Passenger seat belts

[AikenRacer]

Just looking for opinions. If you guys are travelling with say a 2 year old, are you belting the car seat into the sofa? Just wondering about the sideways position of the car seat. How about a 10 year old, do you have them belted on the sofa or what? Just searching for some safe options for future travels.

[RickRV]

Yeah that part I'm aware of. I'm usually a fairly good driver and very cautious, especially when we're on vacation (nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there lol). I think that's what I'll do: attach to the rear-facing seat but make sure the seat doesn't want to lift in any way. That seat is actually right up against the front cab wall (this is a class C, I just noticed I'm in the class A forum lol), so I don't believe the seat would crumble down that easily given it's got that backing wall to hold it there.

If it doesn't feel safe I'll figure something else out.

Thanks for the tips!

[DrewE]

RickRV wrote:
Thanks for the tip.

My other concern there is that since the seat would be anchored in the front, even if rear facing, could it tip up if there was a front impact collision.

Seems to me that either the seat belt or other anchor holding it down or the seat back of the dinette seat would have to fail for it to tip up to any substantial extent.

Frankly, in a serious collision, the inside of a motorhome is not a very nice place to be in any circumstance. There's just too much stuff around (cabinets, things in cabinets, etc.) that can and often does come loose and go flying around, not a whole lot of structural beefiness to the bodywork as a whole, and little in the way of properly engineered crush structure to dissipate energy safely. The good news is that serious collisions are very often avoidable through defensive driving and exercising common sense. Being a relatively massive vehicle does also help if the collision is with another vehicle, thanks to the law of conservation of momentum--but that doesn't apply to a collision with a fixed object like a bridge abutment or big tree, nor to a roll-over accident.

[RickRV]

Thanks for the tip.

My other concern there is that since the seat would be anchored in the front, even if rear facing, could it tip up if there was a front impact collision.

[DrewE]

If a child seat protects adequately against being rear-ended when facing forward, it should equally well protect against colliding with something head-on when facing backwards. Of course, the child seats aren't tested in rear-facing seats since the vast majority of vehicles they'd be used in simply do not have anything other than front-facing seats.

I personally would not have any qualms about installing a child seat in a rear-facing seat. Fabricating and installing a safe seat belt mount where one does not exist from the factory seems a little trickier, in my estimation.

[RickRV]

Hello !

We're looking at a used RV that has a U-shaped dinette. In this specific case, there are 3 lap belts, one on each end of the U if you will. I was thinking of taking the hardware from the bottom of the U (where' you'd be sideways) and mounting it next to the other front facing set of belts so that both of our child seats are front-facing. DW says we should just put the second car seat on the rear-facing seat and attach it that way.

I have 2 questions:

1) Has anybody ever added their own anchors/belts/etc
2) I keep reading to ALWAYS use the front facing seats, but have never read WHY. Anybody know why or can point me in the right direction?

Thanks!!
Eric.

[Ed_C]

Children should be in forward facing seats! I was a Trooper and also a PI and have seen cases in which young children were killed from the force of a side impact (T-Bone). The car seats were not damaged but they didn't prevent sideways movement of the neck. Of course very small children should be in rear facing car-seats

[ocean_bound]

I bought seatbelts at advanced auto And install them in my dinette right to the floor frame under the seat You lower the table and put the seat right up against the cushion facing whatever which way you need to It works great you can still lay on the dinette when traveling with the child There is no perfect solution But do your best to make it safe

[GPWayne]

Thor Motor Coach recommends installing the child safety seat in the forward facing booth dinette position.
For rear-facing child seats and infant carriers, the dinette table can be placed in the "down" position to allow adequate room for the rear facing child seat.
If your motorhome is not equipped with a forward facing booth dinette seat, we recommend that small children that require a child seat not be transported in a motorhome.

This is from the THOR manual and is over the top "cover your a$$".

The post above has it covered. Drive with care and best of luck.

[wildtoad]

You do the best you can to make people safe in a motorhome. There is no perfect place to put kids in a MH. The chances of getting in a terminal wreck in a Class A MH is relatively small. IF you have them buckled in the side facing sofa, with pillows perhaps to their left or right, then you have done the best you can do. If you get hit in the rear, if you run into somebody you will be oK. If you run off the edge of the road into a ditch and all H breaks loose I’m not sure anybody is going to come out unscathed. Again, do the best you can and drive like you have kids in the car.

[MountainAir05]

They get belted regardless of where they set. They do not get in the front seat unless they are tall enough.