When was seatbelts invented

These integrated restraints are theoretically designed to distribute the accident-retraining forces of the belt system along the body rather than focusing them solely along the pelvis, raising the potential for abdominal injuries caused by the lap belt alone.

In the late 's, in an effort to compel a higher degree of public use of seat belt systems, the Federal Government required automakers to install automatic restraint systems, which involved the use of shoulder harnesses on rails and slots which would automatically slide into place when the occupant started the vehicle.

However, these mechanically complicated systems were prone to substantial problems, and involved a manually-attached lap belt which many users failed to employ under the mistaken belief that they were automatically and fully restrained. When these occupants were involved in accidents in which their automatic shoulder harness alone was in place, they were subjected to more serious injuries than they likely would have suffered had they been wearing only a lap belt.

As a result, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration "NHTSA" enacted regulations requiring placards to be placed on the automatic shoulder harness systems warning that they are not to be used without the lap belt.

Due to these problems, the U. During the mid's, while the automatic restraint systems were being troubleshot in production, crash research was leading to the conclusion that an inflatable air bag often referred to as the SRS - supplemental, restraint system could supplement vehicle occupant protection in an accident is used as a supplement to seat belts and shoulder harnesses. Inclusion of these systems in new vehicles began to become mandatory in certain passenger vehicles the early 's and are being gradually phased in into other types of vehicles.

Air bags, of course, also pose their own risks. Recent concern has arisen over the potential for air bags, during deployment, to cause serious life threatening injuries to certain occupants, such as small children and frail adults, during sudden air bags inflation. Nonetheless, air bags have greatly reduced the number of fatal and serious auto injuries in vehicular accidents, particularly in highway accidents involving greater speeds.

The object of a seat belt buckle is to bring two ends of the seat belt together in a junction which will keep the two ends of the belt securely fastened to one another, particularly during the sudden and severe loads imposed during an accident - yet be easy for the occupant to fasten and unfasten in entering and existing the vehicle.

The first seat belt to be mass-produced for this purpose in American vehicles in the 's and early 's closely resembled the type of widely-recognized seat belt buckle still in use on Airliners today, called a "lift-cover" buckle. The restraint system would have a male tongue at one end with a hole or aperture in it, and would be inserted into the female buckle where a spring-loaded latch pin called a pawl would pass into the pawl and hold the tongue firmly into the buckle.

The pin would be extracted when the user lifted up the hinged, spring-loaded buckle cover, releasing the pawl from the aperture in the tongue, allowing the tongue and buckle once again to separate. Early after installation of these buckles, concern arose that the lift-cover could be accidentally dislodged by the occupant's motions inside the vehicle, leaving the user unrestrained in an accident. Fisher designed a buckle which operated similarly as the lift-cover buckle, but substituted a protected button on the side of the buckle for the lift-cover.

This was the first major "side-release" or "top-release" style buckle used on American vehicles. The spring-loaded button would cause the pawl to span into the aperture when the tongue was fully inserted all of the way into the buckle. When the occupant wanted to disengage the tongue and buckle, s he would press the button and the pawl with be pushed out of the tongue's aperture, permitting separation of the tongue and buckle. Fisher or "Maxi-Buckle. In , Fisher patented a smaller side-release buckle which operated identically to the RCF, which differed from the "Maxi-Buckle" only in respect to its miniaturization.

It remains the most numerous buckle installed in American vehicles to date. At the time of its initial conception, the RCF was lightweight, simple in design, easy to manufacture, had few moving parts, was fairly durable, and therefore was relatively inexpensive to manufacture. It therefore became immediately popular with American automakers whom the government involuntarily compelled to make seat belts mandatory equipment in U.

In the early 's the American automakers and their buckle suppliers began a campaign to develop a set belt buckle with a tongue eject feature and a release push button on the end of the buckle, rather than on the side or top.

The initial generation of these tongue-eject feature buckles were side-release buckles. The first of these tongue-eject buckles used in production was manufactured by Hamill, a Division of Firestone now TRW Vehicle Safety Systems and was used as early as and Ford vehicles. Called a "diecast" buckle, the buckle looked remarkably similar to the RCF, but was made by Hamill pursuant to a Swiss patent which announced as its sole purpose, prevention of the danger of "false latching. After two years, Ford went back to the RCF solely to save money on the production costs of the buckle.

However, in the early 's both Ford and General Motors once again directed their buckle suppliers to develop a new end-release buckle with a tongue eject feature.

Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Mary Bellis. Inventions Expert. Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell. Updated October 01, Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary. History of Seat Belts. Oversimplification and Exaggeration Fallacies.

In , Ford tried to emphasize safety options in its vehicles, including the offering of seat belts, which was a novel option for vehicles at the time.

The marketing campaign was spearheaded by Robert McNamara, a Ford executive who just a few years later saw his profile increase significantly as the U. Defense Secretary. In a marketing war, speed won out. Losing a sales battle, Ford soon backed off of the safety language in its marketing—though the report suggests this turned out to be a huge mistake:. Declining sales were the reason given by Ford executives for scrapping the safety campaign.

The implicit rationale was that campaign was that safety hurt sales. Instead of hurting sales, the safety campaign, according to some Ford Division officials, had helped in a bad sales year to sell about two hundred thousand more cars than expected. It had been an important fact, some Ford executives felt, in preventing a disastrous sales year. The impact of the report encouraged the National Highway Safety Bureau, a just-formed predecessor agency to the modern National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to push for the belt to not only be an important add-on for vehicles, but for the device to come standard in all vehicles—a key victory for the automobile safety movement, and one that put safety beyond the whims of marketing.

Thanks to the astute timing of Bohlin and Volvo, the three-point seat belt became a part of the regulations enacted with the American National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of —soon replicated throughout the world—and became the way the public buckled itself in.

Volvo realized that what it had was more important than royalties, and gave away its patented design to other manufacturers, free of charge, to build and improve upon. This move, over the past 60 years, has likely saved hundreds of millions of lives. The seat belt is an important innovation that highlights the value of creating consistent standards for the common good. Recently, Ford raised some eyebrows in the world of automotive news when a just-granted seat belt patent of theirs surfaced.

This edgy teen is happy because their seat belt is heated. The patent is lengthy, discussing the process of adding a heating mechanism to the webbing of a seat belt strap. Ernie Smith is the editor of Tedium, and an active internet snarker. Between his many internet side projects, he finds time to hang out with his wife Cat, who's funnier than he is.

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