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The Corporate Altruism That Made the Seat Belt Great

The legacy of the seat belt, the world’s most prevalent safety device, and the act of corporate goodwill that ensured everyone‘s car got the best design.

Ernie Smith
13 min readJan 7, 2019

Traveling, in one way or another, is often a series of belts.

Perhaps you’re traveling in a car, and you’re putting on a seat belt to ensure your safety. Perhaps you’re one of those infamous customers of size on an airplane and you’re forced to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extender. Maybe you’re just walking around town with your Chrome Industries bag, which features a prominent seat belt buckle.

Either way, the seat belt has become a key part of our lives, a strap of nylon webbing that has saved a whole lot of lives in the roughly 100 or so years since they’ve been embedded into the mainstream.

Buckle up, as I tell you all about the history of the seat belt.

“European and American practice are in agreement on the point of not providing parachutes. As for safety belts, British and Dutch opinion is against their installation. Most of the transports operating in the…

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Ernie Smith
Ernie Smith

Written by Ernie Smith

Editor of @readtedium, the dull side of the internet. You may know me from @ShortFormBlog. Subscribe to my thought machine: http://tedium.co/

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