Patent ID: 8429799

Claim:
An improved seat belt buckle assembly for use with a tongue of a seat belt, the seat belt buckle assembly comprises: a frame; a latch attached to the frame and being moveable from a latched position to an unlatched position, a forward portion of the latch being configured to engage a portion of the tongue inserted into the frame as the latch moves into the latched position; a moveable control lever positioned above the latch, the control lever being substantially U shaped, having a central portion with two lever arms extending from opposite ends of the central portion, the central portion of the control lever having a contact surface contacting an upper surface portion of the latch and a projecting tab extending from the central portion for receiving an upper spring; a locking bar connected to the control lever being moveably in an L-shaped slot on vertical sides of the frame; wherein the latch is moved into engagement of the inserted tongue by an initial downward movement of the locking bar in the L-shaped slots followed by horizontal forward movement causing the control lever to pivot about the locking bar pushing the latch into a latched position; the upper spring urging the control lever and locking bar to push the latch downwardly into the latched position; an ejector slidably mounted in a bottom of the frame for ejecting the tongue moveable in a horizontal direction within the frame; a mass moveable with the ejector; a lower spring for biasing the ejector in an outward direction connected to the frame and the mass which compresses relative to the frame; a release button slidably mounted onto the frame which moves the locking bar in the L-shaped slots unlatches the latch when depressed allowing the ejector and the mass to move forward ejecting the tongue from the buckle; and wherein the control lever has stop surfaces on each end of the lever arms that move downwardly as the locking bar moves into a vertical portion of the L-shaped slots allowing the latch to move in the unlatched position during normal use locking the latch and control lever in the unlatched position, but when the buckle assembly is latched and exposed to a rapid deceleration the mass slides compressing the lower spring into the frame moving the mass to occupy a space directly under the stop surfaces of the control lever arms of the control lever blocking downward movement and preventing the locking bar from leaving horizontal portions of the L-shaped slots preventing movement of the latch into the unlatched position.