Not-So-Passive Restraint
By Peter LloydWithout much thought, you secure your seat belt before driving your car. It’s a good, unconscious habit. But for a while, every time I buckled up, I also wondered why the belts we currently use had to go through so many configurations before they appeared as the elegant, three-point system we use today. Could not someone have invented it as it is today? The answer to this question may surprise you.
The earliest vehicular seat belts were installed in airplanes, not for safety but to give pilots more control of their planes in rough take-offs. In the 1930s doctors began to install seat belts in their cars. They did this to demonstrate the safety advantages. Beginning in the late 40s and into the 50s, seat belts appeared first as an option, then as a safety feature in a few car models. As the safety advantages became clear and cars moved faster through denser traffic, legislation began to enforce seat belt use. And this is where it gets stupid.
First came the lap belt, which draped across your car seat when not in use. Eventually these belts retracted automatically. Then we saw two belts—one for your lap and another across your chest. Some will remember a manual lap belt with an automatic, motorized shoulder belt. I still drive an old Toyota with a manual lap belt and a non-motorized shoulder belt. In these last two configurations, the shoulder belt was anchored to the door. Eventually the seat belt’s convoluted evolution settled on the three-point, one-action, do-it-yourself, automatic retraction system.
What took so long? Why didn’t one clever inventor get it right the first time?
Digging for the answer to this question, I learned that the first three-point seat belt was patented in 1955, refined to something really close to what we use today by Nils Bohlin for Volvo, and introduced as standard equipment in 1959. In short, not only was the three-point system already invented before it became standard in the United States, it was already standard in Sweden.
A little more research reveals that the US auto industry went through several Rube Goldberg-like modifications in order to achieve passive restraint. The old, on-door contraptions were meant to force Americans to use their seat belts. Of course, the belt-to-door anchor could be disconnected with the push of a button, making forced use a fiasco.
The trouble with invention is not inventors. It’s all the nincompoops who restrain an invention after it’s born.
So here we are at the pinnacle of seat-belt design. Or not. Can you improve upon the three-point? You can bet somebody’s working on it.
Follow Up:
Well, I was right. Someone has invented a three-point passive-restraint seatbelt system. Inventor Alfredo Alvarado wrote to inform me that his invention “allows a person to enter and egress in an easy and convenient way.”
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.