An invention which

has saved millions of lives

In recent history, there have been some amazing

inventions which have changed our lives. The aeroplane has made international

travel faster and easier. The computer can store the contents of a library. And

you probably know the names of some famous inventors like Henry Ford or Steve

Jobs. But for every famous invention and inventor, there are many everyday

objects which we don't notice and we don’t know who invented them.

Take the inventor who invented the modern-day car

seatbelt. Nils Bohlin’s invention has saved millions of lives. Fifty years ago,

Bohlin was an engineer who worked for the car manufacturer Volvo. There were

other types of seatbelts, but he developed the first one which went across the

chest and across the legs and then joined at the same place. Amazingly, this

was an idea which no one had tried before. But it was very simple - and that's

probably true of so many great inventions.

Volvo soon started selling the new seatbelt in the countries where it

had the most customers. Fifty years ago, and probably still today, the biggest

market was the USA. However, it took a long time for the invention to become

popular there. Even in cars which had the invention, many drivers didn’t use

it. People enjoyed driving without a seatbelt. It was difficult to change their

habits, even though more people survived a car crash when they wore Bohlin’s

seatbelt. Over the years, more and more governments made laws that forced

drivers to wear the seatbelt, and today Nils Bohlin’s simple invention still

saves thousands of lives every year.

Read the article. Which sentence (a-c) is true for the

author?