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By Jerilyn Watson2011-2-28Photo: AP A Volvo in a crash test at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, in January. A Volvo engineer, Nils Bohlin, invented the modern shoulder and lap seatbelt. BOB DOUGHTY: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. Im Bob Doughty.CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And Im Christopher Cruise. Today we tell about two recent inventions that have helped to save lives. We will also tell about the people who developed them.(MUSIC)BOB DOUGHTY: Most cars have seatbelts as part of their equipment. Seat belts protect drivers and passengers in case of accident. They also reduce the effect of a crash on the body. Safety experts estimate that the restraining devices save more than thirteen thousand lives a year in the United States alone. Worldwide, some experts say the devices have protected up to a million people.The first seatbelt was said to have been created in the eighteen hundreds by George Cayley of England. He is remembered for many inventions, especially for early flying machines.The United States first recognized the invention of an automobile seatbelt in eighteen forty-nine. The government gave a patent to Edward J. Claghorn of New York City so that others would not copy his invention. Claghorn called the device a Safety-Belt. It was said to include hooks and other attachments for securing the person to a fixed object.CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Other inventors followed with different versions of the seatbelt. But more than one hundred years passed before the current, widely used seatbelt was developed. It resulted from the work of a Swedish engineer, Nils Bohlin. His three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt first appeared on cars in Europe fifty years ago.Bohlin was born in Sweden in nineteen twenty. After completing college, he designed seats for the Swedish aircraft industry. The seats were built for the pilot to escape from an airplane in case of disaster.Bohlins work with planes showed him what could happen in a crash at