How old is safety?

The famed institution has just accepted various new donations rounding out what it calls three-quarters of a century of auto-safety innovation and initiatives.

The new objects include a three-point seatbelt from a 1961 Volvo. Many of us see Volvo's three-pointer as the gold standard of automotive safety equipment but who's going to queue to look at it?

It's just a hunch but the pull of the Smithsonian's Apollo 11 capsule or Wright Flyer might be a bit stronger than a couple of metres of webbing attached to a tarnished chrome buckle.

Other parts of the safety collection include crash-test dummies and safety advertisements, plus a Guardian Interlock. This 1980s device required a driver to pass a breath test before turning the key. It was a great success - in forcing drunks to ask their sober friends to lean over and start their car.

But back to the 75-year bit. What exactly happened way back then? Weren't all cars damn near homicidal? Mostly, yes. The part of the collection from 1935, or thereabouts, includes early road-safety literature, no doubt of the ''don't open the fuel flap to check the level with a lighted cigarette'' variety.

There's also what looks like a long, narrow and slightly misshapen yellow cushion that was designed by Dr Claire L. Straith. Dr Straith, a surgeon who specialised in facial reconstruction, was an early advocate of cars that didn't slice, dice and puree their occupants during acollision.

His radical idea didn't seem to find much popular traction. However, he did manage to convince Walter Chrysler to fit the 1937 Dodge with dashboard knobs and door handles that were less likely to puncture and disembowel than the types favoured before then.

Oddly, General Motors claims to have undertaken its first crash test that decade, though for what reason one can only guess. Safety was given no consideration whatsoever in the 1930s. One suspects that not even a crash-test dummy would agree to sit in a car of that era heading for a barrier.

But back to Straith's strange cushion. It was a dashboard pad designed to reduce ''cranial and facial injuries''. A photo from the day shows a girl in the front seat of a car leaning her head against it.

Yep, safe as houses. In the same shot, the girl's mother sits behind a big bakelite-covered steering wheel with its unyielding column. This would most likely impale her while junior bounced off the yellow cushion and vacated the premises through the non-safety-glass windscreen. Still, it was a start of sorts.

This year also marks exactly 55 years (give or take 12 months) since Ford introduced its Lifeguard safety package in the US.

Lame and expensive, it included exactly two things: a ''safety steering wheel'', with a deeper centre than standard, and door handles that were designed to prevent occupants from being flung out of the vehicle during a crash.

There were more things outside the package than in.

On top of the Lifeguard premium, you had to pay extra for padding on the dashboard, a safety-glass rear-view mirror and two-point seatbelts. A publicity shot shows a 10-year-old boy lap-strapped into the front seat with his head lined up exactly to clang against a sharp metal ridge running the length of the metal dashboard.

Few ticked these option boxes so Ford's entire focus returned to its mainstay: overpowered, underbraked, fuel-guzzling death traps.

It furiously fought safety legislation when it was first proposed in the 1960s. Henry Ford II insisted his company had proved people didn't want safe cars and, anyway, they would be so expensive, it would force the Big Three to close down.

He wore crook neckties, too.