Happy Friday! I hope that your week was great!
Well, I learned a couple of new things this week. As a follow-up from last week (Jim Morrison), there is an informal club called the "27 Club" whose "members" are popular musicians, sports figures, actors and others who died at age 27. Besides Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, they include Andres Escobar (soccer player). Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, Jean-Michel Basquiat (painter), Chance Perdomo (TV actor), Joseph Carey Merrick (Elephant Man) and Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) among others. There are 48 members listed and they always have a problem getting a quorum at their annual meeting. (Just kidding, it's tragic.)
Next fun fact – today is national Clerihew Day. What in the hoo is a clerihew? It is a 4-line poem of rhyming couplets of AA/BB with a person's name in the first line, something said about the person and humorous. The first Clerihew was written by English novelist and humorist Edmund Clerihew Bently (1875-1956) who wrote his first Clerihew at age 16. Thanks to his parents for giving him that amusing middle name!
On this day in 1959, the U.S. issued a patent for a three-point seatbelt. This may seem mundane but let's explore the history of seatbelts. The first seatbelt was invented in the mid-1800s but Sir George Cayley in Yorkshire, England. Cayley was also interested in flight and built the first successful manned glider 50 years before the Wright Brothers took their historic plane ride. Yes, it had a lap belt so the pilot would not fall out. In fact, his first test flight crash landed, but the pilot survived.
Edward Claghorn of New York City received the first U.S. patent for a vehicular seatbelt in 1885. It was designed for taxis and was comprised of a strap that was hooked to the seat, more like a harness. Barry Oldfield used the first seatbelt used at the Indy 500 in 1922 (going 60 MPH). Prior to that, the prevailing wisdom was that it was safer to be thrown from the car in a crash than to stay inside and potentially get burned. Manufacturers were also afraid that adding too many safety features would send the message that the cars were unsafe.
Seatbelts were first offered in American cars by Nash in 1949 models. However, of the 40,000 cars produced with seatbelts, only 1000 had been used and buyers did not want them. Ford offered them in their 1956 models, with 20% of buyers ordering them from the factory and another 10% having them dealer installed.
A good story has a hero who is a neurologist! Dr. C. Hunter Shelden, who worked at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California studied many head injuries he saw from auto accidents and published a paper in 1955 proposing retractable seatbelts, recessed steering wheels, reinforced roofs, roll bars and passive restraints such as air bags.
Glenn Sheren of Madison, Michigan, filed a patent in 1955 for an automotive seatbelt that was awarded in 1958. The first modern 3-point seatbelt was patented the same year by Roger W. Griswold and Hugh DeHaven from Cornell University. Saab introduced them as standard equipment in 1958.
Nils Bohlin, the Volvo Car Corporation's first chief safety engineer, further developed the three-point seatbelt in 1959 and Volvo was the first to feature it in their new cars, for free. They also allowed other manufacturers to have the design for free. When Bolin died in 2002, it was estimated that his seatbelt saved over a million lives in four decades. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002 for his contributions to automotive safety. Volvos still have the reputation for being very safe cars
The first compulsory seatbelt law went into effect in 1970 in Victoria, Australia, requiring all front-seated passengers to wear them.
The U.S. mandated that all new cars be equipped with seatbelts in 1968. However, it did not specify a particular design, so most cars just had lap belts. Some of you may remember riding in cars that had no restraints at all prior to this legislation. Trying to take this a step further, in 1973, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration required all new cars to install a seatbelt interlock mechanism to prevent a car from starting until the driver's seabelt was buckled. Although the device was inexpensive, auto makers were not enthusiastic about it. There was also public outcry that the government was interfering with the personal right to die in a car crash. Congress repealed the law the next year.
Wisconsin was the first state to require all new cars to have seatbelts in the front seats but there was no specification that passengers had to wear them.
New York was the first state to require the use of seatbelts for those in the front seat in 1983, imposing a $50 fine for noncompliance. I recall people being pulled over for seatbelt violations back when the police had time to focus on driving citations. Now seatbelts are also required for New Yorkers aged 13 and older sitting in the back seat. New Hampshire, whose state motto is "Live Free or Die", is the only state that does not require adults to wear seatbelts, just children under 18. That was not the initial intention of the state motto but...
What is the principle behind the seatbelt's effectiveness? Elementary, My Dear Watson. When a car is in motion, the car and its passengers travel at the same speed. If the vehicle suddenly stops or crashes, it stops moving but the passengers continue at the same speed as the vehicle was traveling before it stopped. The opposing force of the seatbelt prevents the passengers from falling out or contacting the interior or windshield of the car. They also reduce the risk of fatalities or severe injury during a rollover.
It is not true that mandatory seatbelt laws are ineffective because they disincentivize safe driving behavior, increasing the number of accidents. (That said, there are a LOT of really bad drivers on the roads. My theory is that Driver's Education ("Driver's Ed"), which used to be required in high school, was eliminated from the curriculum in many places decades ago, largely for financial reasons. Students no longer have quality training, so they are learning to drive from people who never formally learned how to drive themselves. Private driving instruction is still available, but many people cannot afford it or choose not to do it. Then there's the cell phone - don't get me started. Off soap box.)
Thankfully, seatbelts are no longer optional equipment, and special five-point harnesses are available for chidren's car seats. Restraints in race cars often have 6-point restraints (increased adoption in NASCAR after Dale Earnhardt broke his neck in a crash wearing a 5-point restraint). Along with airbags, automobile safety has come a long way. Although the seatbelt interlock never made it to prime time, cars sense the load in the seats and make loud, obnoxious noises when the seatbelts are not fastened.
Why aren't three-point restraints used in airplanes? Back in coach/economy class, lap belts are used because they can easily be released in case of an emergency that requires evacuation. Additionally, there are only 9 inches for the head to travel forward in case of a collision, so restraining the head and torso is not necessary because there is little room for acceleration. Business and first class now have 3-point restraints because there is ample move to room or be thrown from the seat.
Who knew that such a simple thing could save so many lives (over 24,000 per year)? Drive safe (as we say in Texas) and (always) buckle up, buttercup!
Have a good weekend!
Deb
This T-bird might not have had a seatbelt but...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqCcYt5bxU