20 Things Every 1970s Driver Did That Would Get You Arrested Today

It's the summer of 1973. Dad is driving the station wagon with a can of beer between his knees. Nobody is buckled. Your little brother is asleep on the shelf under the back window, and Mom is holding the baby in the front seat. Almost everything in that car could get your family pulled over today. Some of it is against the law in every state. Some depends on your state. How the American road was rewritten one law at a time, and why: twenty things your family did without a second thought, and what changed each one. The baby on Mom's lap and Tennessee's first child-seat law in 1978, kids loose in the back, the pickup bed, beer at eighteen and the 1984 drinking-age law, the open can between your knees, the 0.08 limit, leaded regular, the catalytic converter punched out with a broom handle, Freon from a can, the oil spread on dirt roads at Times Beach, the cigarette machine at the truck stop, smoking with the kids in the car, a child left alone for five minutes, sixteen with a carload of friends, no insurance, the trucker's radar detector, Canada on a driver's license, the dog in the truck bed, ninety across Montana, and the seat belt nobody buckled. Then the three things that went the other way. Laws as of October 2026; where it says "in N states", the rest of the country is different. Chapters 00:00 Summer 1973: the family car 01:01 1. The baby on Mom's lap 01:55 2. Kids loose in the back 02:44 3. Kids in the pickup bed 03:27 4. Beer at eighteen 04:19 5. One for the road 05:10 6. Five beers and a drive home 06:04 7. Leaded regular 06:53 8. Punching out the converter 07:43 9. Doing your own A/C 08:32 10. Oil on the road, and Times Beach 09:40 11. The cigarette machine 10:22 12. Smoking with the windows up 10:54 13. Just five minutes 11:19 14. Sixteen, with a carload of friends 12:02 15. No insurance 12:40 16. The trucker's radar detector 13:19 17. Canada on a driver's license 14:03 18. The dog in the truck bed 14:44 19. Ninety across Montana 15:39 20. The seat belt 16:31 The other way: what got looser Roadside Slides: America from the road, 1970s, one stop at a time. Real photographs from public archives. New road trip every week. Images: real photographs from public archives (credits below), Pexels photos, and illustrated reconstructions for the scenes no camera in our archives shows, such as the inside of the car, the cigarette machine and the Freon can. Not every picture is from the 1970s: pictures of today's laws and places (state capitols, border crossings, Times Beach) are recent photographs. Every script is researched and fact-checked. Sources: NHTSA, IIHS, CDC, EPA, FMCSA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Governors Highway Safety Association, Tennessee Highway Safety Office, Federal Register, state codes, National Archives (DOCUMERICA), Library of Congress. Photo credits Photos via Wikimedia Commons: w_lemay (CC BY-SA 2.0); Shixart1985 (CC BY 2.0); Tony Webster (CC BY 2.0); RomeoEchoDelta (CC BY-SA 4.0); GyozaDumpling (CC BY-SA 4.0); Mitchazenia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection (CC BY 2.0); Charles90068 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Daniel Schwen (CC BY-SA 4.0); DXR (CC BY-SA 4.0); Martin Falbisoner (CC BY-SA 3.0); Quintin Soloviev (CC BY 4.0); DShaw20 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Ken Lund (CC BY-SA 2.0); Parkerdr (CC BY-SA 3.0); Matt H. Wade (CC BY 3.0); AlexiusHoratius (CC BY-SA 3.0). Public domain / archives: DOCUMERICA, U.S. National Archives; John Margolies, Library of Congress; NASA; Kaldari; GlacierNPS; Yinan Chen; Horizon206 (CC0); cogdogblog (CC0). Photos from Pexels: Lee Salem, Brian LB, Olha Ruskykh, Kindel Media, Akheel Ahamed, Artem Podrez, Basil MK, Julia Avamotive, Tnarg, Vitaly Gariev, Tim Samuel, Chris Duan, Mohan Nannapaneni, Oktay Köseoğlu, Sean P. Twomey, SERHAT TUĞ. #1970s #roadtrip #nostalgia #vintageamerica #americana #thenandnow