RELEASED: London, UK May 10th 2018

Does your back ache after sitting behind the wheel for long? If so, you are amongst the vast majority of drivers and the chances are you’re not sitting or wearing your seatbelt correctly.

Worryingly, new figures suggest that most of us don’t wear our seatbelts in the way in which they were designed and safety-tested. A recent independently validated survey[i]revealed that more than 90% of drivers don’t sit in the healthiest sitting position and most ‘wear’ their seat belts with slack in the belt, compromising safety.  Being in a moving vehicle in this ‘slouched’ position puts strain on the supportive muscles of the lower back, often leading to back pain.

Several studies have found a link between driving and back problems with people who drive for a living being statistically more likely to suffer[ii]. Back pain affects an estimated four out of five UK adults (80%)[iii]at some point in life, costs the NHS more than £1.3 million per day[iv]and, together with neck and muscle pain, accounted for 31 million lost working days in the UK in 2013[v].

New solution

Now SHOFT, a simple, palm-sized device that takes just two seconds to fit on to your seatbelt, could put an end to those troublesome twinges. The product is one of many that appear on Channel 4 series Buy It Now where inventors and sellers of new products have just 90 seconds to demonstrate their item in the hope of securing a potentially life-changing order with a national retailer.

SHOFT addresses the main cause of backache in drivers by helping to keep the spine aligned with the seat back. It does this by eliminatingthe slack that naturally creeps into the seatbeltas the journey progresses. When you buckle [...]