You're correct, on any vehicle involved in an accident you're more likely to survive with your back facing momentum.

This was scientifically proven through the work done by John Stapp[1], who attached himself to a rocket sled facing both directions and at one point became "the fastest man on earth" by breaking the land speed record at 632 mph and sustaining 46.2 g's.

His research is the reason why most military transport planes have seats facing backwards or sideways.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp

IIRC it was more like 120g's (which caused temporary blindness)

http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm

The takeaway should be "make sure you can't hit anything". Sitting with your back to the stop often helps you not go flying and hit anything when no proper tie downs are available but it's just a rule of thumb. If you have even just a lap belt your going to be better off facing forward in the event of a crash because of how the human neck works.

It's also how the cabin crew sits in a plane during take-off and landing. Passengers sit facing forward, but the crew sits facing backwards.

Find it strange that planes don't use them more often. I ended up flying BA business once and half their seats are backwards. It was quite novel, takeoff felt a bit weird but besides that no difference.

Went researching it after the flight and apparently reverse seats are far safer for injuries, especially neck and torso related.

Because motion sickness. I can absolutely never sit backwards even on a train, and plane take offs make me queezy as it is. I suspect there are people with much worse motion sickness issues

All air passengers are less safe, just so some people can be more comfortable? That is not optimal.

I would literally vomit everywhere if forced into such a configuration. At that point it becomes everyone’s problem.

Air travel is safe enough as it is.

Military passenger planes often have the seats facing aft. Even when they're the same model with the same chairs as a commercial airliner, they just install them facing aft.