depth.
Puns aside: …Wat? Lol
it’s a euphemism from Detroit MI. There was an island in the Detroit River that had a public park on it that was infrequently patrolled by police because it was too far for them to be arsed to bother, called Grosse Isle. There were several scenic overlooks one could look out over the water or have a picnic at and since they were generally secluded, there were no gates to close it off at night, teenagers would take their dates there to make out back between the 1940’s and 1960’s. (souce, my dad, who grew up in the downriver area) When they were caught, this became a popular “excuse/explanation” to give to the poe-poe/parents.
What I never understood was how making out in the middle of nowhere was a crime.
EXTRAMARITAL KISSING WILL NOT BE TOLERATED
Moral turpitude will not be tolerated.
Haha that’s awesome. Thanks for the bit of local lore!
Sounds honestly like it’d be a bit of a spooky spot secluded in the middle of the night. Frisky teens do be pretty crazy brave. <_<
Sounds honestly like it’d be a bit of a spooky spot secluded in the middle of the night
Reminds me of a particular scene from the Zodiac movie, which is more or less set in that time period, so yeah spooky indeed.
Had a girlfriend when I was in highschool who was too old for me, had an old Chevy Blazer and loved the Cake song Stickshifts and Safetybelts. Everything about her was fun on a bench seat.
too old for me
Dude did you have sex with your teacher?
Summer job coworker
Ah that makes a lot of sense, actually.
“She is just giving me a ride to/from work" was often the excuse if people saw ust together but honestly no one cared. The fact she WASN’T a teacher made it no big deal.
I mean, if it’s consensual and there’s no power imbalance it’s nobody’s business
That is the big issue, and I get it. I never felt weird, age wasn’t an issue. But I can also see where others could be taken advantage of.
We ended up dating for 2 years and things ended due to life logistics. Was oddly the least crazy person I ever dated and we ended up friends after. Still bump into each other once in a while when I go back home to visit family.
That is literally the only way for that to happen. Yes.
I can both smell and hear this picture.
Ooh, same. And I can viscerally feel the seats and dash etc. The weight of the wheel when you sit and bounce on the springy seats trying to turn the wheel from side to side, and it’s so heavy. The creaking squeak sound of the windows as you turn the handle. The great thunk of the door, with it’s steel weight and loud creak. My dad owned one of these for a small time when I was a kid, because he’s a car enthusiast. There were no seatbelts in the back, so us 3 kids thought it was hilarious to slide all the way to each side of the car (mostly uncontrollably, but with added emphasis) every time it turned a corner. Dad didn’t own the car long. No idea why. I remember him getting quite frustrated with us, but we were having so much fun we just laughed. I think he gave up on getting through to us. But don’t feel bad for poor Dad, he goes on to invest and enjoy some marvellous cars over the coming decades, including helping his son, the youngest of us all, become a race car driver, coincidentally, of an older car model.
Can’t adjust the seat properly. Passengers slide more easily when cornering. More material required for upholstery and padding.
As someone who has had both, bucket seats are way better than bench seats.
The bucket seats have all that material and padding down each side so I don’t think that point stands.
Bench seats have material and padding all across the middle of the whole car…
The cost on 2 bucket seats is way higher than a single bench. Separate controls, hinges, reclining mechanisms, headrests,
For comfort, there is no question, bucket seats reign supreme.
TBF, being of an age that i’ve had both, I’ll take a bucket seat and good AC over a bench seat. If my girl needs to be that close to me, we’re going to be in the back seat :)
the back seat of a truck? how big are trucks these days holy
Cars used to have bench seats too.
There’s three basic layouts for the cab of a pickup. “Regular” has two doors and one row of seats, maybe a tiny bit of storage room behind the seats. “Double” has small rear doors and a second row of seats with no legroom, this is where you cram your children or least favorite coworker. “Crew” has two full-size sets of doors and seats and they’re about five hundred feet long because people only ever get them with long beds so they can pretend to be a contractor when they buy plywood sheets twice a year. They don’t fit in parking spaces, their turn signals don’t work, and they probably also have the extended wing mirrors to see around the trailer they never haul because it would scratch up their perfect chrome ball mount they never take off.
the material cost is basically negligible in this comparison. it’s the component count in the assembly that matters. and two complex seats are way more expensive than one moderately complex bigger seat.
But that’s divided between three seats, not two, so the material per seat is less.
And dogs at least can do okay with bucket seats. I drove an Oldsmobile Silhouette ^(the Cadillac of minivans!)^ for years, and my dog was just tall enough that he could sit between the driver and passenger seats and look out the front windshield. He was at the perfect height for head scritches while I drove down the highway.
I remember when he got a bit too hefty to sit there comfortably. The automatic seat adjustment controls were on the right side of the driver seat and one time I suddenly found myself being pushed into the steering wheel at a stop light. His jelly rolls had started pressing in on the little joystick.
