3-Point Safety Belt Standard

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 This time is about 3-Point Sfety Belt Standard
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Two-point belt not safe enough 
During the latter half of the 1950s, Volvo developed a number of related solutions, all intended to prevent the occupant's impact with the car's interior components or to lessen the severity of the consequences of such impacts in a collision: collapsible steering column, padded dashboard and attachment points for diagonal two-point belts in the front seats. Volvo had already been equipping its cars with standard-fit anchorages for two-point front safety belts back in 1957, but the so-called "diagonal belt" did not have the required potential for developing into the safe solution for which Volvo was aiming.

The reason was that the belt buckle was positioned at the height of the occupant's ribcage. This positioning meant that the buckle damaged the body's soft organs instead of protecting them. Volvo president Engellau also had family experience of traffic fatalities. A relative had died in a road accident owing among other things to shortcomings in the two-point belt.

 He therefore gave Bohlin the brief to develop a better alternative. Bohlin's solution: simple perfection Bohlin soon realised that both the upper and lower body had to be properly secured in place, with one belt across the chest and another across the hips. His biggest challenge was to create a solution that was both simple to use and effective since the belt had to be able to be put on using just one hand. In 1958 his work resulted in a patent application for Nils Bohlin's three-point belt. What Bohlin integrated into his design, and which he regarded as most important for a car safety belt, were four golden rules: the belt consisted of both a hip or lap belt and also a diagonal belt across the upper body, which was positioned correctly from the physiological viewpoint. That is to say across the pelvis and the ribcage, and attached at a low anchorage point beside the seat. The belt geometry formed a "V" with the peak pointing down towards the floor. In addition, the belt stayed in position and did not move when it was under load. This is the crucial difference between the effective V-shaped belt according to Bohlin's design and the previous three-point design of Y-type (Griswold). Bohlin's belt was in fact an effective demonstration of geometrical perfection rather than a cutting-edge innovation. The solution and the benefits of the three-point design soon spread throughout the world since Volvo immediately made Bohlin's patent available to all car makers.

 Volvo first with 3-point belt as standard In 1959, the patented three-point safety belt was introduced in the Volvo Amazon (120) and PV 544 on the Nordic markets. Volvo thus became the first car maker in the world to equip its cars with safety belts as standard. Owing to the two-point belt's relatively poor protective ability and the fact that it was perceived as awkward, customers initially also resisted Volvo's three-point safety belt. Although it was easy to use and both comfortable and effective from the protection viewpoint, it was met with a certain degree of scepticism. Ahead of the launch of the three-point belt in Volvo's cars on markets worldwide, a series of sled tests and trial impacts were first carried out on all the safety belt models available at the time. The results were crystal-clear: Volvo's three-point belt provided by far the best level of protection for the car's occupants. Backed by these results, in 1963 Volvo introduced the three-point safety belt in the USA and on other markets where it was not yet fitted. This meant that all Volvo cars leaving the factory were now fitted as standard with the three-point safety belt in the front seats.

Taken from http://www.volvocars.com/intl/top/about/news-events/pages/default.aspx?itemid=34