Who invented the safety belt?

According to multiple estimates, the safety belt has saved over one million lives. So where did it come from?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to the corn Stuff. I'm Scott and I'm Ben.
As always, we were joined by our super producer Noel
buckle Up Brown. I thought you'd like that with Scott,
I do like them. Yeah, we are about to do

(00:22):
a podcast that has has been a long time in
the making. We've kicked around this idea before, and we've
we've talked about it off air and on air in
various different things. Uh So, I guess before we really
dive into it, Scott, I have to ask Um. I
have to ask you a question. Do you have any
good seatbelt stories? Any good seatbelt stories? Oh? My gosh,

(00:44):
Oh you know what, I kind of do. Um. I
don't know if I I don't know where this falls
in our whole history of or you know what we're
gonna talk about today. But when I was a kid
in the back seat of of you know, whatever car
we had at the time, I can tell you that
my mom had an old Ford Falcon and my dad
we I think our first new car was a dodged
dirt Swinger back in the early nineteen seventies. Like maybe

(01:07):
seventy four somewhere in there. Um, I'm not sure exactly
where the state of like child car seats were at
this point and in history, I don't remember exactly, but um,
I had a like a child's safety tether, like a
harness that I wore, and you can probably find photos
of this thing online. But it almost looks like a
parachute jumpers type get up where you have like a

(01:27):
couple of straps to go like around the thighs. Uh.
There was a mesh work that was on your chest
and then in the back you know that all this
kind of went over the shoulders and under the arms
and all that. It was quite a quite harness. It
sounds like a parachute rig or something. That's exactly what
my dad would call it. Yeah, he'd say it was
like you're parachuting or something. And Uh, on the back
there was a d a d ring and you would
clip this into a tether that was in the back seat.

(01:49):
It was mounted, you know, has bolted to the frame
of the car in the trunk area. I think that
came through the back of the seat and it allowed
the kid there's this is a crazy bend, but it's
one step above being like, you know, just free without
a belt back there. You would clip it to the
back and the kid could get like you know, left
and right almost all the way to the window on
either side. You could stand up, which is remarkable that

(02:10):
that was kind of what happened back then. And you
could lay down, you could sit down, you can do
any of that stuff was like free motion, but you
were still tethered so that you didn't become a projectile
to the front of the car and you go through
go through the front window. And that's maybe the like
the best recollection of any kind of like car seat
memory there are, I mean seat belt memory that I
have other than the ones that I had mentioned earlier

(02:33):
on our Hell's Highway broadcast. Yes, the hour that was
a three part It wasn't Scott, that was three parts,
and it was it was earlier this year. It was
I want to say it was in May, April May
somewhere around there. But I was just listening to that
before it came on, and I know we talked about
seat belts and seat belt safety and some some memories.

(02:54):
So what about you do you have any like I
I can't remember if we've talked about and air its
tangentially related because it does not involve a car. Instead,
it involves a roller coaster. Ladies and gentlemen at you're
probably familiar if you're from the States with the chain
of amusement parks known as six Flags. There's a six
Flags over one bunch of states. One of them is

(03:18):
six Flags over Georgia, right, which is just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
As a wee young tyke Scot, my parents and one
of their family friends and uh that friends kids all
got together in a group and went to six Flags.
Great time for the kids, take them to an amusement park. Right. However,

(03:40):
there is a ride called the Great American Screen Machine,
which is one of those old school wooden roller coast
There's no loops, just a bunch of hills, wooden coaster,
big wooden coaster. Yeah, you know it. And I was
still pretty young, so it's probably maybe, I want to say,
between eight and ten years old, and we had The

(04:02):
way that this works. The way that the coaster works
is that you have a lap belt and then you
have a bar that goes down right to a certain
degree based on essentially the girth of the biggest person
in the in the in the seat. So I was
not with a kid, and wasn't with one of my parents.

(04:24):
I was with um uh family friends or someone who
was there with us who was the nicest lady, but
much larger than a ten year old boy. So they
go they check the lap belts. I'm looking at the bar.
This is one of the first times I've written an
actual roller coaster, and there's about a foot a little

(04:46):
more than a foot of space between my torso and
that bar that's supposed to stop me. Yeah, and for
those of you familiar with these types of roller coasters
and the physics of them, the first still is always
the biggest. And you hear that as are getting pulled
up to the apex of the hill, share is building
the excitement. And that's when I found out that my
seat belt with my lap belt was not working. So

(05:10):
I wrote and lap belt not working about a little
more in the foot between me and the bar. So
I spent the next what maybe minute or so in
abject utter terror, screaming because I was knocking around loosen
that thing. Man, I was like hitting the chest. I
was trying my best like hold onto the bar, like

(05:31):
this and not flip out. I'll start trying to press
yourself down into the seat, which is futile. Yes, it was.
It was a fool's errand so I survived. The person
who was writing with me thought it was so funny,
uh that I almost died. Well, maybe she didn't know
that you were in that situation at that point. Maybe

(05:52):
she just thought you were terrified because you're an eight
or ten year old little boy on on his first
big roller coad. I'm screaming my seat belt has broken
the entire time. I'm not just screaming just like fun
all right. Well then, yeah, I don't know what to say. Well,
what can she do at that point too? Maybe maybe
holding in with a strong arm, and she she tried
something like that. But when the when she um when

(06:14):
she saw that the seatbelt really was broken, she felt terrible.
That is my um. That is by far my most
terrifying experience with a seatbelt. But every other time I've
been and in this any situation, a plane, a car,
depending on the belt, I try to wear them just

(06:36):
in case. You know, you know, Ben, I've got just
something that's similar in a way, but not exactly the same,
because that sounds terrifying being uh, you know, thinking for
about two minutes you're gonna fly out of a roller
coaster when you're like ten years old. Scary. But it's
something that's sort of similar is um. At Cedar Point
in Sandusky, Ohio, there's a roller coaster called the Blue Streak,
and it's an old, old wooden roller coaster, no loops

(06:56):
or anything. It's just you know, up and down a
lot of you know, um is your gravity moments. I guess,
you know the bumps. Uh. They have this whole speech
pattern thing that they do at the beginning of these
this big wooden lever to release the cars from the
from the the station, I guess, And it's so fast
and like part of it and the person speaks really fast,
and the and the whole thing, the whole messages you
gotta be quick, gotta be quick to ride the Blue Streak.

