Why many motor homes have fewer belted seats than number of berths?
It means some passengers will be travelling without any seat belts!
I looked at the internet and it says it is legal to carry unrestrained passengers in side facing sofa seats but can't imagine one can carry a child in those seats!
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This subject often comes up in discussions in Land Rover circles.
It is legal to carry adult passengers in side-facing seats, but there seems to be doubt about whether there are any approved seat belts for such passengers. No seat belts are therefore required.
As there are no approved seat belts, there is no approved way of securing a child seat.
But children who do not need child seats because of their height are legal in the seats.
It has been argued that children are only allowed to sit in any unbelted seat, forward or side-facing. if all belted seats are already occupied.
My children love riding in the seats in the back of my Series II, especially on hot days with the canvas rolled up.
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As I understand it (may be wrong) if I want to take my 4 door Triumph car out with my family in tow (1968 registered)...my 3 year old would have to be in the front, in a child seat, strapped in a seat belt...and my wife would have to be in the back, where there are no seat belts......i.e. if there's a belt available, the child should be using it.
No idea what happens in January when the next child is due..(from my angle they won't be travelling in it, as i'd never have kids unbelted).
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You are probably right Westpig, at least regarding child seats. There would seem to be a kind of priority order for the safest seats - ie babies, then small children in child seats, then children in adult seats, then adults. But whether there is an actual requirement to only fill the seats in safety-level order is not very clear.
You could argue that a child in the front is at least as at risk from a heavy unbelted adult in the back as from being unbelted himself.
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i had to get 2 extra belts for my motor-home fitted in the rear most seats before i was allowed to use mine carrying the children. a lot of money though
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>> You could argue that a child in the front is at least as at risk
>> from a heavy unbelted adult in the back as from being unbelted himself.
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...and you'd be right...particularly as my car has no headrests to slow down an adult body flying forwards, not that i'm convinced a head rest would do much in a serious collision.
Oh how we've changed our thinking. As a kid, my sister and I used to sit on the boot lip of my mother's Austin Healey Sprite, holding on the chrome boot rack, with our heads above the windscreen. I shudder to think, now, what the carnage would have been, with even mild emergency braking.
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This was the problem we had when we were looking for a camper. Very few had the 5 berths and 5 forward-facing d seats that we wanted. I think most are designed for retired couples. In the end we got a lwb VW T5 which ticked all our boxes.
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we ended up buying a 4berth even though we wanted a 5berth.
i think ours is called a compass400 with end u shaped lounge and another double above the front seats.
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Motorhome - number of berths vs seat belts - Cliff Pope
