- 6 hours ago
Seatbelts have saved over 1 million lives since their widespread adoption. Yet some won’t wear them, despite cars’ warning chimes. A look at one of automotive tech’s most effective, but least loved, safety systems.
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00:00Why aren't you buckled up?
00:06Even though seatbelts have saved over a million lives,
00:09are in every new car sold,
00:11and definitely do work.
00:17What makes seatbelts so useful?
00:19How have they evolved?
00:21And how can we get more people
00:23to buckle up?
00:25Rev delves in.
00:27Seatbelts are estimated to have saved over one million lives globally.
00:32Since the widespread adoption of the three-point seatbelt in the 1960s,
00:36they've prevented occupants from being ejected during a crash.
00:40They've reduced the severity of internal injuries
00:42by preventing people from hitting the interiors of a car
00:46or being flung onto other occupants.
00:48They've also held people in the right position
00:51to benefit from airbag deployment,
00:53and have reduced the risk of fatal injuries
00:56in passenger vehicles dramatically.
01:00The safety belt is, although it is 65 years old,
01:03it is still the most important safety device in the car.
01:06A study in 2009 found that seatbelts alone
01:09roughly halved the chance of a fatal or serious injury
01:13from those in the front seat.
01:15Around six out of ten fatally injured, unbelted occupants
01:18would have survived had they worn a seatbelt.
01:21But the overwhelming evidence of the seatbelt's efficacy
01:25hasn't been enough to convince people to use it.
01:28There's always an excuse.
01:29It's only a short trip,
01:31I don't need it while sitting in the rear seat,
01:33or the airbag will protect me.
01:35All incorrect.
01:37If you don't wear the seatbelt,
01:39you will be just free-flying inside the car.
01:42By being connected to the car,
01:44you can benefit from all the safety systems in the car.
01:48Across the world, seatbelt use varies dramatically
01:51by geography and demographic group.
01:53High-income countries like the UK, some EU members,
01:57Japan, and parts of Australia,
01:59report front seat compliance rates above 95%,
02:03while many low- and middle-income regions across Asia,
02:06the Middle East, and Africa see far lower rates.
02:10In some places, fewer than half of all drivers buckle up,
02:13and rear seatbelt use can drop below 20%.
02:17In the United States, usage is high overall but still inconsistent,
02:22with young adults and rural drivers belting up less often
02:25than older or urban ones.
02:27Rear seat compliance remains a global weak point.
02:31Women are significantly more likely to wear seatbelts than men.
02:35Disparities that highlight how cultural norms,
02:38law enforcement, and risk perception shape whether or not
02:41people use one of automotive safety's most effective
02:44life-saving technologies.
02:47It's not uncommon for us to see seatbelts clipped into buckles
02:50but sat upon rather than actually worn,
02:53or even a substitute tongue cut from another vehicle
02:56and insert it into the buckle to try and fool the vehicle
02:59to think that the seatbelt's been worn.
03:02Before we get to why people are so cavalier about seatbelt use,
03:06let's take a closer look at the three-point seatbelt.
03:09The safety belt is actually the only restraining device
03:15that can immediately connect you to the vehicle.
03:18From the first version of the three-point seatbelt in 1959,
03:22cleverly designed to adapt to people of different shapes and sizes,
03:26things kept getting better.
03:28Spring-loaded retractors were added,
03:30which meant the seatbelt would adjust itself.
03:32Pre-tensioners came next, increasing the efficiency of the belt
03:36in crash situations.
03:38Then came electrical retractors and load limiters
03:41that helped with occupant safety in a crash.
03:43There's a lot of things going on behind the B trim or parcel shelf that you don't see.
03:52Seatbelts are very effective safety measures.
03:55Research from the last 45 years agrees on this.
03:57And in an equivalent collision, those who do not wear a seatbelt will receive worse injuries.
04:03But even as the seatbelt has become more effective,
04:07some car users simply aren't convinced.
04:09So why don't people wear seatbelts?
04:12Some believe they're too skilled a driver to get into a life-threatening accident.
04:16Some believe seatbelts aren't needed for short drives,
04:19although data shows that accidents often happen close to home and at relatively low speeds.
04:24And there are other weird theories too.
04:31No matter what you see in the movies,
04:33don't think that being thrown clear of a vehicle is safer than being restrained inside by a seatbelt.
04:38It's not.
04:40Studies conducted in India show that some people don't like wearing seatbelts
04:44because they might crease their clothes,
04:47making road safety awareness campaigns so important.
04:50And typically in low-income countries where not everyone has access to the latest cars,
04:55people often drive used cars that have no seatbelts,
04:58nor systems reminding you to buckle up.
05:01But a far more distressing myth has hounded the seatbelt since its invention.
05:06People believe seatbelts might trap them inside their car in the event of an accident,
05:11making escaping water or flames impossible.
05:14Others believe seatbelts could cause strangulation or neck injuries.
05:18But when worn correctly, that's not a risk.
05:22They think that there's a risk for strangling.
05:25It is really the opposite.
05:27What happens is due to this three-point attachment on one shoulder only,
05:32the other shoulder will roll out a bit,
05:35thereby the seatbelt slides out away from the neck in most crashes.
05:41And that's really what we see in the real world.
05:45We don't see strangling of the seatbelt.
05:48But when seatbelts aren't worn and an accident occurs,
05:51it usually involves three separate collisions.
05:54The first one involves the vehicle and the external object.
05:56The second collision occurs between the unbelted occupant and the vehicle interior.
06:01So this might be the chest hitting the steering wheel.