(07:18):
And part of that is that you're leaving the station
before you even get a chance, Like you your butt
has just hit the seat and it's gone, it's out
the door, and so like the bars are coming down you.
I don't even know if the bars are there. I
don't remember exactly the layout of this whole thing. But
there's a seatbelt and you're you don't have your seatbelt
buckled until you're about a quarter of the way up
in the first hill, because you're still trying to get

(07:38):
things all together. You know, it's like it's all, um,
it's just crazy fast like that. But I can imagine
like that that panic that you had when you put
when you realize that the buckle wasn't quite exactly latching right.
But you were not here to talk about roller coasters. Unfortunately,
sort of in a in a tangentile way, we are
because we'll talk a little bit about airplanes and school
busses and maybe even um, I guess maybe some of

(08:02):
those shuttle busses you would ride, or taxis and stuff
like that, because seatbelts are they're they're there in a
lot of these uh these these machines. Not not in
school busses, as we'll find out, but um, you know,
in taxis. When you get in a taxi, it's probably
a good idea to put a seatbelt on. I mean,
you're not required to by law. I don't think on
the back seat. I would just say anytime I'm riding

(08:23):
with a stranger, as far as I'm concerned that seatbelts on. Yeah. Yeah,
Also I do the same thing. And like the airport's
shuttle van, you know, because that's a big open it's
almost it's like a room you're gonna fly across if
something hits that vehicle. So uh, yeah, I don't want
to be you know, like a projectile inside there. You know,
there's enough luggage and other stuff that's loosen there. I
don't want to be part of that whole mess. I'd
rather be buckled in and safe. And we'll talk a

(08:44):
little bit about the history or evolution of the seatbelder
safety belt. Will also talk about, uh, some of the
reasons people don't like saft belts. Yeah. I guess if
there's a I don't know, there's not really a valid
I don't think there's an impelling reason. Now. I think
that's pretty much been disproven at this point. Historically. Yeah,
the historical concern has been disproven. So so where do

(09:06):
you want to start. I mean, we can go back
to uh, you know, the the late eighteen hundreds if
you want. Yeah, let's do all right, Well, eighteen eighty
five that was when the first patent was was given
for a lap belt. It was it was what was
it just more like a webbing I guess with hooks,
And it sounded very dangerous the way that this thing was. Yeah, yeah,
it's and it's not necessarily for a car, it's for

(09:30):
uh it's this it's kind of like a harness you
wear that has hooks and other attachments to secure a
person to a fixed object. And I think that it
was described as for tourists or painters or firemen or
etcetera who were being raised or lowered. And it was
designed the the description of the patent, I guess was
designed to be applied to the person and provided with

(09:52):
hooks or other attachments for securing the person to a
fixed objects. So these hooks and and uh um, all
this other stuff, I mean it was you're probably looking
at something more like a horse drawn wagon situation where
they don't want people, you know, rolling off of a
horse drawn wagon. Right. And we'll remember, of course that
horse drawn wagons were very bumpy rides, so especially if

(10:13):
it's a child or something, and the and the roadways
and we're all like great, of course, you know, rutted
and and uh just dangerous in a lot of different ways.
But Um, then it was what is it about nineteen eleven?
I think when there's a guy who's a he's a
he's an airplane pilot and he was flying a right
flyer signal Core one plane. So this is very early on,

(10:35):
of course, it's pre World War One even very early
on in flight even and he said that he just
would lose control of aircraft as his airplane is bouncing
over this rough field that they used for takeoff and
for landing. So it makes perfect sense why he would
want to be uh, you know, more in control in
a in a position that kept him in control. And
that's the idea of basically behind seatbelts. Anyways, Yes, oh,

(10:57):
we should say historical note the we talked about the
first patent, and we talked about some of the first
actual seat belts just the early days. Uh. There's a
guy named George Tayley a little bit before Claghorn in
the eighteen hundreds who had a theoretical idea for a seatbelt,
but I don't know that he actually built it. So

(11:18):
he had this, um, he had a bunch of engineering
product projects. One of them was this. Uh. One of
them was the seat belt itself, but it didn't really
take off. I just want to say that although we
had the idea, it wasn't really implemented. So I think
we said the patent for so that's that's yeah, that's so.
So the idea was like maybe just a sketch that
that never quite made it to production. And when you

(11:40):
look at these kinds of inventions, as far as the
legal system is concerned, the patent is king and then
first first use innovation. Interesting note about the pilot uh,
Benjamin f even though he had this great idea and
had to get it built himself, seat belts weren't in

(12:02):
aircraft until the next world war, World War two, they
decided that it might be a good idea that are
that our pilots are are you know, firmly buckled in
at this point because they do an aerobatics and you
know it's it's uh, it's mainly for safety reasons. They
didn't fly out of the aircraft, I mean or fly um.
I don't know if I can say that fly out
of the aircraft. I would say, like maybe fly out

(12:22):
of the uh, the pilot seats so that they're they're
not they've lost control of the vehicle because of their
their um compromised position, and it's easy to see how
this could snowball into a disaster. Right, unsecured pilot hit
some turbulence, right, or has to make a maneuver and
is pulled away from their seat, they fall out. You're

(12:45):
gonna try to grab something, and the first thing you're
probably gonna try to grab will be the controls of
the plane. And then once you grab that, then the
plane is just gonna follow whatever force or direction your
hand is going, potentially making a situation worse. Oh yeah,
much more so. It's it's clear what happens here. And
and that's the same basic idea I said it once already,
But it's the same basic idea behind why we have

(13:07):
seat belts and cars too. I mean, there's there's more
to it than that, as we'll see. But UM, going
up to like let's say the mid nineteen fifties, as
a doctor, he's a neurological doctor, and I believe that
he had set up with practice in a place called
Huntington's Memorial Hospital in Pasady Into, California. In his name
is uh Dr C. Hunter Sheldon, and Dr Sheldon decided

(13:29):
that UM he had seen he was seen a lot
of head injuries that are coming through the emergency rooms
in his area, and he decided that one thing that
he could do is he could make an improvement on
the lap belt and it would have a more of
a ratcheting um system in place, so that it wasn't
it wasn't just the you know, you adjust the length
kind of like an airplane seat belt is right now

(13:49):
where buckly use one strap to uh to pull and
adjust the length to secure your body at the lab. Yeah,
and you know, people would be kind lax about this,
even if they were in the cars, if it was
if it was optional equipment, which they were in some
vehicles at this point, they relaxed about it. It It would
leave it very loose. Yeah, you know, the first person

(14:10):
that you know was there, the person was there ahead
of them, maybe had it, you know, adjusted to tire
too too tight maybe and they just decided, well, I'm
not gonna wear it this time, at which point it
may as well have been symbolic. Yeah, I guess so.
But you know, with this, with this idea of mine,
is that everyone got a custom fit at this point,
and that that had not happened prior to that, and
not only that the Wratchett allowed for a better design

