My brothers and I would argue about who got to sit in the foldaway rear-facing jumper seats in the back of our dad's sky blue Chevy Impala station wagon.
try explaining to a 16 y.o. leaded gas, and having her unbuckled grandma holding baby Uncle in her lap in a car full of maroon velour, while grandpa masters the arm stop as he slams on the brakes.
those were the days!
in 1950, I was a 3 year old. My Father drove a 1940 Buick Roadmaster. It was a large, roomy car. No seat belts, of course.
If I sat in the front seat, it was in the middle, between my parents. The only thing I could see was the tops of trees going by, and street lights we were going under. The rear seat had an arm rest that folded down in the middle of the bench seat. So they would fold down the arm rest, and I was encouraged to straddle it, like I was riding a horse.
My father had a peculiar driving style. IF something was developing a few hundred yards ahead, he would let off the throttle, hoping the situation would clear up by the time he got there. If it did not, only then would he apply the brakes, and apply them hard.
More than once, in these hard lake braking incidents, I would be launched off the arm rest, over the back of the front seat, and crash, hard, into the solid chrome plated radio speaker grille. And it was very solid. And the parents never put two and two together that me sitting on that arm rest, combined with my father's driving style, could severely injure their child.
As I got older, he bought a 1951 Buick. About once a month, we would visit my grandparents, and I would lie down across the rear seat to sleep on the Sunday night four hour ride home. On many, many occasions, the late hard braking would result in my rolling off the seat in my sleep and onto the back seat floor.
She sustained a fractured ankle and a possible torn rotator cuff .
during the day! 
