Nils Bohlin, Swedish inventor and all round top bloke, is estimated to have saved over a million lives in the space of 50 years with his baller invention: The three point seatbelt. Before 1959, seatbelts, if they were there at all, were simple lap belts that would do little other than personally see to your internal bleeding in the event of a crash. People rarely used them and the only ones buckling up on the regs were racecar drivers. They used four-point harnesses to keep their organs inside their bodies but, despite the fact that these were safer than lap belts, ordinary people effectively point-blank refused to use them where provided. Bohlin realised that he needed to make the whole tedious business of life-preservation as simple and comfortable as possible in order to overcome human laziness and invented a secure seatbelt that could be fastened with one hand and was comfortable to wear. Due to the life-saving potential of the invention, Volvo (for whom he designed the belt) made the patent available to all car manufacturers in a refreshing display of public spirit, and it has been preventing your children from become loose projectiles ever since.
