<P> American car manufacturers Nash (in 1949) and Ford (in 1955) offered seat belts as options, while Swedish Saab first introduced seat belts as standard in 1958 . After the Saab GT 750 was introduced at the New York Motor Show in 1958 with safety belts fitted as standard, the practice became commonplace . </P> <P> Glenn Sheren, of Mason, Michigan, submitted a patent application on March 31, 1955 for an automotive seat belt and was awarded US Patent 2,855,215 in 1958 . This was a continuation of an earlier patent application that Mr. Sheren had filed on September 22, 1952 . </P> <P> However, the first modern three point seat belt (the so - called CIR - Griswold restraint) used in most consumer vehicles today was patented in 1955 U.S. Patent 2,710,649 by the Americans Roger W. Griswold and Hugh DeHaven . </P> <P> The Swedish national electric utility, did a study of all fatal, on - the - job accidents among their employees . The study revealed that the majority of fatalities occurred while the employees were on the road on company business . In response, two Vattenfall safety engineers, Bengt Odelgard and Per - Olof Weman, started to develop a seat belt . Their work was presented to Swedish manufacturer Volvo in the late 1950s, and set the standard for seat belts in Swedish cars . The 3 - point seatbelt was developed to its modern form by Swedish inventor Nils Bohlin for Volvo--who introduced it in 1959 as standard equipment . In addition to designing an effective three - point belt, Bohlin demonstrated its effectiveness in a study of 28,000 accidents in Sweden . Unbelted occupants sustained fatal injuries throughout the whole speed scale, whereas none of the belted occupants were fatally injured at accident speeds below 60 mph . No belted occupant was fatally injured if the passenger compartment remained intact . Bohlin was granted U.S. Patent 3,043,625 for the device . </P>

When was the three point seat belt invented