No, they weren't, which is why this is a poor analogy. We discovered that seatbelts could save an enormous number of lives with minimal impact on individuals, so we mandated them.
With child safety it's difficult to get comparable numbers (overall crime spiked in the 90s, so it's difficult to say whether kids were less safe because they had less tracking or just that overall crime was higher then), a big reason experts give for the reduction in crime affecting kids is they're simply inside a whole lot more.
They'd be even safer if we just put them in a plastic bubble I guess.
Yea they were. The model T was plenty safe simply because it wasn’t fast enough to be a significant danger.
The point is, claiming that “we used to do X and it was fine” is a weak argument. Times change.
The purpose of childhood is produce future adults. That purpose isn't fully served when kids get too far removed from choices, risks, and consequences. Yes, we also need to make sure they stay alive, but survival can't be the only metric parents optimize for or they'll just produce confused old kids trying to live adult lives. (`Big`, but for real and without a magical fix in act 3.)
Is this based on statistical reasoning?
Would you really rather leave your kid with say, a wild boar, than with a person randomly chosen out of a city's population?
I trust the wildlife where I live, because I know the dangerous stuff isn't here.
Me and a lot of people wear them purely out of fear of being robbed by the state
Other people have their own bodies and they do not belong to you
If I'm driving and a driver not wearing a seatbelt enters the road it does increase my chances of being in an accident because if something happens that makes them have to swerve sharply, such as a large animal leaping into the road in front of them, a seatbelt increases the chances they will be able to remain in control during that maneuver.
And cars used to be safe even without seatbelts!
It turns out times change. Before you think I’m disagreeing with the entirety of your comment, my own kids are the most free-range in-the-dirt kids I know. But it’s location-dependent. I trust cities and their people far less than wild animals.