Back in 1950s in Sweden, Mr. Gunnar Engellai (Volvo's President) was in search of an idea to enhance the safety of cars because lost of people were losing their lives in road accidents because of flaws in the two-point seat belt design which were in use in cars at that time. Even Gunnar had also lost a relative in a car accident and hence was determined to come up with a better seat belt solution.
One considerable issue in these kinds of seat belts was that the seat belt crossed the lap only. A single strap didn't prevent torso, exposing passengers to severe head, chest and spinal injuries in car crash.
Gunnar Engellau spoke and offered a role in safety department at Volvo to Nils Bohlin, a brilliant engineer who previously worked in a Swedish aircraft manufacturing company as an aircraft designer. Nils Bohlin agreed upon the offer by Gunnar and joined Volvo as a safety engineer. He began working on upgrading the seat belt and making it more safe.
Finally in 1959, Nils Bohlin came up with a new 3-point seat belt which consisted of the lap belt and also a diagonal belt across the upper body. It held the upper and lower body securely in place during a car crash and reduced the risk by more than 50%. It was a very important invention keeping in view the safety of passengers and it was also very convenient to use and could be buckled up with one hand.
Volvo patent this idea of 3-point seat belt but astonishingly Volvo didn't charge any kind of license fee to rival companies to use their invention and they didn't even promote their cars as safest on the road by retaining the patents.
Volvo gifted their design to competitors to encourage mass adoption and to save lives. From that day onwards, 3-point seat belts became a safety feature in all vehicles around the world and is in used even today. This is how Volvo saved more than a million lives with this gesture.
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