(14:30):
because he can they conclude some locking mechanisms in there
that we'll talk about later. Um, we can we can
even test some of those, we can show you how
to test yours. And that's not the only thing he proposed.
He also is one of the early advocates of roll
bars and airbags, so he's a safety guy. Well, of
course he's trying to eliminate um, you know, head injuries,
is he that's his main focus, right, So let's let's

(14:52):
just let's jump right in here, Ben, because in the
late nineteen fifties, Uh, there's a very very important figure
that comes into play, and this is a Swedish engineering designer.
His name is Nils Boland, right, Yes, Niles Boland was
working for Volvo. I believe he started there in about
nineteen fifty eight, and he's credited with creating the modern seatbelt,

(15:16):
the one that you probably wear or that you should
be wearing when you hop in your car, in nineteen
fifty nine. And that was and that's no accident by
any means. They brought him on board to be that
person to design that. So we'll get to that in
just a moment. But we should go a little bit
further back. Can we go back to because if we
go back to like nineteen nine and nineteen fifty five,

(15:39):
companies like Nash and Ford both were installing as optional equipment.
Only it wasn't even standard equipment. Are installing um lap
belts as optional equipment, So it wasn't even that you
had to get them in in the vehicle. And oftentimes
even if they were installed in the vehicles, people weren't
using them or they're using them incorrectly. As we mentioned before,
it wasn't until about the mid to late nineteen sixties

(16:02):
when seat belts became standard equipment, and even then it
wasn't necessarily the one that we're talking about. It was
sometimes lap belts still and depending on where the seat
was in the car. So the the very first here's
the trivia, the cocktail trivia. So you can impress, uh,
impress or irritate your friends at your next party. You

(16:24):
can say that the stob GT seven fifty at the
New York Motor Show in nineteen fifty eight, that was
the first vehicle that safety builts fitted as standard standard equipment.
So we're talking just lap belts at this point and
just that one. And it should be pointed out too
that because they were warning correctly, because they were positioned, uh,
you know, on on a person who's either thighs or

(16:46):
maybe even too high up on the waist, you know,
in the abdomen. A lot of times in these accidents,
these high speed collisions, the lap belt alone was causing
more severe internal injuries than would than it would have
if they hadn't been wearing the belt. And this leads
a lot of confusion. And this is where some of
the some of the stuff that we had talked about
in earlier episodes where people look at the idea that

(17:06):
you're safer without the seat belt, some of that comes
from all the way back then and others, you know,
other things happened later. I mean, there's also just anecdotal
evidence that you know, uh, person is thrown throwing brief
the accident and therefore lived. They would have died if
they had stayed in the vehicle. Man, then safe for
taking that trip through the windshield. Add advice bad advice
all around. But that's like saying, that's like seeing, you know,

(17:28):
a lot of investments are dangerous, so you should just
played the lottery because sometimes you win. Alright. So okay,
while we're back on our way to Nile's bull Involvo,
we should we should mention the emergence of what would
later become the modern safety belt. The modern safety belt
and most cars is what's called a three point harness.

(17:50):
Those three points are on your right hip, your left hip,
and then either you're right or your left shoulder. And
if you're the passing your driver exactly depend on which
side of the car you're on. You will still in
in some older cars in the middle you'll still find
a regular lap belt, which is not ideal. But in more,

(18:11):
more and more newer cars you'll just see another three
point harness in the middle. You know, my project car,
it's a nineteen sixty seven in It wasn't until nineteen
sixty eight that the three point harness became a standard
equipment here in the United States. So I only have
lap belts in the front and in the backseat. Uh
you know what, I'm just going by memory here. I've
dug around back there a little bit, but I can't

(18:32):
even find belts back there. In Newport, just lap belts
in the front, lap belts in the front only and
I'm sure that you can buy uh, you know, some
type of conversion kit you know that allows you to
to buckle something in something that you know gives you
a shoulder belt. But um, kind of strange. But it
wasn't until night. So anyways, this guy Bowling, he was
he was hired in Ninett, as he said, and he

(18:52):
was brought in, um, you know, by Volvo Vovo Car
Corporation to be the company is very first chief safety engineer.
And this was because and I found this is pretty interesting.
It was because the relative of the then Volvo CEO,
his name is Gunner Englue, had died in a car crash,
which helped motivate the company to increase its safety measures

(19:15):
at that time. So they had like a personal motivation
to say, you know, this shouldn't be happening anymore. And
Volvo has long been uh kind of the brand of
it's like they're there, their mantra, their mantra, they're their
their their go to statement is that, you know, we're
all about safety and we're doing everything we can to
make a well as close to a death proof car
as we can. Really. Yeah, and it's a it's a

(19:35):
quest that continues today, but Volvo famously is known as
the safe car company. Yeah, and so here's Bowling. He
comes in and he he had worked in the past
with SOB. But we're talking about like in the airplane. Right,
he had done a four point harness, right, Yeah, four
point harnesses, and they're very elaborate, these harnesses and airplanes.
But he knew that, you know, no one's going to
take a time to do this in a car, and

(19:56):
it's gonna be very expensive to implement in a car.
And a four point harness is the kind where it
goes over both shoulders, attaches somewhere in the middle of
the of the abdomen, uh, and the two points again
or you know, down by the hips. Well, he knows
that this is really it's not really possible in just
a passenger car, and no one's going to take the
time to fasten all this stuff up. It's it's possible
to do. In fact, Volvo does this in a in

(20:17):
a concept vehicle as late as two thousand one. Uh,
there's a vehicle called the you know, I gotta written
down your hang on ah the referring to my notes
the SCC from the two thousand one Detroit Auto Show,
and it was a concept vehicle. Of course, it's a
safety concept. And this is a car that eventually became
the C thirty, which is that kind of hot hatchback

(20:38):
that they had for a while. If you look at
the design of the SEC, it ends up with with
a lot of the design elements from I'm sorry that
the C third he ends up with a lot of
the design elements from the SEC. But this one had, um,
you know, it's got two things that I really want
to mention here. First, it head or three things. It
had the four point harness in the front for the
front passengers, so over the shoulder and attached in the

(21:00):
middle like a racing car would happen without the submarine
belt that goes down between the legs or anything like that.
So it's the four point belt. In the back seat,
they had this criss cross seat belt, so like you know,
imagine the sash that you just mentioned, you know, like
that goes across from the shoulder down to the um.
This one has two of those, so one goes across,
you know, left, and one goes right, and that's where

