Automotive rant- GM's door-mounted safety belts

A car door with a seatbelt attached to it...pretty stupid, huh?
photo credit-Alex S of piston head.com (link)

Okay, so the plan was to make a brief paragraph about this in the Corsica post, but it got so long that I  decided to make a separate post about it.  Trust me, there's a lot to talk about here...

SO WHY THE FUCK ARE THE SEAT BELTS MOUNTED TO THE DOOR?

In 1984, Congress passed a law that required automakers to install either airbags or automatic seatbelts in their vehicles by 1987.  At the time, the airbag was still a relatively new (and expensive) technology, and was therefore limited to upscale brands such as Lincoln and Cadillac.  The vast majority of automakers (specifically the imports) went with the automatic seatbelt option.

Now for those of you that don't know what an automatic seat belt is, here is a link to Wikipedia that can fill you in.  And here is a link to a YouTube video of a typical automatic seatbelt "in action"

Here is how I pictured GM's reaction to this new law:

A GM engineering supervisor walks into it's design center with a copy of the new bill in hand.  He walks up to a safety engineer and told him to create an automatic seat-belt for all their 1987 cars.  The safety engineer, without turning around, tells the supervisor that they'll just throw some airbags in them.  The supervisor then rolls up the bill and hits him on the head, saying that air-bags are "too damn expensive" (even though the air bag was a GM invention).  The safety engineer then groans, gets up, puts on some pants, pops open a bottle of Stroh's and drags himself over to the design table. 

The result was the seatbelt being moved from the b-pillar to the door...yep...that's it...GM literally took it's existing belt set-up, and moved the holsters three feet forward to the door.

This is how GM's "automatic seat belts work, according to a 1992 Olds Cutlass Supreme owner's manual I found at Goodwill:

"The seat belt is to remained fastened at ALL TIMES!  Passengers are to open the door, lift up the lap portion of the belt and slide underneath it.  The only time it is to be un-fastened is in emergencies." 

The guy's facial expression says "This is the stupidest thing ever"
(couldn't find a picture, so I screen-captured this image from an
old episode of MotorWeek, via testdrivejunkie.com)

Some of the cars that received the "door belt" includes Chevy's Corsica/Beretta, Lumina/Lumina Van, Celebrity, and Cavalier as well as all their Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac equivalents.

As expected, people who bought these cars didn't use the seat belts "correctly" and just buckled and unbuckled them like any other car, defeating the purpose of moving the seat belts in the first place.

The seatbelts were also fairly unpopular with consumers, who complained of the shoulder belt being too close to the driver's neck.  The select few who were aware of the belt's proper function found sliding underneath the lap belt to be awkward and tedious.  Another issue with the door-belts that I actually witnessed myself was when I showed a co-worker of mine how the door-belt set up worked on his '96 Corsica.  When I attached the seat belt and opened the door, I noticed that the belt was pulling the door closed. I also found myself getting tangled in the belt as the door was pulling shut.  My co-worker told me that it was the stupidest idea ever and that he would never use the belt like that.

Kudos to the person who drew this, it looks so...real
(Image credit autosafetyexpert.com)

On top of the door-belt's impracticability, it was also proven to be even LESS SAFE than a car that didn't have motorized seat belts or an airbag.  Upon conducting safety tests on various GM vehicles equipped with door-belts,  lab attendants found that when the car is involved in a collision, the door could swing open and stretch out the seat-belt, causing severe harm to the occupant. Even back then, the IIHS (Insurance International Highway Safety...I think that's what it stands for) was calling on GM to discontinue the belts, and this was back in 1990. Here's a link to a news story about the door-belts and how stupid they were.

By 1991, airbag technology has greatly improved and became more affordable to produce.  As a result, Congress passed another law requiring all passenger cars and trucks to have airbags by 1998, effectively killing automatic seat belts.  GM ditched the door-belt after 1996 and brushed it under the rug along with some of it's other stupid ideas.

So overall, the door-belt is another example of GM putting as little effort as possible into their products, just so they can meet federal requirements.  My opinion?  Well to quote Mr. Regular from "Regular Car Reviews"

"THAT'S FUCKIN' STUPID!"