Editor's note: This article first appeared on Insurance.comand is reprinted here with their permission. Click here for the original post.

One of the latest bans on fun: no sledding.

Seriously, towns from Iowa to New Jersey are becoming afraid ofthe liability. It’s safer to erect a sign in the park than to letkids enjoy a snow day. But are we really surprised? So many thingsthese town managers and lawyers did themselves when they werechildren are now deemed too risky.

Like letting kids walk home alone from the bus stop, whichis at the end of the driveway.

"We are just encouraged to imagine the worst-case scenario,"says Lenore Skenazy, author, lecturer and founder of theorganization Free Range Kids. "We're living in this society thatbelieves you can get to zero risk."

Yet few would argue for a total return to the good ol’ days.Revisit the 1970s and judge for yourself.

Look, Ma, no seat belt

No doubt seat belts save lives, and today 86 percent of Americandrivers buckle up. But in 1983, a year before New York became thefirst state to pass a seat belt law, only 14 percent did. Fatalityrates were more than twice what they are today - 2.6 deaths per 100million vehicle miles travelled versus 1.13 today.

It wasn't until 1968 that the federal government requiredautomakers to include seat belts, and it was 1993 before Californiabecame the first state to allow police to pull drivers over forfailure to wear one. Today 33 states allow so-called primaryenforcement, and all but the "Live Free or Die" state of NewHampshire have seat-belt laws.

As long as children aren't unsecured, a seat-belt citationtypically won't add points or affect your auto insurance rates,says Des Toups, managing editor of Insurance.com.

Got a light?

Before anti-smoking groups sprang up in the late 1970s,non-smokers were lucky just to get their own dining section --albeit not their own air. Parents thought little of rolling up thewindows and lighting up on a family trip. Workers weren't deniedthe right to take a pull at their desk.

A few decades and big secondhand-smoke lawsuits later, thesmokers are persona non grata, even in their own homes as condosand apartments prohibit smoking anywhere on site. So do some publicparks and beaches.

Smoking rates are down - from 37 percent of adults in 1970 to 18percent in 2012 - and so are insurance costs. Smoke-free workplacesreduce healthcare costs and fire risks, as well as cleanup costsand lost work time.

It could be worse. Lighting up in public in 17th century Russia,Turkey, Mongolia and China carried a threat of execution. In otherwords, smoking bans are nothing new.

We don't need no stinkin' car insurance

Imagine not having to pay an auto-insurance bill. Then imagineif all the other drivers were careening around uninsured.

In 1970, only three states required auto liability insurance.Massachusetts pioneered the law, in 1927, and New York followed,but not until 1956. Other states had "financial responsibility"laws, requiring drivers to prove only after anaccident that they could pay.

Most states didn't pass compulsory auto insurance laws until the1970s and '80s, with everyone but New Hampshire aboard now. Buteven with stricter enforcement, an estimated 14 percent of driversare uninsured, and those rates rise with unemployment. (Seestate requirements and what coverage most drivers commonlychoose.)

A Budweiser in the lap

Kids, our dads always stopped for "road pop" on the drive out oftown. No waiting to crack open a cold one on a hot day. Trips weremeasured in six-packs.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving had yet to be formed (it arrivedin 1980), insurance rates didn't skyrocket after a DUI conviction(insurance hikes are largely responsible now for the$10,000 costof a first-time DUI), and drunken driving fatalities were twiceas high.

In 1982, only 26 states had banned drinking behind the wheel.Then the feds stepped in, passing a 1998 law that yanked 3 percentof a state's transportation funds if it didn't ban open containersanywhere within reach of drivers and passengers.

"Money talks," one Houstonian said when Texas finally buckled in2001, with $80 million at stake. Now all but 11 states comply, andonly Mississippi allows people to nurse a drink behind thewheel.

In 1982, when the government began tracking, 21,113 people diedin alcohol-related traffic accidents. Today, that figure has fallenmore than 50 percent.

Does that dog carry liability insurance?