06:04It might be the head hitting the windscreen.
06:06Or it might be the occupant being ejected entirely from the vehicle.
06:10The third collision occurs when the internal organs of the body hit against the chest wall or the skeletal structure.
06:16The main artery from his heart was torn.
06:19And that's what killed Richard.
06:22Seatbelts reduce injuries by preventing the second collision,
06:25the one where the occupant hits the interior parts of the vehicle or an external object.
06:31Misinformation about the seatbelt has always abounded.
06:34In 1949, Nash Motors became the first company in the U.S. to offer seatbelts on their cars,
06:40but didn't find too many takers.
06:42Ford had a similar experience.
06:45But progress was being made.
06:48Hunter Sheldon, a neurologist from California, studied head injuries due to car accidents
06:53and proposed the idea of the retractable seatbelt.
06:57Hugh Dehaven, the father of crash survivability,
07:00developed the combination shoulder and lap safety belt,
07:04a version of the three-point seatbelt.
07:09Vattenfall, the Swedish state-owned electric company,
07:12tasked their engineers to work on seatbelts to curb employee deaths in road accidents.
07:18And Volvo engineer Nils Bolin perfected the three-point seatbelt,
07:22first installing it in a Volvo PV544
07:25and then in the series production Volvo Amazon.
07:29Over a million lives saved later, the rest is history.
07:32But the work of needing to educate and remind people to wear seatbelts remains.
07:42People don't like being told what to do and believe that mandating the use of seatbelts
07:50infringes on their freedom,
07:52which is why road safety awareness campaigns, ones that are innovative,
07:57are required.
08:12And campaigns that are grizzly are required.
08:15These ads are effective.
08:34Let's look at Germany, where 98% of all occupants wear seatbelts.
08:39East Germany made seatbelts compulsory in 1980.
08:44And though West Germany had made usage mandatory in 76,
08:48they only began fining people for non-compliance in 84.
08:52The laws met with resistance from the auto industry and the general public.
08:56Safety campaigns showing that weightlifter Rudolf Mang and wrestler Wilfried Dietrich
09:01couldn't take the impact of not being buckled up helped.
09:05And the world over, cold hard facts helped too.
09:10I think the best example of the effectiveness of seatbelts is when Britain made it compulsory.
09:15By law, for front seat passengers in cars and light vans to wear a seatbelt.
09:20In just 12 months, there were 27% fewer front seat fatalities.
09:25In two years, over 800 lives in Britain had been saved by the seatbelt law.
09:30But penalties and fines are even more effective than statistics.
09:34In Australia, where seatbelts became mandatory in some states as early as 1970, penalties can be very high.
09:41In Queensland, not wearing a seatbelt, wearing it improperly or driving with passengers unbuckled
09:47can lead to a fine of over 1,000 Australian dollars, around 560 euros.
09:53But constant reminders that occupants must wear seatbelts also help.
09:57There are some that don't use the belt correctly, like taking it under the arm because it's uncomfortable to the neck.
10:07And in those situations, we can address that by comfort.
10:10So that's technical design. It's like modifying things in the car to make it fit more people.
10:16But it all starts with understanding all of this.
10:19Although the one-size-fits-all seatbelts seems to be a good starting point.
10:24The fit of modern three-point belts gives a really good coverage, again, across all sizes and genders.
10:31The fit of seatbelts will vary only a few millimeters between the smallest female and the largest males in the biggest 5% of the population.
10:42Children are the exception.
10:44Which is why children must be strapped into booster seats.
10:48But there's more progress being made.
10:51Automotive safety today is a complex dance between a car's data sensors and safety systems like collision warning, automatic braking, seatbelts and airbags.
11:01Getting more data and processing it as fast as possible is imperative.
11:05Volvo's new multi-adaptive seatbelt marks the next step.
11:09Using vehicle computing to tailor seatbelt performance to each occupant and crash scenario.
11:15While AI helps analyze large datasets, preset validated parameters still provide the safest foundation for restraint systems.
11:24Artificial intelligence and machine learning is a very important tool developing our sensors and the sensing capabilities.
11:34So, to understand what's going on inside and outside of the vehicle.
11:39When it comes to activating our restraint systems, we are still working in a more traditional manner, but using the information from the additional sensors.
11:51So, what's next in the evolution of seatbelts?
11:54Well, with autonomous driving, rotating seats and new cabin layouts on the horizon, seatbelt tech will have to evolve based on how cars are used.
12:04We have explored in different concepts, cars, different ideas, even lying flat.
12:10And, obviously, that's super challenging from a restraint perspective.
12:14When we address challenges like that, we go back to the fundamental protection principles.
12:19And the fundamentals involve getting your geometry right.
12:23So, the seatbelt has to go over your shoulder and across the hip bones.
12:27Children need to be in a booster seat to ensure they're belted correctly.
12:31And pregnant women need to buckle the seatbelt under their belly to make sure it doesn't dig into their abdomen.
12:37Seatbelts are only effective if you buckle up right.
12:42We need people's help.
12:45In order to protect them, we need their help to buckle up.
12:49Because the rest of the work we do then would not benefit them.
12:54My biggest advice as a forensic engineer is to wear a seatbelt.
12:57Whether you're in the front seat or the back seat, whether you're in a four-hour road trip or a five-minute, just into the shops.
13:04Wear your seatbelt properly.
13:06And that's really irrespective if you're in a car or if you're in a bus.
13:11You know, if there's a seatbelt available, use it.
13:15Because it's highly efficient and it will help protect you.
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