Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Seat Belt |
Seat BeltNoun1. A safety belt used in a car or plane to hold you in your seat in case of an accident. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | = lap belt. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A seat belt, sometimes called a Safety Belt, is a harness designed to hold a passenger of an automobile or other vehicle in place if a collision occurs. Seat belts are intended to reduce injuries by stopping the wearer from hitting hard interior elements of the car and from being thrown from the vehicle, and by preventing rear-seat passengers from crashing into those in the front seats.Lap belts are seat beats that goes over the wearer's hips. These are the most common kind of seat belts. Shoulder belts go over one shoulder. Until recently shoulder belts were only available in the front seat of the cars and back seats only had lap belts. "Five-point harnesses" are seat belts for small children, typically in child safety seats. The lap portion is connected to a belt between the legs and there are 2 shoulder belts for a total of 5 points of attachment to the seat.
Seat belts or safety belts were introduced in aircraft in the 1930s.
Compulsory Seat Belt Laws
The use of seat belts in automobiles is mandatory in many countries. This is a result of the benefits demonstrated by different studies in a number of countries, for example un USA the NHTSA (National Highway traffic Safety Administration) states about seat belt use:
“They are the most effective means of reducing fatalities and serious injuries when traffic crashes occur and are estimated to save 9,500 lives in America each year. Research has found that lap/shoulder belts, when used properly, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. For light truck occupants, seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 60 percent and moderate-to-critical injury by 65 percent.” Reference : http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/airbags/presbelt/america_seatbelt.html
While in the UK the results are as follows:
REDUCTION IN INJURIES ( % ) KIND OF INJURY: DRIVER PASSSENGER
To the Brain 33 % 56 %
Skull fracture 18 % 18 % Facial 45 % 64 %
Eyes 38 % 40 %
Facial fracture 6 % 6 %
To the lung 33 % 58 % Source: Compulsory Seat Belt Wearing, Report by the Department of Transport, UK. Oct. 1985
Objections are raised about the possibility that the use of a seat belt can more easily cause neck injuries (leaving the head free to move inertially while the rest of the body is blocked), and about the risk of imprisoning the passenger inside the vehicle (especially dangerous in case of fire), and of internal injuries, often not reported in the media, but this objections are not supported for studies that shows that this exceptional cases override the benefits for the population al large. Other objections against the obligation to use it regard the individual free will, for example see http://www.gopetition.com/region/238/1214.html.
External links
For more details, including statistical research , see:
For seat belt wearing rates see: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/56/32/2487308.pdf
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Seat belt."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Refuge | Jury mast; vent-peg; safety valve, blow-off valve; safety lamp; lightning rod, lightning conductor; safety belt, airbag, seat belt; antilock brakes, antiskid tires, snow tires. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Seat Belt |
| Specialty definitions using "seat belt": lap belt ♦ one-handed seat belt system. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | All right, son: roll them guns up, count the money, and put your seat belt on. (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; writing credit: Guy Ritchie) Put your seat belt on. (You Can Count on Me; writing credit: Kenneth Lonergan) Wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie (The Odd Couple; writing credit: Neil Simon) No, the seat belt. I can never get that darn thing unbuckled (Get Smart; writing credit: Shinichi Sekizawa; Futaro Yamada) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
High Tech |
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
Seat belt use for injury prevention. Credit: CDC. | ![]() | Woman demonstrates benefits of wearing automobile seat belt. Credit: Library of Congress. | |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
| Pulling out a seat belt in the car and buckling it. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | New Zealand | Bedding sales have increased over 35% in the past 4 years and the purchase of dog harnesses has also expanded, as they are used for seat belt while traveling. (references) |
Human Rights | Brazil | The hospital porter found him in the police car with the seat belt wrapped around his neck. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
Expression using "seat belt": fasten one's seat belt. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "seat belt"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Bulgarian | предпазен ремък (safety belt), предпазен колан (lifebelt, safety belt). (various references) | |
Chinese | 安全帶 . (various references) | |
Czech | připoutat se (fasten one's seat belt, strap in). (various references) | |
Danish | sikkerhedssele (belt, safety belt, safety harness), sele (belt, harness, safety belt, strap, webbing). (various references) | |
Dutch | steungordel (safety belt), veiligheidsgordel (belt, climbing rope, safety belt, safety harness), gordel (belt, girdle, zone), autogordel (safety belt). (various references) | |
Finnish | turvavyö (safety belt). (various references) | |
French | ceinture de sécurité. (various references) | |
German | Sicherheitsgurt (safety belt, safety harness). (various references) | |
Greek | ζώνη ασφάλειασ (safety belt), ζώνη ασφάλειας (safety belt), ζώνη ασφαλείας (belt, general-purpose safety belt, safety belt, safety harness), ζώνη (band, belt, cincture, cordon, girdle, sash, shingles, truss, waistband, zone). (various references) | |
Hungarian | biztonsági öv (safety belt, seat-belt). (various references) | |
Italian | cintura di sicurezza (lifebelt, safety belt). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | シーソー遊び (CD, CD-ROM, ceiling, ceiling lamp, centralized traffic control, coelacanth, compact disk, computerized typesetting system, consumer price index, consumer price survey, CPI, CPS, CTC, CTS, fielding practice, maximum amount to allot for a budget, Sea Beam, sea berth, Sea Chicken, sea utopia, seafood, seahorse, Sealab, seamless, seat, seat cover, seat warmer, seed, seesaw, series, sheet, sheet feeder, sheet pile, skiers' greeting meaning "Good skiing!"). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | シートベルト . (various references) | |
Manx | cryss sauchys (safety belt). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eatsay eltbay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | cinto de segurança (belt, safety belt, safety harness). (various references) | |
Russian | пристяжной ремень. (various references) | |
Spanish | cinturón de seguridad (safety belt). (various references) | |
Swedish | säkerhetsbälte (harness, lapstrap, safety belt, seat-belt). (various references) | |
Turkish | emniyet kemeri (harness, lapbelt, safety belt, shoulder belt). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: seatbelt, testable. | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-e-e-l-s-t-t" | |
-1 letter: battles, tablets. | |
-2 letters: abeles, ablest, battle, betels, bettas, bleats, elates, estate, latest, lattes, settle, stable, stelae, tables, tablet, teasel, testae. | |
-3 letters: abele, abets, ables, bales, baste, bates, batts, beast, beats, beets, belts, beset, betas, betel, betta, blase, blast, blate, blats, bleat, blest, blets, easel, elate, latte, lease, least, leets, sable, setae, setal, slate. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-e-e-l-s-t-t" | |
+1 letter: embattles, seatbelts, stateable. | |
+2 letters: beastliest, biathletes, detestable, detestably, metastable, resettable, settleable, stablemate, tablemates, timetables, untestable. | |
+3 letters: battlements, blanquettes, breastplate, contestable, debilitates, metabolites, obliterates, restartable, stablemates, stretchable, subliterate, tetherballs. | |
+4 letters: battlefields, beautifulest, bestialities, blatherskite, breastplates, entablatures, jettisonable, subsatellite, tenabilities, thermostable. | |
+5 letters: bachelorettes, blatherskites, embattlements, establishment, incontestable, meltabilities, rehabilitates, rentabilities, resectability, sublieutenant, subliterature, subsatellites, testabilities, tractableness, wettabilities. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Sounds 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Anagrams | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.