Leash laws have definitely gotten stricter. Virtually all stateand national parks now require them - but requiring some dogs tocarry $1 million in liability insurance is definitely a 21stcentury solution.

In Royal Oak, Mich., owners of dogs deemed dangerous must obtaininsurance, take obedience classes, erect signs and take othermeasures or face up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. You can betother municipalities will follow, given perceived liabilityconcerns.

Insurance companies have reason to worry. Dog bite claims nowaccount for more than a third of homeowners insurance liabilityclaims, costing nearly $500 million in 2013. And fatal dog attacksare up 82 percent, according to DogBiteLaw.com. In hindsight, leashlaws seem so quaint.

Children could walk. Outside. Alone.

Writing in the New York Times recently, blogger KJ Dell'Antoniaquoted a 1979 parenting book recommending milestones for6-year-olds: "Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four toeight blocks) to a store, school, playground, or to a friend'shome?"

That's right. Children of the '70s and '80s - and every decadeprior - were not only permitted but were encouraged to navigate theworld sans grownups. How things have changed. Although it's farmore dangerous in a moving car than a sidewalk, a 10-year-old outalone today prompts do-gooders to call police and social servicesto investigate the family.

One Massachusetts town councilor proposed prohibiting childrenfrom even walking to the school bus without parents.

Ask your parents how far they walked by themselves - at age 6 -to the bus stop.

Kids played . . . without adults. What?!

Children of the '70s would be hard-pressed to recall parentsever supervising outdoor play. Parents were at home enjoying theirown free time.

Nothing universally awful occurred to precipitate today'scultural shift away from unsupervised play, say experts. Crimerates are down. But the number of individual, horrifying incidentswe hear about is way, way up. "People don't care about statistics,all they care about is stories," says author Skenazy.

Add cell phones and paranoid neighbors, and you get stories likethis, collected at the FreeRangeKids.org site: a familyinvestigated by social services because a 13-year-old and heryounger siblings were playing by themselves -- in afield next to their house.

According to a 2014 survey, a majority of Americans supportcriminalizing preteens playing outside without adults. "It reallyhas changed childhood," Skenazy says.

The kids really were alright

Comedian Chelsea Handler writes about a babysitting company shelaunched in the 1980s when she was 12.

Fast forward to 2014: A Hollywood film centers around a workingmom who needs to hire an after-school babysitter (Bill Murray,in St. Vincent) for her 12-year-old son.

Homes aren't less safe, but news reports indicate that neighborstoday are: Some have called police upon suspecting that childrenunder 12 were left home alone, even for a few hours.

We embraced dirt

"Ugh! I've been kissed by a dog," Lucy cries in a Peanuts comicstrip. "Get some disinfectant!" Would this classic be funny today,given our attachment to sanitizer gel?

Until 1988, when Purell launched the first commercial gel,anti-microbial soaps were largely the province of hospitals. Nowthey're a $400 million business in the U.S. alone - nearly $1billion when you include anti-bacterial soaps.

Good that the public-health message about hand-washing is out,although plain soap is adequate. But the saturation ofantibacterial agents may be doing more harm than good, contributingto the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria -- something theWorld Health Organization calls "a threat to global healthsecurity" -- and a steep rise in allergies, asthma and other immunedisorders.

People walked. Alone. At night.

According to a 2014 survey, the thing Americans now fear morethan anything is taking a walk alone at night. Forget all thoseworn jokes about people fearing public speaking even more thandeath. Public speaking has dropped to No. 5, right behind "beingthe victim of a mass/random shooting."

Nationwide, crime rates are well below what they were in the1970s. But human beings are innately terrible at calculating risk,and they're wired to remember scary stories, something the 24/7media provides in ample doses. It's no accident that those who weremost fearful in the Chapman University survey were people whowatched a lot of talk shows and true-crime television shows.

Related Articles on Insurance.com

How much insurance do drivers like you buy?

Exclude a problem driver from your policy

How to switch car insurance companies