Jut when you think it can’t possibly get any more ridiculous, it does. Volvo has come up with what it calls the “multi-adaptive safety belt.” Because apparently a simple seat belt isn’t safe enough.
Speaking of that. Notice how seat belts became safety belts? It is hard to put a finger precisely on the moment of this transition. Just as it is difficult to put a finger on when gay became something other than happy. Nevertheless, it happened – and it’s significant in that words are the means by which thoughts are formed and expressed.
Seat belt conjures different thoughts than safety belt does.
A seat belt is just that. Neutral thought. It is a belt and it is attached to the seat. A safety belt is the same but also more. One had better wear the thing, eh? Because if not, then you are not being safe, you see. The change in wording is deliberately intended to alter people’s thinking about seat belts, in order to elicit the wanted response. That being not only to “buckle up” but to regard anyone who chooses not to as someone who is dangerous because they are not being safe.
Volvo was once the safe car company. It catered to people who looked upon driving as a dangerous activity. Volvo pioneered the three-point shoulder-harness seatbelt (and even called it that for awhile) decades before the government began punishing drivers for not “buckling up,” a strange thing when you stop to think about it a little since the pretext given for most traffic offenses is that the offender’s actions might result in harm to others. But not “buckling up” presents no harm or even threat of harm to others. The person not “buckled up” might be hurt (or hurt worse) if there is a crash but it is preposterous to argue his not “buckling up” causes or even might cause harm to anyone else.
Yet it is now a punishable offense to not “buckle up.” It may as well be a punishable offense to not eat your veggies – and will likely come to that (and more) because once it is accepted that the government can punish you for offenses that cause no harm to anyone else but that may result in harm to you, then it has been accepted that government is our parent and we had better do as it says, for our own good.
Or else.
Back to Volvo. It made “safe” cars. Or – more finely – it made a name for itself as the seller of cars that offered more in the way of “safety” design and features (such as seat belts) than other brands of cars that emphasized other things. Imagine that. There was a time when buyers could choose a “safe” Volvo or another kind of car that maybe looked better to them, or that was lighter (and so got better gas mileage) or which was cheaper, which was of value to people who liked the idea of being free to choose to not have to buy things they did not feel the need for.
Like seat belts, for instance.
Imagine a time when you did not have to buy them – let alone wear them. It was a long time ago and so few remember. That is too bad because when people forget they come to think the way it is now is how it has always been – and always will be. They lose their frame of reference – a point of comparison.
Today, every vehicle is a Volvo in that every vehicle must be “safe” in that it must comply with a whole agenda of federally required “safety” regs that require or de facto require every new vehicle be built around at least four air bags (most new vehicles have six or more) and that they fold up like an accordion in a crash so as to absorb the impact of a crash without transferring the impact forces to the occupants within. That they have back-up cameras and achieved so many “stars” as regards how well they absorb impact forces in a crash.
And there’s nothing wrong with any of that – as such. It would be fine if Volvo were to offer all of those things – and more, including multi-adaptive safety belts. Provided other vehicle manufacturers were free to not offer them so that those who didn’t want them were free to not have to buy them.
They aren’t, of course.
This has – ironically – taken away from Volvo the main thing that used to sell Volvos since every other vehicle manufacturer is now forced to sell the same thing. Whether Volvo – and Volvo people – understood the consequences of the government forcing every vehicle manufacturer to manufacture Volvos – is unclear. Nevertheless, that is precisely what has happened and it probably accounts for why Volvos don’t sell as well (as many) as they did when Volvo was the “safe” car brand.
So now Volvo wants to be even safer. It is going to offer the multi-adaptive safety belts in its new models. Seat belts that adjust to fit whatever the size of the person sitting in the seat happens to be – using lots of elaborate (and expensive to buy and to repair when they fail) gizmos.
No, correction. Volvo is not going to offer multi-adaptive safety belts It is going to make them standard. And then – wait for it – the other manufacturers will as well, in anticipation of a federal requirement that is coming as surely as digital dollars and a red-white-and-blue social credit scheme via Palentir, enabled by Trump.
Any vehicle that lacks multi-adaptive safety belts will naturally be derided as not being “safe” even before then – which will prompt the mandate.
