On August 13, 2009, Volvo Cars will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its life-saving three-point standard seatbelt.
The year was 1959 when the Swedish automaker delivered the first car equipped with a three-point seatbelt (a PV544 sedan) to a dealer in Kristianstad. This restraint device would go on to save thousands of lives around the world over the next fifty years.
In fact, the seatbelt has become the cornerstone of a passive safety arsenal that keeps expanding and innovating year after year. In most cases, this equipment also includes various airbags and seatbelt pretensioners, among others.
A determining invention
Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin, who worked for Volvo, is credited with the invention of this restraint system. In the mid-1950s, the team at Volvo was working to develop a number of protection devices to prevent or limit injuries resulting from passengers being thrown against parts of the interior or completely out of the vehicle during sudden manoeuvres or collisions. Among the list was a telescopic steering wheel, a padded dashboard and attach points for two-point diagonal front seatbelts.
Since 1957, Volvo indeed had been fitting its vehicles with two-point seatbelts up front. The first few tests conducted with a Y-shaped seatbelt had failed to meet company standards for safety. The inconvenient location of the buckle (at thorax level) caused soft tissue damage instead of protecting the body.
However, the death of a relative of then-Volvo president Gunnar Engellau, partly attributable to inherent defects in the two-point seatbelt, led Mr. Engellau to seek the expertise of Nils Bohlin to design a more effective solution.
The Bohlin idea
Mr. Bohlin soon realized that, in order to maintain the occupant’s body in check, two seatbelts were necessary: one across the pelvis to restrain the hips and another one running from the outside shoulder to the inner hip to restrain the chest.
The main challenge was to design an effective, easy-to-use buckle that would cause no harm to the occupant. Therefore, he came up with the idea of a single three-point seatbelt that could be buckled up using just one hand.
In 1958, his work led to a patent request. He believed his invention incorporated the most significant element yet -- restraining both the hips (or legs) and chest in a physiologically harmless pattern. Also, the lower attach points effectively allowed the seatbelt to stay in place when under load.
The attach points were the main difference between Bohlin’s V-shaped seatbelt and the previous Y-shaped three-point model. In fact, one could argue that his new seatbelt is more the result of geometric perfection than a revolutionary approach to safety.
The year was 1959 when the Swedish automaker delivered the first car equipped with a three-point seatbelt (a PV544 sedan) to a dealer in Kristianstad. This restraint device would go on to save thousands of lives around the world over the next fifty years.
In fact, the seatbelt has become the cornerstone of a passive safety arsenal that keeps expanding and innovating year after year. In most cases, this equipment also includes various airbags and seatbelt pretensioners, among others.
A determining invention
Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin, who worked for Volvo, is credited with the invention of this restraint system. In the mid-1950s, the team at Volvo was working to develop a number of protection devices to prevent or limit injuries resulting from passengers being thrown against parts of the interior or completely out of the vehicle during sudden manoeuvres or collisions. Among the list was a telescopic steering wheel, a padded dashboard and attach points for two-point diagonal front seatbelts.
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| The world’s first three-point seatbelt was fitted to a 1959 Volvo PV544. |
Since 1957, Volvo indeed had been fitting its vehicles with two-point seatbelts up front. The first few tests conducted with a Y-shaped seatbelt had failed to meet company standards for safety. The inconvenient location of the buckle (at thorax level) caused soft tissue damage instead of protecting the body.
However, the death of a relative of then-Volvo president Gunnar Engellau, partly attributable to inherent defects in the two-point seatbelt, led Mr. Engellau to seek the expertise of Nils Bohlin to design a more effective solution.
The Bohlin idea
Mr. Bohlin soon realized that, in order to maintain the occupant’s body in check, two seatbelts were necessary: one across the pelvis to restrain the hips and another one running from the outside shoulder to the inner hip to restrain the chest.
The main challenge was to design an effective, easy-to-use buckle that would cause no harm to the occupant. Therefore, he came up with the idea of a single three-point seatbelt that could be buckled up using just one hand.
In 1958, his work led to a patent request. He believed his invention incorporated the most significant element yet -- restraining both the hips (or legs) and chest in a physiologically harmless pattern. Also, the lower attach points effectively allowed the seatbelt to stay in place when under load.
The attach points were the main difference between Bohlin’s V-shaped seatbelt and the previous Y-shaped three-point model. In fact, one could argue that his new seatbelt is more the result of geometric perfection than a revolutionary approach to safety.