Volvo's done it again! Inventor of the modern seatbelt reveals a new belt that knows how big you are
Volvo has invented a new type of seatbelt that could dramatically improve in-car safety - again.
The firm, which pioneered the use of the three-point belt, has revealed a new 'multi-adaptive safety belt', which uses sensors to analyse an occupant's height, weight, body shape and seating position and responds accordingly in the event of a crash.
A larger occupant will receive a higher belt load, Volvo said, to reduce the risk of head injury, while it will respond less severely to smaller passengers to lessen the impact on their ribs.
The system – developed in collaboration with ZF Lifetech – will also respond differently according to the nature of the impact, gathering data from around the car "in less than the blink of an eye" to determine how much force the seatbelt should apply.
Today's seatbelts use load limiters to change the amount of force applied by the seatbelt, with three 'load-limiting profiles' available. Volvo's new device ups that to 11.
The new Volvo EX60 electric SUV, due next year, will be first to feature the new belts, and Volvo said over-the-air software updates will mean "it gets better over time".
As Volvo gathers more crash safety data, "the car can improve its understanding of the occupants, new scenarios and response strategies".
Åsa Haglund, who runs Volvo Cars' Safety Centre, said: "The world first multi-adaptive safety belt is another milestone for automotive safety and a great example of how we leverage real-time data with the ambition to help save millions of more lives.
'This marks a major upgrade to the modern three-point safety belt, a Volvo invention introduced in 1959, estimated to have saved over a million lives.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
How Europe could go ‘Mega' by 2027
Poland's new president is a Trump-inspired nationalist. The government in the Netherlands has just been felled by an anti-migrant firebrand. Right-wing parties are already in government in Hungary and Italy, and in Berlin, the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the main opposition after it was endorsed by JD Vance and Elon Musk in the February elections. As Europe begins a cycle of crucial elections over the next two and a half years, the radical insurgent Right has the momentum. By 2027, there could be eight nationalist prime ministers in the 27-member-strong European Union, which has already swung to the Right. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's White House is determined to 'Make Europe Great Again'. Allies in the right places could prove very useful to Mr Trump, who accuses the EU of trying to 'screw' the US on trade and through the regulation of American technology firms. If 2027 is the year Europe does indeed go 'Mega', there will be serious ramifications for EU policies on migration, Ukraine and net zero, as well as a push to assert national leadership over Brussels. Experts believe this week's win in Poland and ructions in the Netherlands will bolster the 'Mega' wing in Europe with proof of concept. 'I don't believe in domino effects, but I do believe in a demonstration effect,' said Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. In other words, people in other countries are aware of and influenced by politics elsewhere. 'The biggest demonstration effect is coming not from other European countries, but from the US,' he said. 'The election of Donald Trump gives a legitimacy boost and a confidence boost to plenty of the far-Right parties across Europe and their electorates.' Many of the parties had 'ever tighter links to the Maga movement' and 'practical support' to get better results, he said. The Netherlands Geert Wilders led his Party for Freedom (PVV) to the hard-Right's first-ever general election win in November 2023. But the 'Dutch Trump' was forced to sacrifice his dream of being prime minister in coalition talks after his shock victory on a platform of 'zero asylum'. This time, he would become prime minister, he told reporters in The Hague, as he vowed to once again defeat the establishment conservative and Left-wing parties in October. The shock-headed populist may struggle to repeat the trick, or to find willing coalition partners, after toppling the government for not backing his hardline migration plans. Current polls have him with a narrow lead of one percentage point over the Left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA. But Mr Wilders was enjoying highs of 50 per cent before forming a coalition government that struggled to implement its strictest ever asylum policy. He is banking on those numbers recovering, and White House officials have already made clear he has Mr Trump's backing. With enough vote share, he could form a new conservative coalition with the pro-business VVD, provided it also posts strong results. Tellingly, its leader has not yet ruled out a second alliance with Mr Wilders. Poland Mr Trump hosted Karol Nawrocki at the White House before the Law and Justice-backed former historian won a knife-edge victory on June 1. The role of president is largely ceremonial in Poland, but it comes armed with the power of veto over new legislation. Law and Justice (PiS) won the popular vote (35.4 per cent), but fell short of a majority at the last general election in Poland. Donald Tusk, who won 30.7 per cent of the vote, cobbled together a large and unwieldy centrist coalition to take power. Since then, prime minister Tusk has sought to steer Poland back to the European mainstream. His reforms, including the liberalisation of some of Europe's strictest abortion laws, are set to be frustrated by Mr Nawrocki's vetoes. Mr Tusk has called for a vote of confidence on June 11 