Not many know Nils Bohlin outside the automobile realm. But the Swede is attributed with inventing one of the greatest inventions in the automobile space. First introduced on the Volvo 122, Bohlin developed the three-point seatbelt system back in 1959, which was later distributed by the company to other manufacturers, for free. Sixty-three years later, it is hard now to imagine cars without them, and is the safest choice drivers and passengers can make. Another reason why more than 1 million people owe Volvo a significant debt of gratitude.
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Born in Härnösand, Sweden, Bohlin received a diploma in mechanical engineering from Härnösand Läroverk in 1939, before working with aircraft maker Svenska Aeroplan AB in 1942 as an aircraft designer. Here, he helped the company develop ejection seats, yet another safety measure attributed to Bohlin. After spending more than a decade with the Swedish company, Bohlin joined Volvo in 1958 as a safety engineer.
A three-point seat belt for all three seats at the rear is a standard fitment on all current crop of Volvo cars.
At the time, Gunnar Engellau was Volvo’s president and had suffered personal loss from a road traffic accident, partly because of shortcomings in the two-point belt design. This tragedy invigorated Engellau and tasked Bohlin to reinvent the historic 2-point belt design into a comfortable and acceptable solution.
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A year and hundreds of experiments later, Bohlin managed to design a three-point safety belt in 1959, but it took Volvo another decade to verify its efficacy and persuade Swedes to use the new design in their cars. It was not before 1975 that seat belt usage in Sweden increased to a whopping 90 per cent of cars in the country, and eventually became a standard fitment in all Volvo cars.
The Swedish carmaker patented the design of the three-point seat belt but instead of charging exorbitant amounts of money from rivals to use their technology, Volvo gave it away for free, with a view that safety should not be compromised on any level. The company circulated its designs to competitors and encouraged the mass adoption of modern-day seat belts.
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The three-point safety belt has saved hundreds of thousands of lives since the 1960s and is found in every car of the 21st century. This surely makes the three-point safety belt among the most important innovations in Volvo’s 130-year history, and remains, to date, the greatest invention of Nils Bohlin.