(21:20):
the kids or whoever's in the back. Um. It looks
a little dangerous to me. And I'm sure that it's
tested and it's got to be. It's got to be
sewn together in some way because I don't double yeah,
I don't know exactly how it works. I couldn't. I
couldn't get anything closer than a photo was taken from
ten feet away of it. But um, it looks like
an interesting design. I'm sure it's safe, you know, two
thousand one bull though they're they're definitely looking into safety

(21:41):
for you know, the last fifty sixty years or whatever
or longer. Um. The other thing that this this car
had that I want to mention is that it had
see through a pillars and you love those well, I
would love to have c three eight pillars or thinner
eight pillars if it's possible, if you're safe. And that's
the thing is they were in this car. It had
kind of a crisscross um like a metal work almost

(22:04):
like the best way to describe this maybe like think
about like the leg of the Eiffel Stiffel tower or
something like like a grid work of metal. And then
in between that was it was a visible surface so
that you could see through there. It was still strong.
It was structurally uh, you know, uh, it had it
had integrity. See that's a great that's a great thing
because when we've talked about this before, and one of

(22:26):
the problems with a pillars is that they do obscure
the the ideal view you want, right, but at this
point there hasn't been a provable clear material that could
replace it. So it sounds like a good compromise to
have it, um, to have it partially a clear substance
and then actually still reinforce it. It It doesn't if you

(22:49):
want to, if you want to take a look at
the you know that that Volvo SCC concept car and
just type an a pillar maybe and it'll show you
an example of what I'm talking about. But I think
it's a good idea. So so that vehicle from Volvo,
you know, even even this late, is showing, uh, you
know that that they're all about safety. This this company
really really wants to improve safety and make their cars
as a safe as possible. Um. But Boland's idea here

(23:11):
was that you know, he said, you know, these are
these four point belts are just too complex. No one's
going to really bother with it. So he's out to
develop what and he knows that there's Um, they're people
that are kind of thrown around the idea of the
three point belt. And I'm sure that you know that
has has been um, something that he had investigated, you know,
probably during his SOB days. Right. Yeah, there was a
patent in nineteen five for something like a three belt

(23:35):
or three point belt system by two Americans. However, this
was a good idea, but Niles Boland is the one
who developed it into a working practical application. Yeah, and
he as he said it, and this is his own quote.
He says, it's just a matter of finding a solution
that's simple, effective and can be put on conveniently with

(23:56):
one hand. Now that makes perfect sense to me, Like
it's very little trouble to put it on, it's safe,
it's effective, and uh and um, the the the whole
thing that of him perfecting it was more like, you know,
where are we gonna put the anchor points, and how
we're gonna make this thing comfortable to wear, and how
we're gonna make make it so that people don't necessarily
mind having this on while they're driving, you know, how
gonna make it easy to say yes exactly right? Yeah,

(24:18):
how are we gonna how are we gonna make this
something that people just instinctively do every single time they
get in the vehicle, because at this point, there's no laws,
there's no mandates, there's nothing like that, and manufacturers aren't
required to even put these in vehicles, So why would
we Why would they want to do that, you know,
to to them, you know, the tremendous cost, you know,
for them to put this in to make it standard equipment.
But the benefits of this and the thing could be great.

(24:39):
And at this point he can't really show that. He
can't he can't point back to studies that say that
this is gonna save x number of lives, right, And
people are skeptical too, like, why should I do that? See,
lap belts are more dangerous, You could get your brain
knocked out of your face. Yeah, we're we're better off
without belts, right. So, and he doesn't have a study,
doesn't have solid data. So what he does is he

(25:02):
conducts his own study of twenty eight thousand accidents throughout Sweden,
and he said, and he finds that occupants without where
who are not wearing a belt of some sort, so
this could be lat belts as well. Occupants are not
wearing belts sustained fatal injuries through the entire scale of speed.
So zero to insert number here. And the thing is

(25:24):
that if you're going under sixty miles per hour, nobody
wearing a seat belt was fatally injured. They were still
knocked around, you know, broken noses, broken ribs, bad afternoons,
but but they were alive. Yeah, that's a considerable a
number to point out to. I would say twenty thousand.

(25:44):
That's a significant number. That's a that's a that's a
big sampling. It is, it is, and you have to
have something of that scale minimum to really build a
case given that. What we're essentially doing if we are
Evolvo and Niles Bowling, and this situation is we're talking
to world's governments and private manufacturers and saying here, you

(26:07):
have to make this extra expense for this extra legislation
for every car, for every voter, and people aren't gonna
like it, and you're not gonna really save any money.
People probably have to buy pay more for cars. So
we have to prove to you that this is worth it.
And luckily for everyone, uh, they did. Well, you know,

(26:28):
you and I have read out accident statistics on this
podcast before and what what's strange when you when you
think about what Niles Bullen did. He saved millions of
people's lives eventually this design, Yeah, they they Well I
think it's very recent too. I mean, within like I
want to say, it was like the fiftieth anniversary of

(26:50):
the device. So in two thousand nine they were talking
about how this simple device, this one thing, the seat
belt three point belt, has saved one million live overall,
you know, in the five decades or whatever that has
been around. So that's a huge, huge number. And you'll
see varying numbers all over the place because I was
trying to gather information from a bunch of different sources

(27:10):
for this, and I was seeing numbers like this, this
device has saved thirty five thousand people, and I was thinking, well,
that's not very many. That's that's not that that's that's
far off from the one million. I mean, that's a
lot of people, but it's far off from the one
million that I see claimed. Well, it turns out that
was a number from the UK, where they hadn't really
implemented the mandatory seat belts until nineteen eighty three. So

(27:30):
nineteen eighty three until two thousand nine it had saved
something like between th it was thirty five to fifty
thousand or something like that. It's a big number. And also,
you know that's a crowded place. That is a crowd
of place. But it wasn't mandatory for the three point
belt to be worn in the front seat, you know.
And there's all these different levels of of what's required.
So you know, um, as we talk about this, you know,

(27:52):
we'll get a little confused, I guess. You know, like
front seat passengers have to be buckled in with a
three point harness, right, that's and and then then it's like, well, um,
those below a certain age must be required or required
to be belted in in the back seat, but lap
belt are okay at that point. And then they say, well, no,
it's required that you know, the kids at this age
you have to be in a child seat. And then uh,

