Ford inflatable seat belt wins safety award

Ford's industry-exclusive rear inflatable seat belts - one of the 2011 Explorer's breakthrough safety innovations that helped nearly triple the vehicle's March sales - earned the 2011 Traffic Safety Achievement Award from the New York International Auto Show's World Traffic Safety Symposium.
May 16, 2012 Read time: 1 min
278 Ford’s industry-exclusive rear inflatable seat belts – one of the 2011 Explorer’s breakthrough safety innovations that helped nearly triple the vehicle’s March sales – earned the 2011 Traffic Safety Achievement Award from the New York International Auto Show’s World Traffic Safety Symposium.

In everyday use, rear inflatable belts operate like conventional seat belts, including compatibility with infant and child safety and booster seats. In the event of a frontal or side crash, the increased diameter of the inflated belt more effectively holds the occupant in the proper seating position, helping to reduce the risk of injury. The inflated belts help to distribute crash force energy across up to five times more of the occupant’s torso than a traditional belt. This expands its range of protection and reduces risk of injury by diffusing crash pressure over a larger area, while helping provide additional head and neck support. Following deployment, the belt remains inflated for several seconds before dispersing its air through pores in the material.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Autonomous vehicles, the pros and cons
    November 21, 2013
    Driver interface and human factors could provide the biggest obstacles to autonomous vehicles as Jon Masters discovers.
    Read More
  • Report analyses multiple ITS projects to highlight cost and benefits
    March 16, 2015
    Every year in America cost benefit analysis is carried out on dozens of ITS installations and pilot studies and the findings, along with the lessons learned, are entered into the Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) web-based ITS Knowledge Resources database. This database holds more than 1,600 reports and periodically the USDOT reviews the material on file to draw conclusions from this wider body of evidence. It has just published one such review ITS Benefits, Costs, and Lessons Learned: 2014 Update Re
    Read More
  • Moveble barriers improve workzone safety, reduce costs
    January 25, 2012
    Two phases of an arterial reconstruction project in Salt Lake City have provided a compelling cost-based argument for moveable barriers.
    Read More
  • Multi-modal’s long road into the transportation mainstream
    June 4, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at 20 years of multimodal transport in the Sun Belt and beyond and the key requirement for user engagement. Phoenix residents will head to the polls in August to decide whether to implement a three-tenths of a cent sales tax to fund the city’s new multimodal transportation plan. It will be the second transportation-related sales tax hike in the past 15 years yet city officials and advocates expect the resolution to easily pass—despite the strong anti-tax environment that has dom
    Read More

Highlighted Content