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

  • The ABC of CARTES 2014: Apple, Bitcoin and cloud security are all on the conference agenda
    October 28, 2014
    CARTES 2014, the global event for payment, identification and mobility, is fast approaching and the world’s experts in the sector are about to head to Paris for its biggest and most important annual gathering. The 2013 event welcomed more than 20,000 visitors, some 1,670 of whom attended the opening conference - the World Card Summit - while also visiting the 450 exhibitors at the venue.
    Read More
  • Progress of ICT transport research projects
    February 3, 2012
    Juhani Jääskeläinen, head of the ICT for Transport Unit, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission, details the results of Call 4 for research projects in ICT for transport. Since the closure of the call and evaluation process during the summer of last year the European Commission (EC) has been negotiating and signing contracts with projects which were selected from proposals submitted to Call 4 of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) fo
    Read More
  • Two seconds – the difference between life and death
    October 17, 2016
    Professor Donald Fisher has spent 15 years identifying factors that increase the crash risk of novice and older drivers. His findings highlight the difference between living and dying, Colin Sowman reports.
    Read More
  • Sony’s vision systems help limit risk in road tunnels
    November 10, 2017
    Sony’s Stephane Clauss looks at the imaging requirements in tunnels. In the event of a fire inside a tunnel, the dispersion of gases and heat is prevented, creating extreme temperatures that have led to many deaths. Following tragic incidents including Mont Blanc, European legislation requires longer tunnels to be fitted with incident and smoke detection systems.
    Read More

Highlighted Content