I miss that dog. The van was just okay.
cake felt so strongly about it that they wrote a song
Came here to say the same.
“Ah don’t wear a seatbelt because muh sisters cousins friends uncles neighbors mechanics grandaddys brother died while he was wearing a seatbelt and couldn’t get out of the vehicle in time to avoid the freight train that he was too blind and deaf to see or hear coming.”
Fwiw, there’s seatbelts in that image. If you wanted to sit closer, you could cross the right belt over and buckle it into the left buckle, and buckle the left belt into the right one. You could use the same method to secure a 3rd person in the middle. As long as nobody’s too fat.
Why was a blind/def person driving to begin with?
“He wudn’t, his preacher’s side-piece’s son’s 2nd step-daddy was drivin’ shit-faced n flew through the windshield so he coon’t help”
People shouldn’t wear seat belts unless they need to. Constantly being hypervigilant, prepared for the worst case scenario, thinking you have zero control over whether you get in a deadly accident is bad for the psychological health of our society.
Before seat belt laws there wasn’t even a word for road rage. It didn’t exist because when someone accidentally swerved into your lane or cut you off it didn’t feel like attempted murder.
In 1971, it was hold me close tiny dancer and count the lights on the highway. Today it’s stay over there tiny dancer and stay strapped into your bucket seat just on the off chance we get into a horrible accident. We’re driving ourselves batty with this kind of paranoia.
In 1971 there were 1.4x the road deaths as in 2025 despite having the country only having 60% of the 2025 population. I wouldn’t say you have zero control over whether or not you get into an accident but very surprising things can happen suddenly and give you very little time to react. In that situation I’d want to focus on safely maneuvering the car and not be distracted with panic buckling with my life on the line.
You’re proving my point. You’re worried about something that’s just not going to happen to you. I can safely make a $500 bet with 4,000 people in the US that if they don’t wear their seat belt that they will be alive a year from now and be $1,999,500 richer. It’s not psychologically healthy to constantly worry about this, strapped into a bucket seat by a 3 point safety harness, like you’re an astronaut riding an SLS rocket to the Moon when you’re only driving down the road to buy a gallon of milk.
And what I mean by saying that people shouldn’t wear seat belts unless they need to, does not mean go fumbling for your seat belt in the middle of an emergency situation. It means when you know you are about to be in a dangerous situation that requires one, like riding with someone who you know is a horrible driver. Or that famous scene in Bullitt where Bullitt and the villains buckle up before their big car chase, jumping the hills of San Francisco. Today we buckle up like we’re about to get into a wild car chase when we’re just going around the corner to McDonald’s. That’s making everyone neurotic.
I’m not stroking out in fear wearing a seatbelt? It’s a regular thing I do every time with zero downside.
On the days I got hit I can definitely say I didn’t wake up planning to be hit, I drive like a grandma but just because you’re stopped at a light doesn’t mean the person behind you will care.
But you are stroking out in fear and don’t know it. There is a downside. What people back in the time before mass shootings and road rage called fender benders, you consider proof that you need to be prepared for death every time you get behind the wheel. If you drive like a grandma, the most that is going to happen to you is someone accidentally bumping into your car occasionally.
We had road rage before we had cars, never mind seatbelts.
On 28 November last, a lawyer and a solicitor were travelling to Meudon on business. They had passed the barrier and were driving along the river on the Pont de Grenelle side, when they noticed that the driver of a bourgeois carriage in front of theirs was amusing himself by cutting them off, sometimes throwing himself to the right, sometimes to the left, forcing them onto the verges, which were nothing but a pool of mud, galloping to be in front of them as soon as they tried to get back on the pavement and then pretending to walk at a step. This merry-go-round had been going on for twenty minutes when the impatient lawyer got out and asked the coachman what the meaning of such behaviour was. To explain the situation, the coachman struck him with a whip, which almost threw him under the horses’ feet. At this sight, not only did the lawyer’s travelling companion rush to his assistance, but a gentleman who was with three ladies in the other carriage, not bothering to open the door, passed through the window to get there more quickly. The three of them had the greatest difficulty in subduing the furious coachman, who even hit them, or tried to hit them, several times with his fists. The police were called, he was taken to prison and his carriage was impounded. At the hearing, it was impossible to make Gaumont understand all the rudeness and brutality of his behaviour. He just replied to all the comments made to him: ‘Let them bring in the other coachman; I had no animosity towards him, I didn’t know him’. The Court sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment and a fine of 25 francs.