Just as it is already not “safe” – and punishable – to drive without “buckling up” the seat belt that is now a safety belt that the government says you have to wear, or else.
. . .
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Thanks for covering this, Eric. I read this on an MSNBC website about a week or so ago. It sounds like one more bit of technology to jack up the price of a vehicle, and will cost the consumer way too much money to fix/repair/replace when it screws up. And as I joked: What is to stop this “adaptive seatbelt” from simply crushing a person to death because it decides that your seat belt is too loose? Whoops, sorry about that? I surmise one should not be surprised that we graduated from mandated seat belt usage (or listen to the damned alarm if one does not want to), to deciding HOW you are going to wear said seatbelt. We consumers & drivers are increasingly becoming slaves to vehicles that-in the end-we never own, but still have to pay for.
Absolutely, Shadow!
I have already experienced this in a way. Many new vehicles have these pre-tensioner things that cinch the belt super tight if the “tech” decides a crash is imminent. It senses this when you drive “aggressively” – as for example hard cornering. I see it as inevitable that this business will be enforced by cameras that see whether you are “buckled up” – and if not, the car will just pull over and stop. For saaaaaaaaaaaaafety!
“Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.” Ludwig von Mises
Exactly, James!
I bash my head against the wall trying to get this across to people. Most just can’t understand it. They focus, purblind, on “x” and do not see that “y” and “z” thus become inevitable.
I wear a seat-belt when there is a reasonable expectation that I could crash/experience a vehicle failure or if I’m near others who look like they could.
I wouldn’t force it on others, but I’m not required to drive next to them at speed either.
As the Italians say, I just prefer not to crash.
Amen, Steve –
I almost never wear a seat belt because I drive in such a way as to avoid crashing. “Safety” people will say: But you cannot eliminate the possibility! That’s true. But it can be dramatically reduced – and I submit that proof of this in my case is decades of “accident” free driving. I grant I might get into an accident today. But I do not live my life in morbid fear of things that might happen. Seat belts suck – and nagging people to “buckle up” sucks more.
“The person not “buckled up” might be hurt (or hurt worse) if there is a crash but it is preposterous to argue his not “buckling up” causes or even might cause harm to anyone else.” -Eric.
I was able to maintain control of my sand rail after I rolled it, and steer to the side of the road after doing a complete roll, when otherwise any traffic near me would have also been fair game.
It’s common sense that a seat-belt keeps those involved in a crash able to maintain control for the saftey of those around them. It helps shut down chain-reactions. That quote is laughable.
Hi Steve,
Oh, please. Most – 99 percent, probably – do not have the skill to steer during a violent crash. They just scream and go for the ride.
The irony which few see about the safety at all costs, is the vehicle of today. The crossover, the vehicle that almost everybody seems to be driving now. A vehicle that is very top heavy, so rollover accidents have increased by quite a bit.
I live in a town that has banned driving faster than 35mph, but yet the fire department was posting photos of roll over accidents on social media pretty regularly. I made a snarky comment on how there seems to be a lot of roll over accidents in a town where nobody is driving faster than 35 mph per hour………
They stopped posting accident pics shortly after that.
I’ll bet the heroes aren’t driving 35, especially late at night.
About 20 years ago, on Thanksgiving morning eastbound on I-4 in Orlando, I witnessed an ML350 swerve to avoid stopped traffic, hit a car in another lane, and end up doing several end-over-end flips into the air before coming back down to land on the roof in the shoulder of the Interstate.
What a crazy scene. I’ve never seen an old school family saloon do anything like that.
I remember the days…. I was about kid in the late 80s in Los Angeles. Had a sort of friend nearby. He was a ginger and his mom had a Volvo.
I soon figured out the kid was a spoiled snot and his single mother was the equivalent of a purple haired liberal today. It wasn’t just me either. None of their neighbors liked them, my parents didn’t like them.
If I were to guess where they are at today, I would bet the mom is dead after her 3rd clot shot.
The point is always,” BE AFRAID!!!!” After the suffragettes got their way and the hysterical vote began to influence our society, the yin and the yang have been out of balance, and the emphasis on “safety” has been grossly in excess of what is tolerable.
When in fact car injuries and fatalities are rare, and design features like soft edges and bucket seats, lower centers of gravity, and better brakes all have made them rarer, with no regard to the dictates of illegitimate government.
