Volvo engineer and former aircraft designer Nils Ivar Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – September 21, 2002) realized that the only thing keeping automobile drivers from wearing seatbelts was an overlong fastening process (airline pilots, he noticed, were willing to take however much time was necessary). He got it down to two seconds, and his design is said to have saved millions of lives.
“It was just a matter of finding a solution that was simple, effective and could be put on conveniently with one hand”
On July 10, 1962, the United States Patent Office issued patent number 3043625 to Nils Bohlin. Before 1959, only two-point lap belts were available in automobiles; for the most part, the only people who regularly buckled up were race car drivers. The two-point belts strapped across the body, with a buckle placed over the abdomen, and in high-speed crashes had been known to cause serious internal injuries. In 1958, Volvo Car Corporation hired Bohlin, who had designed ejector seats for Saab fighter airplanes in the 1950s, to be the company’s first chief safety engineer.
