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KF5JRV > TODAY 10.07.19 13:52l 11 Lines 2359 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 10329_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jul 10
Path: IZ3LSV<F1OYP<ON0AR<VE2PKT<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 190710/1151Z 10329@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
The United States Patent Office issues the Swedish engineer Nils Bohlina patent for his three-point automobile safety belt “for use invehicles, especially road vehiclesö on this day in 1962.
Four years earlier, Sweden’s Volvo Car Corporation had hired Bohlin, whohad previously worked in the Swedish aviation industry, as the company’sfirst chief safety engineer. At the time, safety-belt use in automobileswas limited mostly to race car drivers; the traditional two-point belt,which fastened in a buckle over the abdomen, had been known to causesevere internal injuries in the event of a high-speed crash. Bohlindesigned his three-point system in less than a year, and Volvointroduced it on its cars in 1959. Consisting of two straps that joinedat the hip level and fastened into a single anchor point, thethree-point belt significantly reduced injuries by effectively holdingboth the upper and lower body and reducing the impact of the swiftdeceleration that occurred in a crash.
On August 17, 1959, Bohlin filed for a patent in the United States forhis safety belt design. The U.S. Patent Office issued Patent No.3,043,625 to “Nils Ivar Bohlin, Goteborg, Sweden, assignor toAktiebolaget Volvoö on July 10, 1962. In the patent, Bohlin explainedhis invention: “The object… is to provide a safety belt whichindependently of the strength of the seat and its connection with thevehicle in an effective and physiologically favorable manner retains theupper as well as the lower part of the body of the strapped personagainst the action of substantially forwardly directed forces and whichis easy to fasten and unfasten and even in other respects satisfiesrigid requirements.ö
Volvo released the new seat belt design to other car manufacturers, andit quickly became standard worldwide. The National Traffic and MotorVehicle Safety Act of 1966 made seat belts a required feature on all newAmerican vehicles from the 1968 model year onward. Though engineers haveimproved on seat belt design over the years, the basic structure isstill Bohlin’s.
The use of seat belts has been estimated to reduce the risk offatalities and serious injuries from collisions by about 50 percent. In2008, an all-time high 83 percent of front-seat occupants in the UnitedStates buckled their seat belts.
73, Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV @ KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email: KF5JRV@GMAIL.com
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