The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -Article-

An entire retractor assembly (from a late 80s Nissan 300ZX) can be seen at left. This retractor is similar to, but not exactly the same as the retractor in the previous diagram. To the right the Locking pawl can be seen in its two positions. In the inset above the pawl is Unlocked and the spool is free to pay webbing out. In the inset below the g sensor has activated dropping the pawl. The lowered pawl engages a spool tooth and prevents the webbing from paying out. In this condition the belt is "locked".

Note the shiny surface on the pawl face in the Unlocked inset. This is where the spool teeth engage it. This worn appearance in not sufficient to conclude that the belt was loaded or in use at the time of the collision.

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