In a Thursday announcement, Ford Motor Company said that from the beginning of 2010, the company’s next general Ford Explorer will become the first automaker to offer inflatable seatbelt airbags for the rear-seat passengers.

Converting the seat belt into its newest marketing tool, Ford said that the technology behind the inflatable airbags for the back seat of the vehicle is essentially aimed at diminishing the chances of injuries to rear-seat passengers, especially children and elderly people, in the case of an accident.

Speaking on the occasion of unveiling of the technology by Ford, Stewart Wang – who is both a trauma surgeon at the University of Michigan hospital as well as the director of the university’s Program for Injury Research and Education – noted that the rear seat passengers are more susceptible to being injured in a crash, particularly in the head, chest or neck, than other occupants of a vehicle.

The seat belts, which contain an inflatable bag inside the shoulder strap and a small cold compressed gas cylinder below the seat, functions in such a way that the gas is dispensed through the buckle, as and when the crash is detected.

Commenting on the benefit of the new technology, Ford Vice President Sue Cischke told ABC News: “This marries two life-saving technologies – the airbag technology and the seatbelts.”