Volvo safety: Built into every non-Volvo on the road
If there is one story that shows Volvo is the pioneering
force in automotive safety, it’s the story of the 3 point seat belt.
Nils Bohlin, an engineer at Volvo, invented the three-point seat belt in
1959. The 1950s were a time when pilots and racing drivers wore harnesses, but
seatbelts – where they were fitted in cars – took the form of a rudimentary
two-point waist restraint. In crashes, sometimes these did more harm than good.
The reason the three-point seatbelt is so widely adopted is actually
because Volvo opened up the patent so that any car manufacturer could use it in
their design. They decided that the invention was so significant, it had more
value as a free life saving tool than something to profit from.
Volvo’s managing director Alan Dessell is quoted as saying: “The decision
to release the three-point seat belt patent was visionary and in line with
Volvo’s guiding principle of safety.”
The man who
saved a million livesNils Bohlin, inventor of the three-point seatbelt, received a gold medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science in 1995 and, in 1999, was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Bohlin, a former aviation engineer at Saab who worked on ejector seats,
knew an effective belt must absorb force across the body yet be so easy to use
even a child could buckle up. His ingenious solution took the form of a combined
lap belt with a diagonal belt across the chest. He anchored the straps low
beside the seat so the geometry of the belts formed a “V” with the point
directed at the floor. That design meant the belt would remain in place and not
shift under a load.
According to the latest figures released as part of celebrations
surrounding the 50th anniversary of the invention of the three-point seatbelt,
it has saved a million lives across the world and prevented even more serious
injuries. Reducing your chance of injury or death by at least 50 percent in the
event of a collision, it remains the most successful contribution to safety in
the history of motoring.
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