Thank you Volvo, for our tree-point belts

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Remember the days that you drove off to your holiday destination without any of the passengers wearing seat belts during a hundreds of miles journey? We have come a long way since. In fact the three-point seat belt was patented on this day in 1962. That’s exactly 55 years ago. The man responsible for the invention of the saftely belt is Nils Ivar Bohlin (then and now), who was contracted to do so by the Volvo Car Corporation. Bohlin had previously worked in the Swedish aviation industry, which had given him experience with safety belts. In cars, they were mostly limited to race car drivers though, and if they did wear seat belts, they were of the two-point type.

Trouble with these was that they caused severe internal injuries in the event of a high-speed crash. Bohlin designed his three-point system with the idea to strap the upper part of the body to the seat too. He did so in less than a year and Volvo introduced it on its cars as early as in 1959. And they’re keen on it ever since. The patent was filed on July 10, 1962 at the U.S. Patent Office. Volvo was nice enough to release the system to other car manufacturers though, and the three-point system quickly became the worldwide standard. By the late 1960s most countries required them on new cars. The laws to wear them followed later, with Australia first in line (1970) and Myanmar coming as the very last (2017!).

(Words editor, pictures Volvo PR)

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