There were no Childs car seats when I grew and I had no problems...Welcome to the nanny state where people point their fingers at what others do wrong YET they're always doing the right thing...yeah Right!!!!
Pretty sure $BW can afford a child seat even if they may be rare. yes Child seats were different in the 60's & 70's. Cars back then didn't accelerate like they do today.
Something that I will always remember:
I used to be a member of the SES. A fellow member was a police officer who I got to know fairly well. He had attended murders, kidnappings and various other horrific scenes. He was even in attendance when they found the bodies in barrels of acid at Pendle Hill in the nineties. I could never work out how this shit never bothered him. Then he just disappeared. Curious as to what happened to him I asked another copper mate of mine, who I happened to run in to, what happened to him. Turns out he was first on the scene of a car accident that occurred on the M4 just before the Burnett St exit. The mother had put the child into the child seat but didn't buckle it up. When the mother had to hit the brakes in an emergency situation, the child was flung from the back seat into the windscreen of the car. The resulting scene was so horrific that it caused a seasoned NSW Police Officer to get back into his car, drive back to the station, hand in his badge and gun and just disappear. No one I know has seen him since.
$BW should could count himself lucky that he didn't come across some fool who couldn't drive and cause an accident.