Volvo Seat Belts Can Save Lives
by EVANDER KLUM
Safety features installed in cars today are extensively developed to save lives. From the newest braking technology to the rear camera introduced in SUVs, these innovations have helped a lot of motorists avoid road accidents. Volvo, the Swedish car maker, continuously enhances its vehicles' safety features. One of its standard equipment is the Volvo seat belt. The Volvo seat belt is a safety gear engineered to protect both the driver and passengers of a vehicle against dangerous movement resulting from a strong impact or an unexpected halt. It comprises an overall occupant restraint system that has the purpose of lessening the injuries the seatbelt wearer may incur, if not avoiding them altogether. This works effectively as Volvo seat belts prevent the wearer from colliding with the vehicle��s hard interior parts and other passengers, and most importantly, from being hurled out of the vehicle.
There are different types of seat belts, some of which were first introduced by Volvo. Nils Bohlin of Sweden invented the three point seat belt for Volvo, which became a standard equipment on Volvo cars since 1959. The three point seat belt is comparable to the lap and sash, except that it has a webbing of single continuous length. In a collision, this type of Volvo seat belt assists in spreading out the moving body��s energy over the chest, pelvis, and shoulders. Another Volvo first is the criss-cross type seat belt. It was launched in the Volvo SCC as an experimental safety belt, forming a cross-brace across the wearer's chest.
Most seat belts have locking mechanisms through the use of a centrifugal clutch, weighted pendulum or ball bearing. The centrifugal clutch connects with the rapid reel spin, while the weighted pendulum or ball bearing secures into pawls on the reel. Thus the belt constricts when pulled hard, but not when it is pulled slowly. In newer vehicles, seat belts have pretensioners and webclamps. Pretensioners act instantly as defensive belt constrictors in the event of a car crash, preventing the driver and passengers alike from jerking forward and decreasing the load on them. They are likened to airbags as they are also prompted by the sensors in the car��s body. Most of them employ a particular type of gas that expands and explodes, directing a piston to retract the belt. On the other hand, webclamps, as the name implies, clamp the webbing during a car crash and control the distance the webbing can spool out.
