surface of the inner portion 21a of the body portion 21 of the housing 2 thus the bending stress of the wire is not varied but kept substantially constant this assures that the kinetic energy of the passenger produced during a collision can reliably be absorbed by the plastic deformation of the wire 1 the cylindrical surface of the pin 3 is utilized to guide the wire 1 when it is pulled out of the space 21c and bent or plastically deformed thus this surface of the pin may be termed as 34 wire bending and guiding means 34 the outer peripheral surface of the inner portion 21a acts as means for centering the turns of the coiled portion 1d relative to the annular space 21c the inner end extremity of the coiled wire 1 has a diameter greater than the dimension or width of the narrow passage 2a and thus cannot be pulled out of the housing 2 this ensures that the passenger can be prevented from being completely unrestrained a second embodiment of the energy absorbing device of the present invention will be described with reference to fig3 the embodiment comprises an elongated strip of a metal in the form of wire 1 39 and a housing 2 39 the wire 1 39 is similar to the wire 1 of the first embodiment with the exception that an intermediate portion of the wire 1 39 is substantially coaxial with axially arranged turns of a coiled portion 1d 39 of the wire 1 39 the portions of the wire 1 39 similar to those of the wire 1 of the first embodiment are designated by similar.