Who invented seat belts for cars

It was a simple strap that would go across your lap and secure you to a fixed object. Seat belts were getting famous but it was still not widespread. Then the next major breakthrough for seat belts came in by Dr C.

Hunter Shelden. He contributed to other safety systems as well such as recessed steering wheels and the idea of airbags.

Around the s almost all racing cars adopted seat belts and someplace made it mandatory for a car to have a seat belt in order to be eligible in a race. These were Nash and Ford. A company from Sweden named Saab was, however, the first automobile company to provide seat belts as a standard.

During this time people were still trying to make seat belts better. Another breakthrough in the history of seat belts came in when two Americans named Roger W Griswold and Hugh DeHaven designed the first iteration of the 3-point seatbelt that we see in cars today. This was later improved by Nils Bohlin, a Swedish inverter working for Volvo that made the modern 3-point seatbelt that we currently use. He was hired by Volvo as a chief safety engineer.

At that time a relative of the CEO of Volvo had died in a car accident which prompted the company to promote car safety and make stronger and safer cars.

This decision proved to be very beneficial to the world. Today the three-point seat belt is an absolute requirement in all cars, trucks and partly in buses. So, you could say that there is a little — but very important — part of Volvo in every vehicle on the road. The seat belt has been credited with saving more than one million lives and is widely considered among the most cost-effective public health interventions.

It has also prevented or reduced the severity of injuries among many millions of other road users. During the years many still felt skeptical whether this kind of protective measure would improve safety enough to constitute it. With all the knowledge we have today the importance of the three-point seat belt should be obvious, particularly when it comes to intercity and long distance travels where the vehicle cruises at the higher speeds.

Unfortunately legal requirements still only applies to the driver, guide and some more exposed passenger seats. So, Volvo Buses continue to advocate for all bus occupants until it become a standard feature. On July 17, , one of the oddest musical pairings in history comes to an end when Jimi Hendrix dropped out as the opening act for teenybopper sensations The Monkees. The booking of psychedelic rock god Jimi Hendrix with the made-for-television Monkees was the brainchild of An ammunition ship explodes while being loaded in Port Chicago, California, killing people on July 17, Poor procedures and lack of training led to the disaster.

The decisions reached at the conference ostensibly settled many of the pressing issues between the three wartime allies, but the meeting was Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Civil Rights Movement.

Space Exploration. Sign Up. The real breakthrough with modern seat belts came in when Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seatbelt. Up until this point, seat belts in cars were two-point lap belts, which strapped across the body, with the buckle placed over the abdomen.

Volvo hired Bohlin in and he designed the seat belts we know today through a three point seat belt that better protects the driver and passenger in an accident.

The three point design was created to help secure both the upper and lower body. Better yet, this seat belt design was simple and effective, leading other car manufacturers to borrow the design.

When Bohlin passed away in , Volvo had estimated that the seat belt had saved more than one million lives in the four decades since it was introduced. Once the idea of safety benefits of seat belts caught on in the U. Auto companies offered seat belts as optional equipment and were even sold at local gas stations.

Since , American vehicles are required to have seat belts in their cars. As such, by , most first-world countries had a seat belt requirement in their cars. Once they became more common in cars, laws soon followed afterwards. In the U. Though they were required by law to be in cars, wearing seat belt laws were a different story. Currently, all states have a seat belt enforcing law.