The origin of car seat belts
Indisputable facts prove that since the invention of car seat belts 40 years ago, they have saved countless lives and are an important factor in driving safety. important contribution. To this end, the U.S. Safety Honor Memorial Hall recently admitted Nie Boline, the inventor of the three-point safety belt, to join the ranks of safety honors.
Ni Poulin was originally a designer of Saab aircraft and came to work for Volvo Car Company in Detroit in 1958. He thought, when the car encounters an emergency braking or collision, how can the driver and passengers be firmly fixed in their seats to withstand the violent impact and not be injured? He believed that the entire human body could only be secured by using a belt that spanned the chest on one side and the waist and hips on the other, fastening it from top to bottom from the same fixed point. This is the three-point car seat belt that people are already familiar with today.
Ironically, Nie Poulin, the inventor of the car seat belt, designed an ejection seat in the aircraft cabin when he was a Saab aircraft designer. This kind of seat can be used in emergency situations. The driver is ejected from the cabin to protect his life, which is completely opposite to the car seat belt that fixes the person in the seat in an emergency. One solid and one bullet is also a major invention that saves lives.
As early as 1957, Volvo had planned to install a two-point "diagonal" seat belt with adjustable length on its own cars, but it was not implemented due to unsatisfactory safety. After 1958, Ni Boulin began to design three-point seat belts.
In 1963, Volvo Car Company began to register Ni Bolin's three-point car safety belt and assemble it on its own cars, introducing safety belts to Americans who were still skeptical at the time. At the same time, Volvo also provided their seat belt invention for free to other car manufacturers to promote this life-saving invention.
It was not until 1967, when the United States passed legislation requiring seat belts to be worn when driving or riding in a car, that the three-point seat belt became widely accepted.
Subsequently, Volvo showed vehicles equipped with seat belts and design materials abroad. Among the 28,000 car accidents in Sweden, Volvo vehicles equipped with seat belts reduced the number of casualties in the accidents by about 50%-60%.