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This might be hard to believe but the first patent for an airbag was filed by John Hetrick (Pennsylvania), in 1951. He was 33 years old at the time and had a wife and daughter and they were involved in a serious car accident. One of the emergency room doctors told him about how common head and chest injuries were in car accidents and that he had seen a lot of fatalities. Hetrick left there with a mission of finding a way to limit these injuries and fatalities.
He was an Industrial Engineer and had served in the United States Navy. He used his insight into air pressure based on how torpedoes were launched out of submarines along with knowledge about various materials (like rubber used in rafts), including how much air pressure these rafts could take before exploding. At this point he had four key elements to figure out: 1) How quickly could an airbag fill without becoming as hard as a rock and hurting the passenger? 2) Where could the bag fit? Steering wheels didn’t look the same back in the 1950’s because most cars had a small plastic casing at the top of the wheel so there wasn’t a place to insert the bag unless the steering wheel was redesigned to hold it. 3) How could the bag be activated? He came up with a way to do it through impact on the front bumper and a way that a driver could manually release the bag by pressing a button. 4) What were the costs implications and logistics of replacing an airbag that was deployed in an accident? He solved these problems but as with all inventions they’re only successful if they’re marketable and in this case his airbag wasn’t. Automobile manufacturers didn’t see where it would help them sell more cars, just the opposite, as it was extremely expensive and in a lot of cases would increase a vehicle’s cost by roughly 25% at the time. They certainly weren’t going to absorb the cost. Investing in new manufacturing equipment wasn’t appealing plus the cars would have to be special ordered which would slow down their manufacturing plants; definitely not an attractive investment in the 1950’s. As with all technology, costs eventually came down and in this case higher-end automobiles like Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals began offering air bags in the early 1970’s. Chevrolet had a contract with the Federal Government so their cars had airbags. Forget about taxpayers, as long as our government employees are safe. But the bottom line is it wasn’t a popular car option at the time because most consumers didn’t feel it was worth the costs. I remember when my dad wouldn’t pay for automatic windows or air conditioning because he thought they were too expensive. It wasn’t until 1989 when the Federal Government issued a law that all cars and trucks must have either seatbelts or an airbag for the driver. Of course seatbelts were still the preferred safety method because of costs but it was the first time the Federal Government gave airbags credibility. In 1998, automobile manufacturers were required to provide airbags for both the driver and front passenger. Since this time, airbags provide impact safety for all passengers from being hit from practically all angles. These extra airbags aren’t required by law but the costs have come down enough to where at the very least, side airbags are extremely popular. What’s amazing is that airbag technology has made its way to the motorcycle industry as well. I had a special jacket for riding my Harley that would inflate in less than a second if I was ejected from my motorcycle seat during an accident. The jacket would blow up around my torso to protect me from internal injuries. Having broken a couple of ribs before in a motorcycle accident, the jacket made perfect sense for me. It did costs over $400 dollars but the peace of mind was worth it and it was certainly less expensive than my previous emergency room visit. By the way, Mr. Hetrick didn’t become rich off his invention as his patent expired in 1962 but that wasn’t his goal in the first place. He died around 20 years ago. I wish I would’ve known his story before he died so I could’ve thanked him not only for his military service but also for saving so many lives. 24.63% of taxpayers stated that they support transgender surgeries for children. How sad.
Does their corruption have no end...
ActBlue, the prominent online fundraising platform for liberal causes, recently informed Congress that it had not automatically blocked donations made with foreign-purchased gift cards until Sept. 2024, a disclosure that could play a key role in an ongoing investigation into potential illicit contributions to Democrat candidates from countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. George Stephanopoulos, with ABC, made false derogatory comments about President Trump and now ABC has been ordered to pay Trump $15 million dollars. Lawsuits like these should be a common occurrence. The more money the media is forced to payout should lead to less media bias.
"At a time of heightened political division, Americans' confidence in their country's judicial system and courts dropped to a record low of 35% this year, according to a new Gallup poll.
The United States saw a sharp drop of 24 percentage points over the last four years, setting the country apart from other wealthy nations where most people on average still express trust in their systems." - Newsmax "It's amazing what you can accomplish when no one worries about who gets the credit." - Unknown
If there wasn't anything nefarious about the drone sightings then why haven't those flying them come forward? One thing is for sure, I don't trust the government telling us the truth. It could be perfectly legit; it just doesn't feel or smell like it.  According to a recent poll, 19% of Americans are pleased with the job the House and Senate are doing. These people should be institutionalized and all voting privileges revoked.
Regarding the budget, both parties are disgusting in the way they're handling it. We must continue to drain the swamp because those swamp monsters are ruining our lives. In 1997, there was a huge bank heist at a cash depository (Loomis Fargo), in Charlotte where $17.3 million dollars was stolen, the second largest heist ever. It was called the "Hillbilly Heist" because of the perpetrators and how they handled everything. Here are some of the reasons they were caught:
1) The leader of the gang (David Ghantt), was Loomis Fargo's vault supervisor and he didn't show up for work the next day...he disappeared. He decided that he would take off for Cozumel, Mexico with $50,000 (anything more than this amount and authorities are notified), and that the second member of the gang (Steve Chambers), would send him large sums of money monthly to live on for a year or two until the heat died down. Instead, his buddy Steve, hired a hitman to take Ghantt out. The FBI ended up saving him as they got to him by tracing a phone call before the hitman did. 2) Instead of being smart with the money, Steve Chambers' wife went to a bank and asked what's the most she could deposit to where the Feds wouldn't be notified. Just her saying it got the Feds very interested and they started investigating she and her husband. Come to find out they were somehow able to move from a single-wide trailer they lived in to a mansion in a ritzy neighborhood. The FBI got a warrant to look in their home and they found duffel bags filled with money; they actually recovered 95% of the money stolen. Another thing that the FBI thought was funny is that the gang didn't know how much space it would take to steal the amount of money they did and they didn't have enough room in the van they used so they ended up leaving a couple of millions of dollars in the armored truck. Anyhow, you can see why they called it the "Hillbilly Heist." There is a movie about this heist. |
Author: John Mann |
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