FLEETDRIVE
05 Automatic seatbelts
There’ s no doubt about it— the seatbelt is one of the longest-standing safety features of a car. Seatbelts were available en masse as early as 1949 and then as an option by Ford in 1956. Not everyone was onboard with seatbelts at first. It didn’ t take until 1970 for the first compulsory seatbelt law in the world to be established in the state of Victoria.
Automatic shoulder and lap belts were introduced in vehicles by General Motors( GM), Honda Civic hatchback models, and Nissan Sentra models. These belts differ from the common three-point manual belt in terms of where they are attached to the vehicle. Automatic seatbelts are attached to the car door, while manual seatbelts are usually attached to a fixed part of the vehicle.
A 2004 case study found that these automatic seatbelts actually offered less protection for vehicle occupants compared to manual, fixed seatbelts. Since automatic seatbelts are attached to the door, the study found that, in an event of a crash, the occupant may be thrown out of the vehicle.
QUIT Manual seatbelts stay. As the saying goes,“ if it ain’ t broke, don’ t fix it.”
MISS It is a good idea that can stay but obviously needs fine-tuning.
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