(28:14):
then then it changes a little bit more to say
that kids of a certain age or under half to
be are required to be buckled in with three point
harness also in the back. But that was a long
time coming before that happened. And then you know, there's
just all these variations of when things are implemented when
their mandatory and who's in office at the time makes
makes a big difference. As we mentioned before with it
that Georgia senator I think it was, which is itself

(28:37):
a funny story because I mean this was a centator.
I think it was a senators. Somebody that held it
held a public office. Yeah, in uh Georgia. Oh man, Okay,
So we talked about this story in episodes past. I
don't want to go too deep, but this is one
of those stranger than fiction things. So you probably haven't
heard of it if you are not in the eight

(29:00):
of Georgia. For a long time, Georgia, like many many
many other states and countries in the world, required people
to wear seat belts while operating a motor vehicle. Georgia, however,
had one notable exception. The seatbelt law did not apply
to pickup trucks. There were no safety studies in favor
of this exception. There was no data, there were no

(29:23):
testimony from doctors. There wasn't even uh some kind of
cushy back room deal with pickup truck manufacturers. There was
one guy in the Georgia's state legislature who drove a
pickup and didn't feel like he should have to wear
a seatbelt, and therefore they decided that they were going
to make this exemption for all pickup truck drivers so

(29:43):
that he never received a ticket for years, for years.
It was as recently as um, well, I think it
was two thousand ten. Yeah, just a ball. I mean,
I moved here in two thousand seven, and I know
that this was big news when it changed, because once
he was out of office, they they immediately switched it
act too. If you're in if you're in Georgia in
a pickup truck, you now have to wear a seatbelt,

(30:04):
and you know, in the front seat at least, I'm
not sure about the back seat like the crew gab
area or whatever. But um, kind of absurd that they
would make a law like that, isn't it. Or they
wouldn't make a law because of that, right, But it
happens all the time, and we know that stuff like
that happens. I believe it might have been Senator Jeff Mullis.

(30:25):
He's one of the people who voted against against the
various proposed bills to make the rest of the law
apply to seatbelts and pickup trucks. But Uh, they would
paint it as not that they don't want to wear
seatbelts as uh, they believe that people should choose to

(30:45):
do it, but they think it's too big brothery s
people have to Okay, all right, makes no sense And
we're getting to the point in our story here where
we can probably left the cat out of the bag. Here,
Why why Nils Bowen wasn't a mull the billionaire, and
why um Volvo isn't making you know, and thirty seven
cents from every other manufacturer that that put the seatbelt

(31:08):
in their car for every instance of that because they
did something amazing and incredibly rare, something that I don't
think most people would do. No, I don't think so.
I mean, you don't see this happen very often. It
was Jonas Salk and then these guys, now it doesn't
happen very often, that's for sure. And this is uh,

(31:30):
they gave away the idea that they gave away the
patent for this. They said, you know what, this is
so important, this is so this is such a life
saving divide, like it's such a um a milestone I
guess in in automotive safety achievement that we are going
to allow you to put this product in your vehicle
at no cost. You know, here's the design, Please put

(31:51):
it in because it's it's that worthwhile, right, And so
they don't make anything from this this patent. They hold
the patent, but they don't. UM it's open I guess right.
There's not a proprietary licensing fee that every other car
manufacturer would have to pay. And this is done. This
does several this I would say this does three um

(32:13):
things that are too that are very important for the world,
and one that's very important for Volvo. The first thing
it does is it eliminates the need for UM hunting
proprietary alternatives. Right. So this means that for seatbelt manufacturers,
as long as they have this this one thing that's

(32:34):
super simple and works, they are not They're not going
to have to spend more money finding something that might
be inferior but you know, cost them sixteen dollars per
car versus orty seven or whatever. Worry about quality, right,
don't have to worry about quality, which translates to the
second thing, which is that for most if that factor,

(33:01):
the three point seatbelt is consistent and constant throughout all vehicles,
then when you are a first responder or an E
M T. You know, a fireman or something. Then you
have a you have a better idea of how to
approach the situation, even if it's just a little bit better,
even it's just a little bit less unpredictable. The third one,

(33:21):
which I think is you know me, Scott, I'm a
suspicious dude. I just had to enter into all of
those calculations. You cannot put a price on the amount
of good good pr that is. Yeah, well here we
are talking about it now. It's so sometimes invented in
we're spreading the good word that you know, over a

(33:41):
corporate profit. Volvo has decided that you know, this is
for the better good. It's for um, you know, uh,
it's a it's a life saving device. Yeah, they still
make money though, don't of course they don't feel like
you have to send them a check now. Of the
fourth of course they made money. But you know, the
thing is, like they said, the decision and this is
a quote from Alan Dessl, who is the managing director

(34:02):
of Volvo, said the decision to release the three point
uh seatbelt pattern was visionary and in line with Volvo's
guiding principle of safety, and it completely does fall in
line exactly with what they're talking about now. So imagine
if they had designed something like that and then just
made some kind of insane profit from it. People could
point fingers and say like, well, you know you've got sure,

(34:23):
you've got these safe devices, but you're you're keeping them
all to yourselves. Um, you know, you're making money on
every other one that everybody else puts in. So maybe
we'll change it and make something that we feels better,
but maybe isn't quite as safe. Um, there's a there's
a lot of angles to this whole thing. But I
don't think that Neil's Bowland didn't do without by any means.
I mean he he had a long, good career um

(34:45):
ad Volvo and later he university awards, of course. I
mean you know, of course, the notoriety is one that
you can and Borlog I think are the people estimated
to have single handedly saved the most lives. Okay, who's Borlog?
Norman bo Log is the guy who launched the green
revolution during the famine years, so he was able to

(35:07):
he was able to use innovative farming techniques to allow
for big agriculture, which I know a lot of people
have a problem with nowadays, but at the time when
he invented these things, or when he implemented these things,
what was doing was saving hundreds of thousands, millions of
people from starvation. Yeah, the ideas still aren't really so

(35:29):
you can't really point fingers at this, Okay. So the
other thing is he did receive a few you know, nails.
Bowling received a lot of notoriety. As we said, you know,
of course, you know he had a photo and you know,
lots of magazines and in newspapers and all that. You know,
a big deal. Um, he was a big deal. I mean,
that's not a big deal. I'm like, you know, he

(35:50):
really was a big deal. Um. But he also received
the Gold Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering
Science in nineteen and then in nine he was inducted
into the automo of Hall of Fame. For this induction
or for this of this idea, that's a huge thing.
I mean it's not you don't design a latch on,
you know, a hatchback or something and get put into

