Padding and Safety
In 1937, Chrysler, Dodge, DeSoto, and Plymoth cars came with a safety dashboard that was flat, raised above knee height, and had all the controls mounted flush.
Padded dashboards were advocated in the 1930s by car safety pioneer Claire L. Straith. In 1947, the Tucker Torpedo became the first car with a padded dashboard.
One of the safety enhancements of the 1970s was the widespread adoption of padded dashboards. The padding is commonly polyurethane foam, while the surface is commonly either polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or leather in the case of luxury models.
In the early and mid 1990s, airbags became a standard feature of steering wheels and dashboards.
Read more about this topic: Dashboard
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliché that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)