It’s not nice to say that a small level of mayhem is tolerable and necessary, but it is reality. Every dollar stolen by seat belt tickets represents life stolen from the victim, and if you add them all up, all those stolen hours of life, seat belt laws kill far more people than the occasional wreck. But it’s not nice to say that.
An oil change makes you feel safer than a seat belt with a shoulder harness.
The Pathfinder feels like new after you change oil. A comfort zone, you know it helps.
When the earthquake strikes while you are crossing a bridge, right then the upper deck collapses and crushes your car with you in it, your safety belt won’t do much good.
The gov wants you in a rubber room in a fetal position just to keep you whimpering and weeping, how your karmic fate works. Also known as a nursing home.
Go buy a hazmat suit and wear it, the new safety garb in the new safety world.
Anything the gov does, it is not for you, nor your safety.
What a Great Reset it is going to be!
Iran is ushering in a Great Reset for Israel today and yesterday and the day before that. Bibi is probably babbling incoherently in uncontrollable fits of rage. Doubtful that it will stop.
Iran is doing it for the children of Gaza.
It’s Juneteenth, you can celebrate another holiday.
OT, but definitely deserves a place in the EP Autos Hall of Shame:
https://www.pressenterprise.com/2025/06/17/ex-riverside-county-deputies-tow-company-owner-sentenced-in-tows-for-bribes-scheme/
>developed a reputation for “devoting his time on duty to impounding parked vehicles, as well as for failing to properly enter those impounds into the sheriff’s computer system or complete the paperwork needed to let the vehicle owners know where their vehicles had been towed.”
Can you say, “stealing cars?”
>Prosecutors said that Carpenter aggressively sought out street-parked vehicles to impound for little or no reason,
The perp was sentenced to “probation.”
Well, I watched the video. And I still don’t know what distinguishes the fancy-schmancy multi-adaptive seat belt from the ones we’ve got now. It’s all just slo-mo impressionistic arm waving, as if it were filmed at a modern dance event. Maybe the chicks will dig it.
And it ends with ‘For life,’ translated from L’chaim (לחיים). So they’ve got the Hebrew vote! 🙂
Nope female here and I find the ad stupid and creepy!
It is all about the Patents again.
The math is a lot harder in the physical/analog realm than digital, however, and a recall is inevitable when the gadgetry gets too complicated because a software fix doesn’t resolve things.
Back in the 1960s, a car mag had a feature showcasing wrecks where people died even though they were wearing seat belts. There were never very many.
I still remember a photo of a car that had gotten caught between a concrete structure and a semi. The driver’s side of the car was missing (except the frame).
Most of the wrecks were similar. Fell off a cliff or had a moose come through the windshield.
Would air bags or high tech “safety belts” have helped? Hmm…
Hi Rick,
Indeed. Though I attack the fundamental thing, which is this idea that “safety” is any legitimate business of the government’s. In other words, whether seat belts “work” is not the relevant thing. It is a question of whether the government ought to be mandating such things.
If only five air bags deployed, would six really make a difference?
Many grants could be awarded to study this question.
A m00se once bit my sister.
Incrementalism is what we’re dealing with here. Once upon a time we dumped toxic chemicals into the ground and drove cars that could impale you whether on it’s fins or on it’s steering wheel. Slowly over many years we were either sued or regulated into not dumping toxic waste onto the land and designing cars and equipment that was a lot safer than the previous versions.
The problem now is that since almost everything has reached the point of being nearly 100% safe the bureaucracy still exists to enforce their will on you. When we have reached the point where an idiot takes his TV set into the bathtub with him and doesn’t electrocute himself isn’t it time to say “Great we’re done! Safety has been achieved!”. Nope, too many bureaurats jobs are dependent on the next 0.001% improvement in safety.
Perhaps the next war will solve this problem.
Also of note, dumping toxic chemicals on the ground is often a pretty good way to get rid of them. When spread out, and exposed to lots of natural light and air, everything breaks down and becomes more or less inert. But if you bury a bunch of it in a dump, that process gets messed up.
Noahide laws and Tikkun Olam. Learn to love it goyim, or we’ll do another Amalekite holocaust on you.