(36:10):
the Automotive Hall of Fame. This is this is a
big thing. I mean, it's it's not every day, you
know make maybe the designer or the first air bags
or something would be in there as well. Um, you
know these these milestone um ideas or or the the
you know, the big moments I guess and online history
and and the design you know his Uh, well he
I should say this, he passed away and I think

(36:31):
two so he you know, he was there for uh,
the induction in the Hall of Fame and he also
you know, was there to receive the award and you
know all that. So he had a long, good life
with with you know, lots of notoriety and uh and
you know it's a good story overall, really is deals
bolling Um going beyond what he created even during his lifetime,

(36:52):
you know, like well, um, while he's still around, there
were so many different variations of this design or this
is this idea, and um, we can talk a little
bit about these different types, but I don't want to
go to in depth of this. But I think most
of the story that we wanted to tell is already
out there. Um. So we've talked about we've talked about
lap belts where two point systems, Yeah, two point systems,
that's right. And then in Kentucky, I believe in the

(37:15):
nineteen hundreds or that's the guys credited with it. Yeah, yeah,
you're right, exactly right. And then we talked about the
sash idea. You know that's the one that goes over
the shoulder. Uh three points. You know, there's also belt
in seat designs which the belts are anchored within the
seat itself and instead of going to the actual the
frame of the vehicle or to the Yeah, exactly, So

(37:38):
there's that. Uh, there's four or five and even six
point seat belts which are basically at this point reserved
for child seats and racing uh infants and race car drives.
Something else interesting though that I didn't know. There's a
seven point belt that is used by um acrobatic aircraft pilot.
Thing is because they deal with not only um uh

(38:02):
G forces on them, you know when they're when they're
accelerating or you know, doing different maneuvers in the air. Yeah,
but past that they have negative G forces, which so
there's other belts that restrain them in and like the
opposite direction if you can imagine that. Yeah, it's like
a five point harness with a redundant lap belt, right, Yeah,
and and the thing is that when we say negative
G force. Going back to our roller coaster conversation, Scott,

(38:26):
you you made a really good point when you said
there were zero G moments. Yeah, in a roller coaster,
this is the opposite. You're not floating, You are actively
being pushed out of the seat. Yeah. Yeah, So you
gotta do something. You have something to combat that, right.
And the the downside of this, I guess, is that
if you're in a an emergency situation, we're having to
object on the plane or jump from the plane, whatever
the case may be. Um, you have two harnesses that

(38:49):
you have to unlatch at that point instead of just
the one. So it makes it a little bit tougher,
but uh, it's it's definitely keeping you in position and
in control of that plane. And that's that's really really
important for an acrobatic pilot. Um, there's a lot of technology.
There's locking your tractors, you know what. I mentioned this earlier,
and I just want to say this. You can you
can kind of test this in your own vehicle if
you want. Most cars have this system. If you slowly

(39:10):
pull on that shoulder belt just and you already smiling,
you know, what I'm talking about. You slowly pull on
the shoulder belt like towards the steering wheel. Maybe you
can pull the entire belt out all the way in
the end if you want to. But if you grasp
it and you give it a sharp jerk, a yank,
that belt is gonna free solid. And that's the safety design.
That's that's important. That's a there's a locking mechanism within
there that we don't have time to describe right now. Pretensioners, yeah, yeah,

(39:34):
what with pretensioners to um? Pretensioners are a different thing, though,
that's true. I have to say something so nerdy though,
um the you might hopefully listeners, you will be some
of the the handful of people who understand or care
about the reference I've been I'm about to make. Do

(39:55):
you remember Dune? Did you see the film? At least? Okay,
So they've got those force fields for their knife fights
in Dune, And it's the same way that a seatbelt works,
or it's it has the same kind of commonality because
in doing the forcenel works, it stops you if you
make a hard, sudden impact or a punch or a

(40:16):
quick stab, right, yeah, But if you go slowly then
you go right through it. Now, isn't that sort of
like isn't there like a liquid body armor that's like
that that the military has been kind of teasing us
with for about less ten years. Yeah. Yeah, and it's
a it's this, it's a it changes viscosity. I think
depending on the force. You can do the same thing

(40:37):
at your house now with corn starts. I was just
gonna say that. Yeah, it's kind of a fun little
thing to do. Right with corn starch. You mix up that,
make that paste and if you press your is it
you can If you take like a spoon or something
and you and you slowly set it onto you can
you can sink it right into the substance. Yeah. But
if you wrap it really quickly with that spoon, it's
almost like it's a solid surface. Yeah, it changes. Yeah,
it's really cool. It's a fun little thing to do.

(40:58):
You can look that up online, I guess maybe. Yeah,
so quick tip. That's that's a cheap and easy way
to amaze your kids or your stoner friends. Why it works, right,
That's it's true. It's so true. As you mentioned briefly, pretensioners.
Pretensioners are are um, there's a couple of different types.
There's electronic which can be reused, and there's also some

(41:19):
that use pyro technique, so they're there they fire, am
I think. I think they work on a gas system
so that they're actually well, it's like a cylinder that
has a small explosion contained inside that fires down a
piston or a cylinder that then tightens the belt around you.
If there's a situation where like say maybe the air

(41:40):
bags are just about to be deployed, Like they work
that quickly, they're really really fast. But the ones that
that do have to fire like that, once they fire,
they have to be replaced. There no good an there
a one time catastrophic measure, and others are electronic which
reset themselves. So you know that's not that's not something
that's necessary. Um, what do you think about these inflatable seats.

(42:01):
I gotta tell you, I've seen them inflated. You wouldn't
you wouldn't recognize them. You'd have to know that that
was the belt because they in the back seat. Um,
when they're sewn together, when they're they're collapsed, it just
looks like maybe a thick seat belt. Um, they're they're
sewn together in such a way that you don't even
notice it it's there, but then when they inflate, they
do look kind of ridiculous. I think it looks almost
like a floatation device for a for a boat, but

(42:24):
it's the the sash part of the belt that inflates.
And it's usually used in the back seat because the
front seat is totally covered with air bags. You know,
uh for the front passengers back seat, Um, they don't
have that forward impact um bag. I guess, like you know,
the driver would or the passenger would with the dash thing. Um,
But they look kind of ridiculous when they're inflated. But

(42:47):
I guess they really work. I mean, it protects the
neck and head area if if there's a rollover, I believe. Um.
There's also you know, the side curtain air bags which
do that as well, but this is like an added
layer protection and I think it's used in Ford vehicle
right now. Yeah, yeah, it's in the Ford Explorer and
the Flex what it's what's your opinion of the way
they look? I mean, and they may look silly, but

(43:08):
if they're effective, hey why not? That's the thing, man,
They do look silly, And the question is do you
want to be alive and look kind of silly or
do you want to be dead and cool? You know?
And they don't look like that all the time. If
he had to buckle something that looked like that on
every time, and it's very uh, it would be very intrusive.
I guess you know. It's it's a big thing. It's
a it's almost like a pool noodle or something. But

(43:30):
that pool like three times the size of that. It's huge.
So here's here's an interesting note, just a side note.
I want to see what you think about the Scott.
I want to hear what you think about it, listeners,
especially especially those of us listening who are old enough
to remember this, which is neither of us Scott. Uh.

