When you are driving there are lots of things that you need to know and things that you need to be aware of to make you safe on the road – from making sure that you use your lights correctly to what vehicle markings mean and why they are on certain vehicles, like these chapter 8 chevrons https://www.vehiclechevrons.com
Another important thing that everyone knows is a big part of road safety, is wearing your seatbelt. Nowadays, they are a safety feature that is part of every car from the very basic to high end cars, however this hasn’t always been the case.
Seatbelts have been around for a while, the first design of a seatbelt was actually for aircraft in the early 1900s – in the first world war, aircraft design was taking off (pardon the pun!) and there were many new innovations coming in.
The three point seatbelt that we find in cars was first introduced in Britain in 1959 and was designed by a Swedish engineer who worked for the car manufacturer Volvo. This was an important design because it could secure the upper and lower parts of the body with only one strap, and it soon became a widely used design by other car manufacturers.
Because Volvo recognised how important this was for road safety, they made the design available to others to use for no charge.
In 1965, seatbelts started to be installed as standard in new cars in the UK, however, to start with this would often only be in the front seats. As well as this, the fact that they were in the cars didn’t mean that people used them, as wearing a seatbelt was not legally required.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that seat belts would become compulsory to wear when in the car – but still this was only in the front seats. This law was made in 1983, however in 1989, for children it became compulsory for children in the rear seats to wear a seatbelt and finally in 1991, it was made law that all people travelling in a car were legally required to be wearing seatbelts.
Modern seat belts are an essential part of safety in the car, and the use of a seatbelt can reduce the risk of death if in a crash by up to 50% – so it always pays off to wear one.
