Volvo Three-Point Safety Belt
More than a million people globally are estimated to have survived a car accident thanks to a 50-year-old invention designed by Volvo – the three-point safety belt.
The three-point seatbelt as we know it today was created by Volvo in 1959 and the manufacturer was so convinced of its safety potential that it made the patent available for other manufacturers, and motorists, to benefit from.
And although we may now take it for granted, modern technological developments, such as seat belt pre-tensioners, are designed to work in conjunction with the same basic design of the seatbelt, so it remains the single most important safety feature on all modern cars.
Volvo was also the first manufacturer to fit three-point safety belts as standard equipment in its cars, from 1963. Now required by law in modern cars, it continues to protect hundreds of thousands of people from death or serious injury in car accidents every year.