Page 15 - ME Newsletter Spring

JAMES “CRASH” RYAN
James Ryan (1903-1973) was a pioneer
in automobile safety. He began crashing
cars in 1949 to figure out how to protect
passengers against impact in vehicle
collisions. Sporting a white football
helmet, he would strap himself into
either a car or a “crash sled” — a padded
chair on a fast track — and then run into
a barrier at 20 miles per hour. As a result
of his work, he invented the retractable
seatbelt, which he patented in 1963, a
breakthrough that eventually became standard in all cars. “Stunt men won’t crash cars,” he told the Minneapolis Tribune in 1957. “Nobody crashes a car into a barrier except me.” He also invented the “black box,” a flight data recorder that is now required on all commercial airlines. He was a tireless crusader for automobile safety, and his inventions have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. At the time of his death, he held six patents, but had given away many of his patent rights in order to make them widely available and save more lives.
Ryan was on the faculty at UMN ME from 1931-1963. The James J. Ryan Chair is held by the ME department head.
“Crash” Ryan directs one of his crash experiments: dropping a vehicle from a crane (pictured on the cover)
Ryan conducts various vehicle safety experiments on and around the U of M campus, which made headlines in 1957.
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