From a letter to the editor in the March 17, 1906 NYT:

It is especially desirable for the driver to sit on the left in an automobile, because, in case of collision, under the present custom, it is the passenger who is liable to be hurt, and this passenger is usually a woman.

There would be fewer collisions if the driver had to take the bump.

This sounds like a quasi-Peltzman solution to bad driving. For those not familiar, here is one explanation from fellow DOLer Michael Munger and one that is less sympathetic.

The basic idea is that if a bad driver imposes potential negative externalities on the rest of us, then seat belts and other safety measures, while laudable in as much as they protect the innocent, have the potential downside in encouraging even more risky (and dangerous) behavior by the bad driver. If a bad driver bore the entire cost of his bad behavior, then it is possible his driving would change. Whether the benefits of safety legislation outweigh the negatives is, of course, an empirical question.

What I find neat about little statements like the one from the NYT is that people were thinking like economists long before we economists came along.