Effectiveness




An analysis conducted in the United States in 1984 compared a variety of seat belt types alone and in combination with air bags. The range of fatality reduction for front seat passengers was broad, from 20% to 55%, as was the range of major injury, from 25% to 60%. More recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has summarized these data by stating "seat belts reduce serious crash-related injuries and deaths by about half." Most seatbelt malfunctions are a result of there being too much slack in the seatbelt at the time of the accident.unreliable source?

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History

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Seat belts were invented by English engineer George Cayley to use on his glider, in the mid-19th century. By 1950, almost every race-car driver used safety seat belts. In 1946, Dr. C. Hunter Shelden opened a neurological practice at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California. In the early 1950s, Dr. Shelden made a major contribution to the automotive industry with his idea of retractable seat belts. This came about from his care of the high number of head injuries coming through the emergency room. He investigated the early seat belts whose primitive designs were implicated in these injuries and deaths. To reduce the high level of injuries he was seeing, he proposed, in late 1955, retractable seat belts, recessed steering wheels, reinforced roofs, roll bars, automatic door locks, and passive restraints such as the air bag. Subsequently, in 1966, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act requiring all automobiles to comply with certain safety standards....
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Technology

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Locking retractors edit The purpose of locking retractors is to provide the seated occupant the convenience of some free movement of the upper torso within the compartment while providing a method of limiting this movement in the event of a crash. Starting in 1996, all passenger vehicle seatbelts must lock pre-crash meaning they have a locking mechanism in the retractor or in the latchplate. Seat belts are stowed on spring-loaded reels called "retractors" equipped with inertial locking mechanisms that stop the belt from extending off the reel during severe deceleration. There are two main types of inertial seat belt locks. A webbing-sensitive lock is based on a centrifugal clutch activated by the rapid acceleration of the strap (webbing) from the reel. The belt can be pulled from the reel only slowly and gradually, as when the occupant extends the belt to fasten it. A sudden rapid pull of the belt—as in a sudden braking or collision event—causes the reel to lock, restraining ...
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