It's amazing how one's perspective changes with the passing of time. To illustrate the point, most of those who fall in the senior end of the STREET RODDER readership demographic probably learned to drive in cars that weren't equipped with seatbelts. But today, most of us realize how important seatbelts are and feel as though something is missing if we don't buckle up when sliding behind the wheel.
From a safety standpoint, there certainly have been some significant improvements in automotive design since most of us began driving. But, the seatbelt is arguably the most important safety device ever introduced. Nothing new, Edward J. Claghorn was granted United States Patent #312,085 for a Safety-Belt in 1885. In 1950, seatbelts were offered in Nash Statesman and Ambassador models, the AutoCrat Safety Belt was installed as original equipment by Ford in the 1956 model year, and Chrysler followed shortly thereafter. By the '60s, seatbelts were standard equipment in every vehicle sold in the U.S.
The reason for seatbelts is simple enough. It has to do with one of physics' most well-known laws-an object in motion tends to stay in motion. If the car you are riding in is going 50 mph, you are going 50 mph. If the car comes to a sudden stop against an immovable object, you are still going 50 mph until something stops you. It may be a seatbelt, a steering wheel, or the same light pole that stopped the car.
Before seatbelts, it wasn't uncommon for passengers to be bounced off the internals of the car in an accident, or even ejected from the vehicle in severe circumstances. In fact, the original role of seatbelts was to keep the occupants from leaving the car as a result of a crash. So, how effective are seatbelts? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 75 percent of occupants ejected from the car are killed and seatbelts reduce a person's chances of dying in a crash by 45 percent and from being injured by 50 percent. Of course, another advantage of seatbelts is that they keep the driver behind the wheel during spirited maneuvers. If you've ever slid across a freshly cleaned vinyl seat in the middle of a turn, you know what we mean.
Belt BasicsSeatbelts/harnesses come in a variety of configurations and are classified by the number of attachment points to the vehicle:
Two-Point Seatbelts: The oldest and simplest design, a seatbelt anchored at two points fits across the occupant's waist. They are basically designed to keep the occupants from being ejected from the car; they are certainly the easiest to retrofit to older cars and are better than no belts at all.