VOLVO V50 1.6 DRIVE
MILES PER GALLON: 72.4
CO2 PER KM: 104 GRAMS
GOOD FOR: THE QUICK
BAD FOR: THE DEAD
There's a little bit of Volvo in every car on the road, from the lowly three-wheel Reliant to the mighty 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce Phantom. Care to hazard a guess what it is? Nope. Me neither. It is, in fact, the seat belt. It is half a century since Volvo invented it, and since then it has been credited with saving the lives of at least a million people. Even with the advent of airbags and advanced braking systems, it is still the most important safety device in every car – and each year at least 20,000 certain fatalities live to tell that tale. Add to that figure the number spared serious injury and you realise the magnitude of the debt we owe Volvo.
The engineer who invented the device was Nils Bohlin – he died, peacefully, in 2002. He'd actually been working in Saab's aviation division at the time, developing the catapult ejector seat, when Volvo approached him to create a safety device for its cars.
Today, belting up for a journey is as much part of driving a car as starting the engine. But in the 1950s, despite the increasing number of road deaths, there was little attention paid to the notion of safety. One leaflet advised motorists in the case of a collision to "slide on to the floor and crouch with arms between head and instrument panel". Bohlin wanted a device that was easy to use, could be put on with one hand, was comfortable, and protected both the upper and lower parts of the body. Experiments showed that simple lap straps were almost as dangerous as wearing no belt at all and led to terrible head injuries – though they did at least stop drivers from falling out of somersaulting sports cars. By 1958 he'd perfected his "three-point V design" and the word began to spread. The honour of being the first car to have the seat belt fitted as standard went to Volvo's Amazon 120. However, in an act of heartwarming philanthropy, the Swedish car maker was so convinced of the seat belt's potential it left the patent open so that other manufacturers could install it in their cars, too, and motorists the world over could benefit.
But it hasn't stopped there. A crash still represents a colossal risk, so Volvo's stated aim is to build cars which simply do not crash. To this end, it's created a raft of devices, both passive and active, to reduce the chance of a crash. Human error means that whenever a person is at the wheel, there will be the possibility of a collision. You might feel there are some drivers on the road where it is not only more likely but a certainty! Therefore Volvo has taken the matter out of our hands. The latest generation of collision-warning and pedestrian-detection systems (7,000 fatal "walkouts" occur in Europe each year) mean your car will not only alert you to the fact that you are about to crash, but if you do not respond will hit the brakes for you. If you are drunk when you get in, its Alcoguard breath detector will turn off the engine.
I managed to get through my test week in one of Volvo's new eco-friendly V50s without crashing once. Luck was clearly on my side. But in the next generation of Volvos it won't matter whose side the luck is on…★