Seat belt in the context of "Airbag"

In the early hours of 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died from injuries sustained in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France. Dodi Fayed, Diana's partner, and the driver, Mercedes-Benz chauffeur Henri Paul, were both found dead inside the car. Diana's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor of the crash, albeit seriously injured. The subsequent investigation into the crash remained controversial for decades, with many challenging the official narrative of Diana's death.

In 1999, a French investigation concluded that Paul, who was intoxicated and under the influence of prescription drugs, lost control of the vehicle at high speed. The report held him solely responsible for the crash. Paul was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz Paris and had earlier confronted paparazzi waiting for Diana and Fayed outside the hotel. Antidepressants and traces of an anti-psychotic found in his blood may have compounded his impairment. In 2008, a British inquest, Operation Paget, returned a verdict of unlawful killing, citing the grossly negligent driving of both Paul and the pursuing paparazzi. While initial media reports suggested Rees-Jones survived because he was wearing a seat belt, later investigations confirmed that none of the car's occupants were belted.

Automotive safety is the study and practice of automotive design, construction, equipment and regulation to minimize the occurrence and consequences of traffic collisions involving motor vehicles. Road traffic safety more broadly includes roadway design.

One of the first formal academic studies into improving motor vehicle safety was by Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory of Buffalo, New York. The main conclusion of their extensive report is the crucial importance of seat belts and padded dashboards. However, the primary vector of traffic-related deaths and injuries is the disproportionate mass and velocity of an automobile compared to that of the predominant victim, the pedestrian.

A bucket seat is a car seat contoured to hold one person, distinct from a flat bench seat designed to fit multiple people. In its simplest form, it contours somewhat to the human body, but may have a deep seat and exaggerated sides that partially enclose and support the body in high-performance automobiles.

Before World War II, the term Kübelsitzwagen (meaning bucket-seat car) became popular in Germany, for light open-topped, cross-country and military vehicles without doors, because these were typically equipped with bucket seats, to help keep occupants on board, in an era before the adoption of seat belts. This body style had first been developed by Karosseriefabrik N. Trutz [de] in 1923. They are typically standard in front of fast cars to keep drivers and other passengers in place when turning at speed. Rear "bucket seats" are typically hybrids of bench and true bucket seats, being contoured like the latter but fixed in place, even when divided by a center console, and thus lacking a free-standing bucket seat's front-rear and often backrest angle adjustability.

Trevor Rees-Jones (also known as Trevor Rees; born 3 March 1968) is a British author and former bodyguard who was badly injured and the only survivor in the car crash in Paris that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. Because he sustained a serious head injury, he does not recall any details from the crash.

Some media reports claimed he was wearing a seat belt and survived, but investigations revealed that none of the occupants of the car were wearing a seat belt.