Safety: How Swede it is

STOCKHOLM – – Warning: Incoming seatbelt joke. Know why people call seatbelts lap belts?

Because they were invented by Swedes. Get it? Lap belts? Lapp land? Oh never mind.

We’ll probably get in trouble for joking about seatbelts away, considering the serious life-saving role they play.

Over the past three years in Sweden, there were 15 trucker fatalities. Of those only one had been wearing his seatbelt. Hardly a laughing matter.

And that sad stat is particularly ironic given the fact that that country is, truly, the birthplace of the very familiar three-point belt that has become such a widespread lifesaver.

It was 50 years ago this month, in fact, that some crafty engineers at Volvo first came up with the three-point safety belt, an invention, the company says “that has saved more lives in traffic than any other technical feature.”

"We immediately gave free use of our patent to all manufacturers and today the safety belt is a natural feature in virtually all trucks and cars. That is why we can say that there is a bit of Volvo in every vehicle on the road – irrespective of make and model," says Volvo Trucks’ traffic and product safety director, Carl Johan Almqvist.

If your drivers (or friends’n’ family) still need convincing that strapping on this 50-year-old lifesaver is a waste of time, send them this link and tell them to click on the Web TV links near the bottom of the page.

They’ll get the picture.