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KF5JRV > TODAY 10.07.20 12:35l 48 Lines 2239 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 53511_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jul 10
Path: IZ3LSV<DB0ERF<DB0RES<ON0AR<OZ5BBS<CX2SA<N9PMO<KM8V<KE0GB<KF5JRV
Sent: 200710/1124Z 53511@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.20
The United States Patent Office issues the Swedish engineer
Nils Bohlin a patent for his three-point automobile safety
belt “for use in vehicles, especially road vehiclesö on
July 10, 1962.
Four years earlier, Sweden’s Volvo Car Corporation had
hired Bohlin, who had previously worked in the Swedish
aviation industry, as the company’s first chief safety
engineer. At the time, safety-belt use in automobiles was
limited mostly to race car drivers; the traditional
two-point belt, which fastened in a buckle over the
abdomen, had been known to cause severe internal injuries
in the event of a high-speed crash. Bohlin designed his
three-point system in less than a year, and Volvo
introduced it 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.
On August 17, 1959, Bohlin filed for a patent in the United
States for his safety belt design. The U.S. Patent Office
issued Patent No. 3,043,625 to “Nils Ivar Bohlin, Goteborg,
Sweden, assignor to Aktiebolaget Volvoö on July 10, 1962.
In the patent, Bohlin explained his invention: “The object…
is to provide a safety belt which independently of the
strength of the seat and its connection with the vehicle
in an effective and physiologically favorable manner
retains the upper as well as the lower part of the body
of the strapped person against the action of substantially
forwardly directed forces and which is easy to fasten and
unfasten and even in other respects satisfies rigid
requirements.ö
Volvo released the new seat belt design 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. Though engineers
have improved on seat belt design over the years, the
basic structure is still Bohlin’s.
The use of seat belts has been estimated to reduce the
risk of fatalities and serious injuries from collisions
by about 50 percent.
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