A milestone in vehicle safety shared at no cost

A common feature of passenger safety in motor vehicles came about with the introduction of the three point seat belt. The first car model to have the three point seat belt as a standard item was the Volvo 122 way back in 1959.

The familiar three point belt was developed by Nils Bohlin while working at Volvo. In an act of great social responsibility, Volvo made the new seat belt design patent open, in the interest of safety and made it available to other car manufacturers for free. I question how many other car companies would have taken this approach?

In addition to designing the seat belt, Engineer Bohlin demonstrated its effectiveness in a study of 28,000 accidents in Sweden. Unbelted occupants sustained fatal injuries throughout the whole speed scale, whereas none of the belted occupants were fatally injured at accident speeds below 100kph. Furthermore, no belted occupant was fatally injured if the passenger compartment remained intact in any accident, at any speed. I understand that this study was done with the less effective 2 point seat belt.

I wonder how many lives have been saved by Bohlin and Volvo in the nearly 55 years since its launch. A more vexed question is why do some people still not wear seat belts and put themselves at risk? The tragic death of Princess Diana is the first to come to mind.