Auto accident injuries and deaths have begun to rise again recently because of increased distracted driving. (Texting while driving causes a lot of Florida car accidents.) But car crashes would hurt even more people if it weren’t for the invention of Swedish car crash engineer Nils Bohlin. In 1962, the Volvo automobile engineer developed a way to make car accidents less harmful to drivers and passengers.
Bohlin, who had been an aircraft safety engineer for Saab, was familiar with the type of soft-tissue injuries common to car accident victims. He knew from working on pilot ejection seats that the pelvis and chest area took the brunt of the impact. Until Bohlin’s innovation, lap belts were the best technology available for drivers to avoid head and neck injuries in car crashes. (Not many drivers took advantage of the those either.) Bohlen knew he needed to design a seat belt that was comfortable and easy to work. He wanted people to use it.
Soft Tissue Auto Accident Injuries
Bohlin studied the various ways that car accidents hurt, seriously injure, and kill people. He knew he needed a design that would protect drivers and passengers in specific ways. In America, almost three million people a year visit emergency departments to be treated for auto accident injuries. There are more soft tissue injuries than lacerations and abrasions. Like other law firms around the country, Orlando car accident attorneys often work to recover medical expenses for these, less visible, injuries. Florida auto accident lawyers spend a lot of time recouping lost wages and getting reimbursements for car accident victims suffering from whiplash, neck sprains, and spinal cord and back injuries. Sprains are usually tears or damage to ligaments, like those in the shoulder neck or back that connect soft tissue. In fact, these are the most common kinds of car crash injuries that Central Florida emergency departments treat.
To deal with this kind of accident trauma, Bohlin came up with the three-point restraint. He designed it to absorb impact energy and reduce damage across the chest and pelvic areas. It cuts the risk of auto accident injuries and death by 50%. We commonly slip into shoulder belts these days without giving it a lot of thought. But it saves lives because a Swedish engineer named Nihl Bohlin gave it a lot of thought more than 50 years ago.
People in Central Florida have been turning to the Orlando car accident attorneys at Martinez Manglardi for help for 30 years. For a free consultation about Florida auto accident injuries, call 407-846-2240.
