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History of Seat Belts in the U.S.

While early stage coaches sported straps to restrain the driver and passengers, modern seat belt usage developed primarily with the progress of miliary and civilian aviation. The higher speeds and greater G-forces imparted to aircraft occupants made restraints essential to ensure continued control over the aircraft and to minimize injuries arising from an accident. As early as World War I seat belts were installed in military aircraft to make sure combat pilot would remain in his seat during aerial maneuvers.

The use of seat belts in automobiles, however, did not begin in earnest until the mid to late 1950's. Even then, seat belts were considered optional equipment. In 1955, famous actor James Dean died in a spectacular two-vehicle crash in the Southern California desert, which he likely would have survived had he been wearing a seat belt. Probably more so than any other incident, the Dean crash launched a new period of public awareness about seat belt utilization in automobiles and their possible advantages. In 1955, Swedish automaker Volvo was the first manufacturer to offer seat belt systems as standard equipment in its automobiles on a safety first theme. Volvo backed up its claims with a substantial amount of crash testing it independently performed during the 1950's which provided inescapable proof that use of a seat belt during an automobile accident would reduce both fatalities and serious injuries.

Although heightened public awareness about seat belt safety in the United States prompted some American automakers to offer seat belts as optional equipment in their vehicle lines, few customers ordered seat belts and they were never made standard equipment in American cars until the mid 1960's.

In 1963, recognizing a mounting number casualties on the public roads and highways avoidable through seat belt usage, Congress for the first time ordered that minimum federal standards be adopted for safety belts "so that passenger injuries in motor vehicle accidents can be kept to a minimum." (77 Stats. 361) One year later, the U.S. Commerce Department proposed and adopted a variety of regulations governing seat belt adoption, usage and testing which were largely adopted from standards which had previously been issued by the Society of Automotive Engineers ("SAE") (29 F.R. 12736, 16973).

These new regulations, posted at 15 C.F.R.. § 7, et seq. set forth a host of minimum requirements for manufacturers to follow governing the strengths and tolerances of seat belts, buckles, retractors and other restraint system components. In 1966, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which formally established Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards ("FMVSS") providing minimum legally acceptable requirements for the manufacturing of vehicular components, including seat belts and seat belt buckles. This legislation also made the installation of seat belts mandatory by U.S. automakers.

In the late 1960's, heightened public safety concerns over the potential for a lap belt alone to produce serious lower extremity and abdominal injuries during an accident (although perhaps preventing fatal injuries) prompted more regulatory changes to require the use of lap and shoulder belt systems. These integrated restraints are theoretically designed to distribute the accident-retraining forces of the belt system along the body rather than focusing them solely along the pelvis, raising the potential for abdominal injuries caused by the lap belt alone.

In the late 1970's, in an effort to compel a higher degree of public use of seat belt systems, the Federal Government required automakers to install automatic restraint systems, which involved the use of shoulder harnesses on rails and slots which would automatically slide into place when the occupant started the vehicle. However, these mechanically complicated systems were prone to substantial problems, and involved a manually-attached lap belt which many users failed to employ under the mistaken belief that they were automatically and fully restrained. When these occupants were involved in accidents in which their automatic shoulder harness alone was in place, they were subjected to more serious injuries than they likely would have suffered had they been wearing only a lap belt. As a result, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") enacted regulations requiring placards to be placed on the automatic shoulder harness systems warning that they are not to be used without the lap belt. Due to these problems, the U.S. automakers manufacturers were permitted discontinue manufacture of these automatic shoulder restraint systems.

During the mid-1980's, while the automatic restraint systems were being troubleshot in production, crash research was leading to the conclusion that an inflatable air bag could supplement vehicle occupant protection in an accident is used as a supplement to seat belts and shoulder harnesses. Inclusion of these systems in new vehicles began to become mandatory in certain passenger vehicles the early 1990's and are being gradually phased in into other types of vehicles. Air bags, of course, also pose their own risks. Recent concern has arisen over the potential for air bags, during deployment, to cause serious life threatening injuries to certain occupants, such as small children and frail adults, during sudden air bags inflation. Nonetheless, air bags have greatly reduced the number of fatal and serious auto injuries in vehicular accidents, particularly in highway accidents involving greater speeds.

>> NEXT: Seat Belt Buckle Evolution

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