(43:51):
Some people trace the emergence of public support for seatbelts
all the way back to the James Dean crash Real
in the Porch Yet, because it was horrific and people
said that, hey, maybe he could have survived if he
was wearing a seatbelt. That was in nineteen five. Then
famous actor James Dean died in a two car crash

(44:13):
in California. Isn't that now someone pulled out in front
of him, right, I mean, he's in a he's in
a very low fast sports car and they were traveling
a high rate of speed. I don't know. I mean,
I know the passengers survived. Uh he apparently people said
he would have likely have survived had he been wearing
a seatbelt. Well, you know what, maybe it's the case
of he wouldn't have made contact with the steering wheel

(44:34):
or I don't know if he's thrown from the vehicle
or not. I don't remember, but um, yeah, I guess
that's the way that uh, you know, back then, they
had to look at all these accidents and say that
would have been survivable had they used this device. And
that's that's what a lot of the the proponents of
even lap belts said it. You know, if you if,
if the lap belts are there and they used properly

(44:54):
a lot of times, they would have saved lives. But
they just weren't even used at all. So looking back
at the Dean crash, maybe they can you know, surmised that,
you know, had he had something on. Yeah, utimated, Well,
I think I know it's possible to do that. I
am skeptical about the degree of certainty you can have
with that kind of what ifing and I'm sure there

(45:16):
are forensics experts who have have this down to a science. Sure,
but but still it sounds I don't know, Well, it's
an interesting point about popular culture in the US. I
don't I don't know how much it would really affect it.
I just thought it was interesting. Yeah, it is interesting,
I wonder. And it's right around that time, wasn't it
in fifty something like that. There's mid nineteen fifties, right

(45:40):
around when there's this real push for some increased safety
and automobiles. And then you know, we didn't really start
to see some big, big movements in it until mid
nineteen sixties. Really. Um, you know, one more quick thing
I want to mention is, um, automatic seat belts. No,
I don't know if you've ever had a car with
automatic Yes, automatic seat belts. When you hop in the car,
you closed the door and these bad boys roll across here.

(46:05):
I'm laughing because you know, there's a few there's a
few reasons I'm laughing about this. There's that there's advantages
and disadvantages of these, of course, But um, this goes
way back, a lot farther back than I thought. Now.
I thought this is like a late eighties nineteen nineties
type thing, because that's when we really started to see
a bunch of these and I had a car that
I did have a car that had those automation in
production you mean, yes, in production. So this goes all

(46:28):
the way back to the early nineteen seventies with Volkswagen.
In nineteen seventy two, Volkswagen had a car called the
e S v W one Experimental Safety Vehicle and it
had passive seat belts, and way back in nineteen seventy two,
now they finally developed that they had a or announced
rather today, had a functional passive seatbelt in nineteen seventy three.

(46:49):
And then the first commercial car to use these automatic
seat belts was the nineteen seventy five Volkswagen Rabbit. So
we're loaded with the trivia information today, Ben, We've got
lots of stuff. So nineteen five v W Rabbit was
the first one with these automatic seat belts. And it's
just the the emotion is as you mentioned, Ben, you know,
it's on this track that you know, it goes kind
of along the doorframe maybe, but it's in the car,

(47:11):
not on the door frame, but it goes across it
kind of when you when you sit down and shut
the door, it rides back over your shoulder and in
a position. But the problem with these is that then
you then have to attach a lap belt in some cases, yes, uh,
not all there's variations of this whole thing, but it's
like it's halfway there. That's the problem, uh, for for
the majority of these systems. So you know, there's three

(47:31):
different ways you can do this. There's the manual lap
belt with the automatic motorized shoulder belt, which is what
we just talked about, what we're talking about rolls on
the track mounted in the door frame. Yeah, and then
you've got you've got to manually grab the lap belt
and put that on to complete the process. And then
there's the manual belt with the automatic non motorized shoulder belt. Yeah.
Now this is the one that was usually attached to

(47:52):
the vehicle door. So when you open the door, this
thing kind of strung out. Um, you can pictures from
the mechanical motion of opening, yes, opening the door, so
there's no motorization. Here are mechanism that is driving the
belt at this point. But then you also still have
to buckle the belt and I think everybody can picture this,
you know, the cars of the eighties and nineties. There

(48:13):
there are a lot of variations of this, and then
there's the last one, which was automatic shoulder and lap belts,
and this is this is a really weird one. Now
a lot of GM vehicles had this, um and some
Honda Civic hatchbacks and Nissan Center coops also had this.
When you open the door, the belts go from a
fixed point in the middle of the car to the
you know, down by the floor I guess, by your

(48:34):
right hip if you're the driver, and they go to
the retractor which is in the door. Now, the passenger passengers,
you know, driver and passenger have to kind of slide
into the car into the belts, and this is really
a pain I guess, um, you get tangled up in
that if you're carrying a bag or you had a
purse or something like that made it a little bit
difficult to get in and out of the vehicle. But

(48:55):
it's all done for you then, So it's it's truly
a passive system if you want to look at it
that way, I guess, given that you have to maneuver
your way around, but but it's all done for you.
It's right there. Well, The thing with those is that
they do have the button, the release button you can
push that you're supposed to push in emergencies. However, you
know what I'm about to say, I do. Yeah, most
people use it just the same way you would use

(49:16):
a manual seat belt, because they were tired of climbing
under those belts to get into their car, so they
would undo it in that way. That eliminates that problem.
But then people get back in and either it's halfway done,
it's it's you know, they don't do it at all. Um.
You know, maybe they weren't quite as strict back then
about you know some of these uh uh, I don't
know what you call them the road what do you
call the roadblocks? And it's not is it a road block?