to shore up his restive coalition, which is trailing PiS in the polls. Even if that passes, it looks very unlikely his government will survive to the end of its term in 2027, and while it is unclear who the PiS's candidate could be in the next general election, a hard-Right prime minister is not unlikely. Czech Republic Businessman turned politician Andrej Babis is leading in the surveys – consistently polling about 30 per cent – ahead of October's general election in the Czech Republic. The last election saw him lose to a Conservative-Liberal coalition by just a handful of votes. Babis's party, ANO, obtained 27.13 per cent of the vote, while Spolu, which leads the coalition of the current government, won 27.79 per cent of the vote. If he scrapes together a few more votes, the populist will become prime minister for the second time. During his first spell in office, he donned a Trump-style red baseball cap. A Babis victory would mean that he, and potentially Mr Wilders, would join the highly influential European Council, which meets regularly in Brussels to give the EU institutions political direction. At present, the hard-Right have Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Hungary's Viktor Orban in the room, but their numbers could double by the end of the year to include Mr Babis and Mr Wilders. Hungary (2026) Mr Orban nailed his colours to Mr Trump's mast a long time ago and is a darling of American conservatives. The EU's longest-serving prime minister is looking to win a fifth consecutive term in office in elections in 2026. In 2022, his party obtained 54.13 per cent of the vote – the highest vote share obtained by any party in Hungary since the fall of Communism in 1989. His policies, such as laws insisting Hungary only legally recognises two genders, have drawn praise and emulation from Maga supporters. But he has angered Western EU member states by opposing sanctions on the Kremlin and banning gay pride marches. Mr Orban is currently the most vocal nationalist leader in calling for pan-European alliances of hard-Right parties to radically reform the EU. His party is in a European Parliament alliance with the parties led by Mr Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Ms Meloni's coalition partner Matteo Salvini, and Spain's Vox. Sweden (2026) Prime minister Ulf Kristersson's coalition is propped up by the hard-Right Sweden Democrats, which remains formally outside of government despite coming second in a 2022 election dominated by fears over immigration and crime. The far-Right nearly doubled their vote share between 2014 and 2022, from 12.86 per cent to 20.54 per cent, which is largely down to the Sweden Democrats. The Sweden Democrats have exerted considerable influence over the government and its agenda. The question is whether voters will give Jimmie Akesson enough of a mandate to finally bust the taboo that has so far kept a party partially founded by Nazi sympathisers from being formally in government. Italy (2027) Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a genuine stateswoman since she took power in 2022, and experts believe her example of government has made the hard-Right in Europe more credible. She has kept her Right-wing coalition together, which is no easy task in Italy. She positioned herself as a mediator between the EU and Mr Trump while successfully spearheading a drive to get Brussels' tacit backing for offshore migrant detention camps. Thanks to her, the Italian hard-Right's vote share has risen from just 1.97 per cent in 2013 to 27.2 per cent in 2022, and she will be optimistic of another victory in 2027's general election. She has much in common politically with Mr Orban, but they are divided over Ukraine, which has split the European hard-Right. She shares a European political party with Poland's Law and Justice, which is hawkish on Russia and will be contesting the general election in 2027 if Mr Tusk's vote of confidence passes next week. Spain (2027) Spain's conservatives won the popular vote – 33.1 per cent – in the last general election, but fell short of a majority. Their potential coalition allies, Vox, the far-Right and Trump allied nationalists, underperformed, obtaining just 12.4 per cent of the vote. That opened the door for socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez to assemble an extremely broad coalition of the centre-Left, communists and Catalan and Basque separatists. Polarised Spain's culture wars have only got worse in the years since the 2023 election and the start of the divisive Mr Sanchez's second term. The pardoning of Catalan separatists and political discussions with former terrorists, as well as corruption allegations about his wife and allies, could cost him in 2027. France (2027) Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections, effectively daring the French to hand over power to the hard-Right, after Marine Le Pen's National Rally defeated him in the European Parliament elections last summer. National Rally did not get a majority, after a group of different parties united to keep out the hard-Right. But Mr Macron's party lost its majority in the National Assembly and has been a lame duck domestically ever since. Head of the largest single party in France, Ms Le Pen is well positioned for presidential elections in 2027, in which Mr Macron cannot stand. But Ms Le Pen was banned from running for the presidency in March after being found guilty of embezzlement. It drew immediate comparisons to the 'lawfare' waged on Mr Trump, who offered his support. She is appealing, but her protege Jordan Bardella will run in her stead if necessary. Polls are showing that either could win against Gabriel Attal, a contender to succeed Mr Macron as candidate – if they were to run. Ms Le Pen would beat him 53 per cent to 47 per cent, Bardella by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. The question is whether the 'front republican' will once again emerge in the second round of the presidential elections to keep the National Rally from power. Or, as it did this week in Poland, fall just short. The election of a Eurosceptic leader to the presidency of France, the EU's most influential member state alongside Germany, would be a political earthquake that would shake Brussels to its core. Why now? Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said the populist parties in Europe were comparing notes as they plotted their routes to power. He said: 'They use the success and failure of other parties to learn from and use in campaigns. You see a lot of copying of strategies, such as victim playing or attacking so-called elites.' In general, traditional parties had an advantage in their experience and ability to govern, he added. Mr Wilders' decision to pull the plug on his coalition was an example that proved populists were 'good at saying things, not doing them.' The parties were also 'super-unstable' and given to infighting. For Prof Krouwel, the rise of the populist Right across Europe has its roots in economic anxiety as well as fears over immigration. 'There was always an expectation that your children will do better than you. You can't say that now,' he said, adding that Dutch children were staying home far longer because they can't afford to move out. 'We are all becoming southern Europe and that is an explanation for the populist surge,' he said. Maria Skora, visiting researcher at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, said there were certain broad trends common to many EU countries where the hard Right was on the rise. There have been 15 years of difficulties, including the eurozone and migrant crises. The pandemic was followed by the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis. That all contributed to the sense that traditional parties were not delivering. Meanwhile, parties like the AfD were extremely effective at using social media and digital campaigning. 'It's a digital revolution, as big a revolution as you know, radio back in the day,' Ms Skora said. 'I think this feeds into this tribalism and polarisation, which we see in more countries.'
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Swapped at birth: Why dad never looked like his parents
Matthew's dad had brown eyes and black hair. His grandparents had piercing blue was a running joke in his family that "dad looked nothing like his parents", the teacher from southern England turned out there was a very good reason for father had been swapped at birth in hospital nearly 80 years ago. He died late last year before learning the truth of his family - not his real name - contacted the BBC after we reported on the case of Susan, who received compensation from an NHS trust after a home DNA test revealed she had been accidentally switched for another baby in the News is now aware of five cases of babies swapped by mistake in maternity wards from the late 1940s to the say they expect more people to come forward driven by the increase in cheap genetic testing. 'The old joke might be true after all' During the pandemic, Matthew started looking for answers to niggling questions about his family history. He sent off a saliva sample in the post to be genealogy company entered his record into its vast online database, allowing him to view other users whose DNA closely matched his own."Half of the names I'd just never heard of," he says. "I thought, 'That's weird', and called my wife to tell her the old family joke might be true after all."Matthew then asked his dad to submit his own DNA sample, which confirmed he was even more closely related to the same group of mysterious family started exchanging messages with two women who the site suggested were his father's cousins. All were confused about how they could possibly be together, they eventually tracked down birth records from 1946, months after the end of World War documents showed that one day after his father was apparently born, another baby boy had been registered at the same hospital in east boy had the same relatively unusual surname that appeared on the mystery branch of the family tree, a link later confirmed by birth certificates obtained by was a lightbulb moment."I realised straight away what must have happened," he says. "The only explanation that made sense was that both babies got muddled up in hospital."Matthew and the two women managed to construct a brand new family tree based on all of his DNA matches."I love a puzzle and I love understanding the past," he says. "I'm quite obsessive anyway, so I got into trying to reverse engineer what had happened." An era before wristbands Before World War Two, most babies in the UK were born at home, or in nursing homes, attended by midwives and the family started to change as the country prepared for the launch of the NHS in 1948, and very gradually, more babies were delivered in hospital, where newborns were typically removed for periods to be cared for in nurseries."The baby would be taken away between feeds so that the mother could rest, and the baby could be watched by either a nursery nurse or midwife," says Terri Coates, a retired lecturer in midwifery, and former clinical adviser on BBC series Call The Midwife."It may sound paternalistic, but midwives believed they were looking after mums and babies incredibly well."It was common for new mothers to be kept in hospital for between five and seven days, far longer than identify newborns in the nursery, a card would be tied to the end of the cot with the baby's name, mother's name, the date and time