Posted on 9/1/2018
When was the first seatbelt birthed? The original seatbelt wasn’t actually invented until the nineteenth century. On February 10, 1885, New York resident, Edward J. Claghorn, was given the first safety belt patent. It was a simple lap strap that used hooks and other attachments to keep people secured to an object. Almost 75 years later, in 1959, the modern-day seatbelt came on the scene when an engineer at Volvo, Nils Bohlin, invented the three-point seatbelt. It was Volvo that inspired the use of seatbelts by becoming the first manufacturer to provide standard seat belts in all of its vehicles. This is one of the reasons why Volvo is recognized as the safety powerhouse that it is currently known as today. This safety feature remained as an optional feature for years. Congress finally recognized that many car fatalities were due to not wearing seatbelts and passed a new minimum federal standard for safety belts in 1963 to lessen fatalities. Once these standards were set ... read more