History of Seat Belts

Although seat belts have been around since 1885 when Edward J. Claghorn was granted the first patent for a safety belt, the first automobile with a three-point safety belt appeared on August 13, 1959. The automobile was a Volvo PV544. Three-point seat belts are what we see in today's cars. There had been cars with two-point lap belts and some with versions of three-point safety belts, but they weren't very effective, especially at high speed.

Two-point belt

Three-point seat belt

The inventor of the three-point seat belt was engineer Nils Bohlin, who was looking for a better way of keeping people secure in a collision. He came up with the solution that combined a lap belt with a diagonal belt across the chest.

In 1966, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act which included that seat belts must be required for every passenger.

Being called one of the most significant inventions of the 20^th century, the three-point seat belt remains the most widely used safety innovation in automotive history. Every car today is sold with three-point seat belts.

As the years went on laws were passed that required passengers and drivers to wear seat belts. As you will see later on, the laws nowadays for seat belt use varies from state to state.

The most common reasons why people don't wear seat belts are:

• They think it's not important, especially if going a small distance or when traffic is light

• They forget to wear them, especially when they are in a rush

• Wearing a seat belt is too uncomfortable, too tight or cuts across their neck

• Wearing a seat belt is not a "cool" thing to do