of birth, and the baby's weight."Where cots rather than babies were labelled, accidents could easily happen", says Ms Coates, who trained as a nurse herself in the 1970s and a midwife in 1981."If there were two or more members of staff in the nursery feeding babies, for example, a baby could easily be put down in the wrong cot."By 1956, hospital births were becoming more common, and midwifery textbooks were recommending that a "wrist name-tape" or "string of lettered china beads" should be attached directly to the newborn.A decade later, by the mid-1960s, it was rare for babies to be removed from the delivery room without being individually labelled. Stories of babies being accidentally switched in hospital were very rare at the time, though more are now coming to light thanks to the boom in genetic testing and ancestry day after Jan Daly was born at a hospital in north London in 1951, her mother immediately complained that the baby she had been given was not hers."She was really stressed and crying, but the nurses assured her she was wrong and the doctor was called in to try to calm her," Jan staff only backed down when her mum told them she'd had a fast, unassisted delivery, and pointed out the clear forceps marks on the baby's head"I feel for the other mother who had been happily feeding me for two days and then had to give up one baby for another," she says."There was never any apology, it was just 'one of those silly errors', but the trauma affected my mother for a long time." Never finding out Matthew's father, an insurance agent from the Home Counties, was a keen amateur cyclist who spent his life following the local racing lived alone in retirement and over the last decade his health had been deteriorating. Matthew thought long and hard about telling him the truth about his family history but, in the end, decided against it. "I just felt my dad doesn't need this," he says. "He had lived 78 years in a type of ignorance, so it didn't feel right to share it with him."Matthew's father died last year without ever knowing he'd been celebrating his birthday a day early for the past eight then, Matthew has driven to the West Country to meet his dad's genetic first cousin and her daughter for all got on well, he says, sharing old photos and "filling in missing bits of family history".But Matthew has decided not to contact the man his father must have been swapped with as a baby, or his children – in part because they have not taken DNA tests themselves."If you do a test by sending your saliva off, then there's an implicit understanding that you might find something that's a bit of a surprise," Matthew says."Whereas with people who haven't, I'm still not sure if it's the right thing to reach out to them - I just don't think it's right to drop that bombshell."
The Sun
3 hours ago
- The Sun
Amazon shoppers rush to buy ‘stylish powerhouse' £140 MagSafe portable charger – now just £27
I'VE tested my fair share of portable chargers, and this one ticks all the right boxes. The Aobbow MagSafe Power Bank is on sale right now, down 81% from £139.99 to just £26.99, and it has everything you need. Aobbow MagSafe Power Bank, £139.99 £26.99 BUY FROM AMAZON Amazon's no stranger to solid tech deals, but this one feels like it's punching well above its price tag. For under thirty quid, you're getting a 10,000mAh portable charger that's slim, travel-friendly, and loaded with features. It supports wireless charging and comes with two built-in cables, one Type-C and one Lightning, as well as two additional ports. That's a rare combo, and a design you usually only see in premium models that cost two or three times as much. Now, let's be honest, £139.99 may have been stretching it a bit. But £26.99 is a real bargain for what you're getting here, and it's the kind of deal I wouldn't think twice about if you need a reliable power bank. I've tested plenty of chargers in search of the best power banks out there, and this one hits that sweet spot between practicality and price. It's compact, lightweight, and genuinely useful for everyday life, whether that's commuting, travelling, or just for a quick top-up on the go. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The reviews on Amazon are overwhelmingly positive, with a near-perfect 4.9-star average and hundreds of buyers singing its praises. I haven't had this one in my hand yet, but in my opinion, it has everything I'd want in a portable charger. It's designed with iPhones in mind, supporting wireless charging from the 12 series all the way up to the latest iPhone 16 models. It even sticks to MagSafe-compatible cases, so it stays put while it charges. If you're not clear on the mechanics of wireless charging, our tech experts have a straightforward guide on how iPhone wireless charging works. But the Aobbow is far from limited to Apple gear, it supports wireless charging for Android phones, tablets, and other USB-C devices. The built-in display shows you exactly how much charge is left, which is a small touch that makes a big difference. And when you make full use of it, you can juice up to five devices at once, so it's great for family trips or group travel. People who've bought it seem genuinely impressed. One reviewer called it a 'stylish powerhouse,' adding, 'It gave my iPhone 15 about 50% juice in just 30 minutes. 'The 10,000mAh capacity easily delivers 1.5–2 full charges depending on your model.' Another praised its convenience, saying, 'It snaps right onto my phone and charges fast with the 20W. 'The built-in cables are a great bonus, and it's compact enough to carry daily. Great design, fast charging, and no hassle.' If you're after a reliable, well-equipped power bank that won't cost a fortune, this one's worth grabbing while it's around.
