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Nils Bohlin, who has died aged
82, invented the three-point seatbelt,
one of the most important
innovations in the history of the car industry; according to estimates
by safety campaigners, the device has saved more than one million
lives in the last 40 years.
Two-point seat belts had been introduced in 1949 by Nash Motors,
but it was not until the mid-1950s that most car makers began offering
them as optional safety features. These rather rudimentary devices
crossed over a passenger's lap, fastening over the abdomen; and
while they improved passenger safety, they remained far from perfect,
as they did not constrain the upper body, so that nasty head, spinal
and internal injuries continued to occur.
In the 1950s, the Swedish car maker Volvo began to research alternative
designs and came up with a diagonal two-point belt. But during crash
tests, the Volvo engineers found that, since the belt crossed the
body above its centre of gravity, the driver tended to slip downwards
and under the safety belt, which then caught him around the neck.
In 1958, Volvo's president, Gunnar Engellau, recruited Nils Bohlin,
an aerospace engineer who had been involved in the development of
ejector seats and pilot rescue systems for supersonic aircraft.
After a year of research, the breakthrough came with Bohlin's realisation
that both the upper and lower body could be held securely in place
with one strap across the chest and one across the hips, with the
joint for the two belts located just next to the occupant's hip.
It was an elegant solution, so simple that a person could buckle
up with one hand.
In 1959, Volvo became the first car maker to introduce the three-point
belt, initially only in its home market; but by 1963 all Volvos
came equipped with front seat belts and the design was made freely
available to all car makers. In 1966, the company released the 28,000
Accident Report which claimed that the belt had already saved thousands
of lives, reducing the risk of injury or death in car accidents
by 75 per cent.
The report played a decisive role in persuading national governments
to introduce legislation requiring the mandatory fitting, and later
wearing, of seatbelts.
Nils Bohlin was born in the central Swedish city of Haernosand,
on July 17 1920. After graduating in Mechanical Engineering from
Haernosand Laroveik, he joined the aerospace industry, becoming
a design engineer at the Saab Aircraft Company.
At Volvo, he served from 1959 to 1969 as chief of the automotive
safety department and interior design. He then was assigned to the
central research and development department within the Volvo group,
and later took the position of chief research engineer. In 1985,
he finally retired.
During its 43-year history very few changes have been made to Bohlin's
original design. The inertial reel was introduced in 1968. Subsequent
improvements included tensioners to eliminate slack, force limiters
to control the forces needed to restrain the user, and simpler,
more effective buckles.Bohlin lectured widely on traffic safety
topics at conferences throughout the world. He died the day that
he was inducted into the American National Inventors' Hall of Fame.
Nils Bohlin is survived by his wife, Maj-Britt, and by three children
and two stepchildren.
27 September 2002
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