Products Liability Lawyers Influence on Public Safety
This upcoming July 17 is the birthday of the late Nils Bohlin. Who was Nils Bohlin, you might ask? Fact is he may very well be responsible for saving more lives, and preventing more serious injuries, than any human in history, according to one top products liability lawyer at the law firm of Dankner Milstein, P.C. who is familiar with Mr. Bohlin’s extraordinary contribution to human safety.
Bohlin was a Swedish-born engineer who invented the three point safety belt, the same belt in use today in all motor vehicles. Until Bohlin’s revolutionary new invention hit the market, most cars and trucks were equipped with only lap belts, which very few drivers, or passengers, saw fit to use. Issues of personal freedom, and reports of internal injuries caused by the lap belt in accident impacts, turned motorists off.
Bohlin introduced his design while working at Volvo in 1959. Volvo, recognizing the potential to save lives, even shared Bohlin design with other auto manufacturers. Unfortunately records show that use of Bohlin’s safety belt did not become widespread until the 1970’s. Up until then, the automotive industry resisted efforts to improve the safety of their vehicles if it added cost to their production, especially in the absence of government regulation that eventually made installation of the three point seat belt mandatory.
Today, Bohlin’s invention is standard safety equipment in every vehicle on the road in the USA and around the world. According to statistics from the National Transportation Safety Board the use of the Bohlin device, and laws requiring its use, have proven to greatly reduce the incidence – and has lowered the risk — of injury and death when accidents occur. Additionally, product liability laws and liability claims against vehicle manufacturers, have likewise been a major impetus for safer vehicle design.
In addition to the three point seat belt, the top products liability lawyers across the country, like those at Dankner Milstein, P.C., have been instrumental in indirectly forcing automakers to install airbags, antilock brakes, back up cameras, audible warning devices and other high-tech gadgetry that slows down, or stops, a vehicle in emergency situations.
These improvements are in large part the result of litigation brought by top products liability law firms like Dankner Milstein, P.C. on behalf of people who have been injured, or killed, as a result of manufacturer negligence.
“By striking at their bottom lines,” Jay W. Dankner, managing partner at the top products liability of law firm of Dankner Milstein said, “plaintiffs lawyers have helped force automakers to incorporate the most up-to-date safety technology into the cars and trucks they design and manufacture.”