Barthélemy G., an irascible coachman, drives a Compagnie Feuillerat omnibus on the line from Boulevard Périer to the Jardin Zoologique. Yesterday afternoon, the omnibus driven by Barthélemy G. was late. It was joined by an omnibus of the Compagnie Nouvelle, which was about to pass in front of it, when Barthélémy G. suddenly jumped from his seat and climbed onto the platform of the rival omnibus. He rushed at the driver of this omnibus, Mr Maurice Liard, and bit him cruelly on the nose. He then stabbed him twice in the face. In his fury, G. was about to commit a more serious act, when a ticket inspector intervened in the nick of time and put an end to this painful scene, with the help of a few passengers. Barthélemy G. was taken before Mr Dive, police commissioner for the 4th arrondissement, who detained him at the disposal of the public prosecutor.
Today, in front of the Jardin des Plantes, two coaches coming in opposite directions were passing each other, leaving a fairly narrow gap between them. At that moment, a coach travelling at high speed came between the first two. One of them broke a wheel. The driver who had caused the accident continued his journey without responding to the complaints of the injured party. Shortly afterwards, however, the driver was forced to drive past the overturned carriage. The person whose carriage he had broken threw himself on the horse’s bridle to get the name of the person responsible for the accident. The coachman, we are told, whipped the face of the person he had already harmed. Several people were attracted by this regrettable scene. But the gathering that it had caused soon dispersed.
On the pavements of Paris, coaches for hire are in a constant state of hostility towards omnibuses. This often results in brawls, the seriousness of which has made it essential for the authorities to intervene. Yesterday, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, an omnibus belonging to the administration of the Constantines, and driven by the coachman Gilbert, was passing along rue Coquenard. A cabriolet for hire, driven by the coachman Millon, tried to get ahead of the omnibus; at first it encountered some difficulty, which aroused his anger. As it passed the omnibus, he insulted the Constantines coachman, calling him the coachman of the paupers’ cart. Whiplashes were even exchanged between the two drivers. Millon, in order to strike more easily, got out of his carriage and struck Gilbert twice. The latter tried to get out of his seat to defend himself, but got tangled up in his reins and fell heavily to the pavement. He would inevitably have been crushed by his carriage had not a passer-by managed to stop them by running out in front of them. Millon was arrested and taken to the local police commissioner.
A guy in Camden shot and killed 13 in 1949 before surrendering after he ran out of ammo. In 1891 a guy fired a shotgun into a crowded Liberty, MS schoolhouse and injured 14. These kinds of crimes were out there in the world before you were young. More difficult to road rage if you and those near you don’t have the means to afford a carriage and crowd the roads.
People die when collided from behind by some drunk going crazy fast, get T-boned by someone going through lights that they ought not to have, etc. and it’s much easier to die from those kinds of accidents if you aren’t secured and will rattle around inside like a ping pong ball or get launched out of a window. My literal job is in large part considering things that could go wrong for certain processes and establishing safe countermeasures against those.
Driving is always a dangerous situation - and treating it like it’s not just makes it more dangerous. Even the safest driver in the world is not immune to somebody else being an idiot. This is especially important in today’s world of mega-SUVs and giant RAM trucks. Wear your dang seatbelt.
I do wear my seat belt. I don’t have a choice. It’s illegal not to. And you need to not worry so dang much. The laws are carpet bomb laws. When dealing with hundreds of millions of people, it saves lives. But you personally, it has no effect except you trying to convince me that an SUV can pop out from behind a bush any second now and murder me if it sees me not wearing a seat belt.
Just please don’t bring back the metal seatbelt that branded you in the summer months.
My first car was a 1985 LTD that was pirpose built to scar. The seat belt, of course, but also fun little things like the controls and the metal bands in the steering wheel.
But it was also super easy to work on because the hood was the size of a small nation and you could get to anything. The big hood also gave the tires plenty of room, so it could turn on a dime. I swear you could rear-end yourself with that thing.
We used be a strong species. Now look at us.
My grandpa’s old pickup had a vinyl seat and boy howdy that thing would fry the skin off your ass after sitting in the sun for an hour. He’d let me shift sometimes though so that was cool.
Stickshifts and safetybelts, bucketseats have all got to go, when we’re driving in my car, they make my baby feel so far
I NEED. YOU HERE WITH ME. NOT WAY OVER IN A BUCKET SEAT.
I love CAKE, definitely my favorite band. Did you know they give out tree saplings at their concerts?
Cake is awesome. I heard about the tree saplings.
…and now I have that song stuck in my head.
What song is it?
Stickshifts and Safety Belts by Cake.
That’s certainly a song of all time
Exactly how the people in the music video for Short Skirt Long Jacket reacted
In college our basement had the bench seat from a passenger van in it. Easily our best piece of furniture.
I remember a friend of mine took the back rows out of his van and put in lawn chairs and bean bags. It was complete chaos, but it was youth.
this song is for you: https://youtu.be/qW9mZLnQ7Yc
Not nearly enough upvotes from people having this same thought. What a banger tune
