Room for Improvement Found on Volvo S80

Safety in its mass produced cars is the mainaccidental release of the belt during crashes which
priority of Volvo. This company has been longwill put the occupant in grave danger of being
enough in the business to know how much itthrown out of the car in a worst case scenario. In
means to keep your consumers safe in cases ofresponse to the findings of Which?, Volvo has
crashes or collisions. They have set the standardpromised to take steps to improve their seatbelt
again and again in car safety with their innovativebuckle design.
safety systems. Their dedication to the safety ofOther car manufactures that have received the
their consumers led them to invest in a facilitysame comments for their design of seatbelt
that is dedicated solely in developing safetybuckles are Chrysler, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and
systems that their cars in production will employ.Subaru. As of now, not one of these companies
Time and time again, the company has come uphas responded to the challenge to redesign their
with newer safety features that are nowseatbelt buckles in the interest of safety. The
anchored in technological advances, safetyreport from the said organization also states that
systems now rely heavily on its electronicsome new Volkswagen models still has sliding
controls.front seats that can be released accidentally by
While numerous safety features abound in thethe feet of passengers sitting on the rear of
cars mass produced by the Sweden-based carthese sliding seats. This problem is still found
manufacturer are relying on electronic sensorstoday even though it has already been brought to
and modules, still the best protection in keepingthe attention of the car manufacturer more than
the occupants of a car depends on the designa couple of years back.
and construction of the frame and chassis ofWhile there are still car models that still has safety
these cars. Volvo belts and airbags also playproblems, the report also cited that the present
major roles in the protection of the car'scars in production are getting safer and safer and
passengers and drivers during crashes. Thehave certainly come a long way from their
complete lineup of airbags on all Volvo car modelspredecessors that lacks rear seat belts as a
covers all the occupants of the car. Thestandard feature. These previous vehicles employ
three-point seatbelt design being used by Volvono airbags at all and have few head restraints.
on their cars is one of the safest and best in anyThis shows that the automotive industry has
car being produced today. However, a consumercome a long way in addressing the safety
watchdog recently announced that there is stillproblems of the past.
room for improvement in the seatbelt's design.Coming this far is not enough though and car
"Which?", an organization which studies consumermanufacturers are working on ways to eliminate
products to help guide the public, conductedfurther the problems in the safety aspect of their
studies on different popular car makes and singledcars being produced. This effort can be seen on
out the 2006 Volvo S80 as a prime example ofVolvo's positive response to the criticism it got
popular car models with safety problems. Whilefor its seatbelt buckle design, and the company's
the car has been rated as a safe car by othernewly developed safety system, the City Safety
agencies, the consumer watchdog cited that it hassystem, aims to cut down in half the number of
poor belt buckle design both in the front and thelow-speed collisions.
rear seats. This design flaw can lead to the