(49:37):
Or is it a checkpoint? A safety checkpoint where you
go through and and they check your license registration. But
but but you know, five hundred yards ahead of that,
they've got an officer that's watching sometimes with binoculars to
see if you've got your shoulder belt on, if he
can visibly see they can, Yeah, they can spot it
as you're driving by, and they'll say, you know, the
redhound of civic. Uh give him a no belt ticket

(49:58):
because you know you're approaching that and you you buckle
up then quickly because you realize I supposed to have
my seatbelt on. That's a good point. Yeah, And so
that happens a lot. You know. They they have spotters
way way ahead of the the actual checkpoint, actual point, Yeah,
because they know that you're going to quickly. You know,
I touched that belt, and that you know, even if
it's not a seat belt checkpoint specifically, you'll get a ticket. Yeah.

(50:23):
That click it or ticket stuff is true. Yeah, that's true,
all right. So and it's just a good practice to
put it on all the time. I do it all
the time. My whole family does it all the time,
with a few exceptions, which I mentioned in an earlier podcast,
but I want to talk about today. I have a
remember that story, Scott. Yeah, I've got a a couple
of friends who don't wear seat belts. But it's more

(50:45):
because their cars are broken down with broken seatbelts. And
I'll say, you, guys, you should you should get that fixed. Yeah. Absolutely,
h But you know I've got I've got no pool.
So then there's the other side of this too. I
guess we're you know, a seatbelt could be compromised in
some way. I had a dog, his name was Arnie,
the first Dog, and we left him in the car
just for a few minutes and we came back after

(51:06):
just like two or three minutes, and he was a
nervous dog. He had chewed through the seat belt to
the point where like just just put his teeth to
it and kind of nod until the point where it was,
you know, nearly all the way through. And that's a
that's a tough thing to bite through. But you know,
once there's that even just a nick in one of
those things, they're no good anymore. You have to replace it.
That's like it's like a hundred bucks or more. You know,
even back then it was like fifteen twenty years ago. Um,

(51:29):
so it can be a big expensive So you know,
pay attention to uh, you know, the integrity of your
belts as well. And this is the whole system. Make
sure it's all working correct. Yeah, he's a he's fighting
the system, right. And with that, I think we're going
to close this chapter on our history book. Will be
back perhaps if there are updates on seat belts, which

(51:50):
will surely happen in some sit in in the future, right, absolutely.
I mean we'll probably look back at the belt with
for using now and think and say, like, what were
we thinking? What a bunch of gibrons? Just we're a
good exist Like you want a good example, look at
child's safety seats from the nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties,
and then you'll think, like, what were we thinking back then?
And and you know that we're gonna do the same

(52:11):
thing fifty years from now. Sure that's how safety works. However,
before we go, there was a question we were asked
on Twitter, and Scott I thought it was interesting enough
that I'd like to address it on the air. Are
you ready? Oh? Maybe? Okay? Well ready or not? My friend,
uh j Muko Yama asked us, hey, car stuff, if
when racing becomes automated, will it still be a sport?

(52:33):
Will you still watch? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Answer is no to both questions. No, Actually, you know
I it's a snap decision. But you know what we're
talking about here is like you know the Formula E
type racers. Yeah, that's exactly what it will be. It'll
be um autonomous formerly E racing And I don't know
I'm not crazy about formally to begin with, that's true,

(52:54):
but I think if you remove the human element from
this thing. We had another listener that that commented on
this because this has been on the news very recently,
and I think it was Rudy Rudy Smith, Rudy Rudden,
and said, hey, why not if we're gonna if we're
gonna do this, let's program these things for maximum destruction
because there's no humans involved. But the problem, you know,
it's funny to think of it that way. He's like, well,

(53:15):
let's run a race where there's one car that's running
the opposite direction and the others have to avoid it,
you know, at speed, um, you know, or something crazy
like have jam cars. You know that they are intentionally
out there to cause mayhem in trouble. See. I think
that's a spectacle. But if we think of the definition
of sport in general, sport in general does have a

(53:37):
human element as a decisive factor. So we're taking this
is how I'm thinking of it. So you could say,
you could argue j that it's still a sport because
there's still human led teams building these things. However, I
think that when the rubber hits the road. Ha ha
ha when the rubber hits the road. If there's not

(53:59):
a human dry verb, it's not necessarily still a sport.
It could be a spectacle, it can be an event.
It's entertaining. I will still watch it. To answer the
second question, but without having them the essentially fallible um

(54:19):
human being as the primary mover of the of the vehicle,
of the pursuit, you know, like um, like it goes
to another related thing. I know it's kind of rambling here, Scott,
But is droid or drone racing a sport? Uh? You
know what? Okay? Is it more of a sport? I
don't know about sport, But there's there's a human that

(54:39):
is watching through virtual reality glasses are controlling it and
controlling it so that that human is is controlling it
that way. But these aren't like remote control cars. We're
talking about fully autonomous cars that they would just let go.
The teams would pretty much be there for changing batteries
and tires and that's it. So yeah, I don't know
if because in that case, in that case, then the

(55:02):
the crew chief becomes the closest thing we have to
the human element controlling the Well, it might be interesting
if they had a this became like a full scale
remote control vehicle that somebody is is piloting from the
pit area, that might be something I'd also like to see,
have a John Henry moment and see some of the
world's best human drivers and some autonomous vief you know,

(55:22):
that would be great. Imagine if they had a series
where that's that's perfect thing to to to end on here, Ben,
what if what if they had half the field was
autonomous vehicles, half that were actual human drivers and of
course you know which is which. You know you used
to be able to see the ones without driver ones
with But just to see how they fare against each other.
Would the humans make smarter decisions? Would they be more aggressive?

(55:44):
Would they be less aggressive? How does it? How does
it all play out? Um? I'd be fascinated to see
that type of series, as would I. Let us know
what you think about automated racing, and hey, let us know.
Let us know if you have a valid reason that
you don't wear seatbelts. Uh, good luck, because I don't
know if there I don't know if there is a
valid reason for not I don't think there is at

(56:05):
this point, there there really isn't that we could find.
We'd also like to hear your seatbelt stories, roller coaster stories. Um,
and I'm still on the fence. Is automate air racing
the sport? That's such a good question. I really think
we should, John Henriette. UM, So we want to hear
your thoughts. You can reach us at Twitter and Facebook.
We're your car Stuff hs W. You can check out

(56:25):
our three part episode on highway safety films, which is
way more interesting, dark, and grizzly than you'll think from
the title. Uh. You can check that out along with
all our other podcasts on our website car Stuff show
dot com. And if you want to email us directly,
you're in luck. We both are because we have an
email address. It is car stuff at how stuff work
dot com. So more on this and thousands of other

(56:51):
topics is the house stuff works dot com. What U
is now? What you think? Send an email to podcast
at how stuff works dot com. Four