
On July 10, 1962, the US Patent Office issued Swedish engineer
Nils Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – Sept. 26, 2002) a patent for the three-point
seatbelt. Bolin worked for the Volvo Car Corporation and designed his
three-point system in less than a year. Volvo first introduced the seatbelt on
its cars in 1959. Consisting of two straps that joined at the hip level and
fastened into a single anchor point, the three-point belt significantly reduced
injuries by effectively holding both the upper and lower body and reducing the
impact of the swift deceleration that occurred in a crash. [Source]
Volvo released the new seat belt design for free to other car manufacturers and it quickly
became standard worldwide. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of
1966 made seat belts a required feature on all new American vehicles from the
1968 model year onward. The use of seat belts has been estimated to reduce the
risk of fatalities and serious injuries from collisions by about 50 percent [Source]. A
Volvo research team recently found Bohlin’s invention had saved about 1 million lives. [Source]
In 1974, he was awarded The Ralph Isbrandt Automotive Safety
Engineering Award, and in 1989 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Safety
and Health. He received a gold medal from Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering
Science in 1995 and in 1999, was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame. He
retired from Volvo in 1985 and was posthumously inducted into the National
Inventors Hall of Fame. [Source]
Achievements
The three-point seat belt changed the world by preventing
injuries during a car crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
says that the seat belt saves about 11,000 lives each year in the USA alone.
There are also seat belts in airplanes, buses, and is heavily used in sporting
races.
In addition to designing an effective three-point belt, Bohlin
demonstrated its effectiveness in a study of 28,000 accidents in Sweden, and
presented a paper at the 11th Stapp Car Crash Convention. Unbelted occupants
sustained fatal injuries throughout the whole speed scale, whereas none of the
belted occupants was fatally injured at accident speeds below 60 mph. No
belted occupant was fatally injured if the passenger compartment remained
intact.[2] This
study resulted in the U.S. Department of Transportation requiring three-point
seat belts in American cars. In 1968, the new seat belt design was made free
for the public to use. In most industrial countries, occupants are required by
law to use seat belts.
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