Here ’s a pollyannaish stat to make you require to take the ' ol foodstuff getter out for a spin : If you live in the United States , you stand a 1 - in-84 life-time peril of die in a car accident . While expiration by auto does n’t prevail a candle to the number 1 killer , heart disease ( 1 - in-5 chance ) , it withstand its own as one of the more likely way any of us will sound off the bucket [ author : Parker - Pope ] .
The secure news is that if you are in a car accident , you could cut your chance of dying in half just by the bare act of put on a seatbelt [ source : Centers for Disease Control ] . In increase , faster than a individual can even react , a modern seatbelt retracts forcefully to line up occupier into a safe seating position when theairbagsdeploy .
How does it do that ? With a seatbelt pretensioner , of course . Like a valiant but tragical hero , the seatbelt pretensioner sacrifices its lifespan in an accident , in edict to save yours .
Consider yourself fortunate if your fomite ’s seat belt pretensioners never have to see action in their intend determination . If they do , that means the front of your car or motortruck has taste into something else psyche - on , and pretty hard . It ’s extremely likely the front airbags inflated , too .
The pretensioner mechanism use an explosive bursting charge to take a hold in Walter Piston when sensors detect the signature sharp retardation of an accident . The Walter Piston , in spell , chop-chop labour the spool around which the textile strap of a seatbelt is wrapped . That incredibly fast retraction of the whack framework removes the slack from the belt instantly . This superfluous seat belt " pre- " tension , moments prior to the full force of impact , pull the bodies of the driver and front - seat rider firmly into their arse . This positions them so as to receive the maximum protection benefit of the front airbags . It also help prevent the unfortunate phenomenon car crash - ologists call " submarining . " That ’s when the momentum due to the crash yank a dupe ’s body under his or her circuit bash and sends it swag forward below the hyphen .
Cars and lighttrucksaren’t the only place in which the consumption of seat belt pretensioners has clicked . One of the earliest ancestors of New , self-propelling pretensioner systems was one proposed for military aircraftpilotsin the fifties . In 1958 , inventor Royce Strickland , Jr. , submitted a patent software program for a gizmo he call a " harness inactivity bobbin . " It was an explosive gas - driven equipment that cinched pilot burner into theirejection seatsbefore they were blown out of an airplane [ source : Strickland ] .
While few of us will ever have to bail out of a stricken belligerent jet mid - flight , it should be somewhat re - assuring to know that like , seatbelt pretensioner technology will help keep us anchored if we ever get into a head - on car collision .
Between saves by bike helmet and seat smash in assorted vehicle mishaps , I ’m probably on my 5th or sixth life in cat terms . So learn for this clause about the various way one can " buy the farm " ( or just lease it , if you get off with mere paralysis ) by bury to wear a seatbelt reserve , well , a sure macabre enthrallment for me . It also prompted a less creepy thought : How cool is it that the same pretensioner concept used in fighting planing machine ejection bottom protects civvies in their cars , as well ? Countless machine accident survivors literally owe their lives to a handful of inventors who enhanced the seatbelt into an alive restraining machine , by developing the seat belt pretensioner . I confess to having some motley flavor about the ongoing nannyfication of car engineering ; but on counterpoise , the seatbelt pretensioner seems like a benignant and relatively non - intrusive guard feature . And hey , if it lets you cheat the grim reaper , even if just for now , what ’s not to like ?
