It is easy to make broad assumptions about how people of past eras viewed safety. Without spending the time to dig through archival data and personal accounts it would look like people in the 1920s didn’t care much for children’s safety. Playing unaccompanied in the street was common practice, surrounded by waste, animals, and traffic. When cars came on to the scene children were the most negatively affected. It was young children who were most frequently involved in automobile accidents. In the graph shown below from Philadelphia in 1928, the highest proportion of pedestrians involved in an accident with a motor vehicle were children between the ages of 4 and 8 (Norton). 

Although it would look like traffic safety was not a priority of the general public, the opposite was the case. When cars started to appear on city streets en masse in the 1920s, they were unwelcomed guests. People viewed the streets as pedestrian, walking was the most legitimate form of transportation, and accidents with pedestrians generated huge pushback against motorists (Norton). Public media took the side of pedestrians as well, newspapers published scathing articles against reckless motorists. There was even a silent film that portrayed the death of a child from a car as martyrdom (Ward). 

In the mid-1920s the narrative was successfully flipped by automotive groups, namely AAA, the American Automobile Association. They started public safety programs that educated children on the dangers of traffic. This education created the responsibility for pedestrians, specifically children, to look out for themselves (Ward). At this point, motorists could point the finger back at pedestrians. If a child got hurt in a car accident it was their own fault for not paying attention to the road, or not following the safety protocols they were being taught in school. (Norton) This program was immensely effective in changing public attitude, the car cemented its place in American culture.