It's thanks to a pilot that we buckle up

JIM ROSS FILE PHOTO/TORONTO STAR

The three-point seatbelt, co-developed by the late Hugh DeHaven, hasn't changed much since it was invented. Laws mandating seatbelts came into place decades ago, thanks to American consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

Mark Toljagic

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

"Stylistic vehicle pornography." That's the accusation automakers faced from auto safety advocate Ralph Nader in the 1950s. He was criticizing them for their focus on overwrought chrome grilles and soaring tailfins rather than addressing the 40,000 fatalities that occurred annually on U.S. roads.

For their part, industry leaders were convinced that an emphasis on a safety features wouldn't sell, and indeed would frighten the public.

While Nader has long been known for drawing attention to unsafe vehicle design, he acknowledged an earlier safety pioneer who produced the research that made his arguments for seatbelts, padded dashboards and safety glass compelling.

Hugh DeHaven was a pilot, engineer and researcher who, as a young American volunteer in the Canadian Royal Flying Corps, was involved in a mid-air collision with another airplane during gunnery practice in 1917.

DeHaven survived the crash with two broken legs and a ruptured liver, pancreas and gallbladder, yet marvelled at how the other pilot managed to walk away from his own wrecked plane.

He concluded that his internal injuries were caused by a poorly designed safety belt and that hard surfaces inside the cockpit were often the cause of serious injury. His harrowing experience led to his lifetime of research into crashworthiness of vehicles.

DeHaven advocated for the use of energy-absorbing materials inside airplanes and automobiles, discovering that "a velocity of 50 mph against a surface that would bend or dent five or six inches caused less force on the head than slipping and hitting ice."

In 1939, DeHaven recommended the use of helmets and seatbelts "at a 45-degree angle" in airplanes. He invented the inertial reel, which would take up slack in a seatbelt, and a dashboard design that could minimize injury.

He wasn't the only one concerned with vehicle safety. In the 1930s, several U.S. doctors equipped their own cars with lap belts and began urging manufacturers to provide them in all new cars.

It would be years before Detroit would listen. Nash (the forerunner to AMC) and Ford first offered lap belts as options in 1949 and 1955 respectively, while the Saab GT 750 was the first production vehicle to feature them as standard equipment in 1958.

In 1955, DeHaven received a U.S. patent for his "combination shoulder and lap safety belt" – the first three-point seatbelt – which proved to be a vast improvement over the conventional lap belt because it spread the crash forces to the strong parts of the human skeleton: the pelvis and rib cage.

It's been said DeHaven invented the modern three-point seatbelt, while Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin – another aviation man – refined it and made it practical to use. The Volvo PV544, featuring the world's first standard three-point seatbelt, was sold in Sweden in 1959.

The innovation was introduced to North Americans in 1963, but despite the fact Volvo had an open patent on the technology – effectively giving every manufacturer free use of the design – the futuristic seatbelt failed to stir much interest.

Thanks to Nader's groundbreaking 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed, whose publicity contributed to the unanimous passage of the 1966 U.S. National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the buying public and manufacturers warmed to the safety message.

Seatbelts became mandatory equipment for all manufacturers.

In 1967, Volvo continued to blaze the trail by installing lap belts in the rear seats – unbelted rear passengers were found to increase the risk of death for belted front-seat occupants by nearly five times – and upgraded them to three-point belts in 1972.

So perfect was DeHaven's and Bohlin's invention that the three-point belt hasn't really changed in half a century. Variations on the design have produced five-, six- and seven-point harnesses, which are commonly found in racing cars and fighter jets.

With compliance an issue in the U.S., warning lamps and buzzers were mandated to remind people to buckle up. "Passive" belts, partially mounted on the vehicle's doors or door frames, automatically wrapped around the driver and front passenger. Unfortunately, the system was somewhat useless without the manual lap belt in use.

More recently, belt pretensioners and force limiters have advanced the effectiveness of the three-point belt. They work by tightening the belt across the torso, and then releasing a set amount of slack so the body can be restrained as gently as possible. Both systems engage within a few thousandths of a second, using sensors that measure forces impacting the vehicle chassis.

Today, the three-point seatbelt works in concert with airbags to reduce the likelihood of occupant injuries. But it doesn't end there.

Automakers are experimenting with four-point belts, similar to a racing harness, although they can be too restrictive and harder to use. Honeywell has developed a "smart fibre" seatbelt material that stretches in a controlled manner in a car crash, easing stress and trauma to the body.

Ford has demonstrated an inflatable safety belt, consisting of a shoulder belt containing an airbag that instantaneously inflates during a collision. It effectively expands the standard two-inch-wide belt into a restraint that can better absorb crash forces.

What's gratifying is that the research is now driven by manufacturers who are converts to the "safety sells" message.

Hugh DeHaven was fortunate enough to have witnessed the cultural change in his lifetime (he died in 1980), knowing that his research into the three-point seatbelt would save one million lives and counting.

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