Tag Archives: invention

In the beginning of the 1950s, cars had no safety belts. Volvo, however, were among the early pioneers who started working with and later fitting these lifesaving devices. At first there were the anchor points at the front in 1957, followed by the two-point diagonal belts which were not as effective as required. However, from the late summer in 1959, the ingenious three-point safety belt was introduced by Volvo. It was, and still is, the greatest single life saving solution in the history of the automobile.

The man behind this was Nils Bohlin. He came from the aircraft industry and had worked with ejector seats in jet fighters. But he also had a lot of insight in keeping man in place during retardation. He was convinced that he had found the simple and efficient solution for keeping the occupant safely and properly seated in case of an accident. A diagonal belt over the chest, safely anchored in the B-post of the car, then across the lap in hip height with both belts attached to a fixed anchor-point below the hip of the occupant. Bohlin also wanted the belt to be handled using only one hand.

The patent application was filed in 1958 and on Thursday August 13 1959, the world’s first car with standard-fitted three-point safety belts for the front seats was delivered – a black Volvo PV544 and it went to a customer in Kristianstad in the south of Sweden.

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