Guest Andy Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 Hi we are just about to take delivery of a brand new compass avangaurd 120 4 berth with u shape rear lounge it comes with out rear belts as the traveling seat are the side benches and its not law in this country . We were wondering how we stand in france and the rest of europe as that will be where we going this summer we will be carring to teenagers .The dealer we are buying from dose nt fit them something to do with not being covered .Ive rang a couple of companys in staffordshire area and had some interesting quotes of around £500.00 for lap belts.So anyway can anyone advise . I know its best to have them fitted but its alot on top of the motorhome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mel B Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 Andy Too late now, but why didn't you get a motorhome that already had belts fitted!? It would've made your life much simpler! I've had a look at the 'van you've got and personally would not consider it to be suitable to transport passengers in the rear either comfortably or safely. Did the sales rep tell you it was safe to do so? I suspect the reason they said they can't do it also to do with the fact that they didn't want to put you off by telling you that it wasn't meant to safely transport rear passengers and loose the sale. DO NOT under any circumstances fit seat belts, either lap or 3-point to side facing seats. They can literally chop someone in half in an accident as they were not designed to be used in that way and your body will not be able to sustain the type of impact that this would put upon it without serious injury. Anyone who tries to tell you it is safe to do so is being very irresponsible. If the companies who can put in seat belts are quoting on installing a metal seat box as well as lap seats then that is probably why the quote is so high as this will be fiddly to do and take quite a bit of time. Even if you do managed to get some sort of seat belting put in, your passengers might not enjoy the ride in the back as, with the see-saw action and exaggerated sideways swinging due to lever action with the rear seating being quite a bit further back than the rear wheels, they might end up being quite travel sick. Sorry to not be more hopeful ... if you still want to go ahead with carrying passengers in the rear have a good long test drive with them in the back, somewhere quiet so they are as safe as they can be, and see how they get on with the possible travel sickness first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gillian Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 Andy. Belted or unbelted your 2 teenagers are in for at best an uncomfortable ride and at worst a dangerous one. Having recognised the problem you should face up to it and NOT take delivery of your new motorhome. It may cost you money but that's preferable to losing one or more members of your family in an accident even though the accident may not be your fault. I believe there could also be insurance implications you should consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alf W Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 I was advised that it is not legal to retrofit seat belts. May or may not be true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brian Kirby Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 Andy The others have basically said all. Your 'van is, sadly, unsuitable for the transport of passengers and you're unlikely to be able to get belts fitted that comply with insurance requirements. Belts that don't will likely to be worse than none at all. Are the side facing (or rear) seats designated by Compass as travelling seats? Look in the brochure to see what is said. Did the dealer you bought from say they would be suitable? If so, can you prove it? Did you possibly forget to check how/where the teenagers could be seated while travelling before you bought? You really need to do some very fast thinking about why/how you came to accept and buy this layout for your family. If the answers point to you not having given the dealer the information he needed to advise you properly then, sadly, you are probably stuck. If you advised them of your requirement and, based on that, they advised you the van was OK, you may be able to reject the van, but you'll need legal advice to be sure. Check what the legal position is regarding the transportation of passengers in motorhome seats. I'm pretty sure that if the seats face forward they must have belts. I don't know whether lap belts are legal any more, but they are certainly not good and can result in serious internal injury in a crash - possibly worse that no belts in some circumstances. Lap, or any, belts on side facing seats are out. I don't know if there is a legal requirement for side facing passengers to have belts in UK, I'm pretty sure there isn't in France at present, but that is a just huge loophole in French law that is not worth exploiting. If the worst happened, you'd never forgive yourselves. That, it seems to me, is a far higher cost that any of the alternative possibilities. You should not wait until the van is delivered before commencing this, you'll need to start the ball rolling immediately, so that you can show you acted as soon as the deficiency became apparent. Trading standards may be able to advise initially where you stand. It is not just a question of legality, if the van stops abruptly because of an accident the two passengers will become projectiles inside the van, still travelling at whatever speed the van was doing before it stopped. They may come to no harm, they may leave via the windscreen, they may hit you or the front steat passenger from behing resulting in injury to both parties. If, in the end, you're stuck with what you've bought, try persuading the dealer not to register it but to take it on as a demonstrator and/or just sell it new off his forecourt. You may have just enough moral clout on your side to do that and, if you can avoid the temptation to lay into him and keep him on your side, you may be able to negotiate your way to the one you should have had in the first place, with no damage apart from another wait for delivery. You'll probably need the MD at least to achieve that, however. Whatever the outcome, it's a hard lesson learned. However, if you can maintain patient negotiation, you'll probably get a better outcome than "going legal", whatever the circumstances regarding the sale. Only go for the jugular if you're 100% certain you are right, and they are completely un-cooperative. Best of luck! Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mel E Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 I believe that the law is about to change, if it hasn't already. It will not be legal to carry passengers in sideways facing seats and it will not be legal to carry unbelted passengers. But this will not apply retrspectively, of course. You 'van will be perfectly legal anywhere in the EU provided it is legal in the country, since EU law allows you to temporarily (up to 6 months) import a UK legal vehicle into any EU country. Retro-fitting is probably not on. A seat belt frame will be needed which is fixed to the vehicle chassis and the seats changed to permit the passengers to face forward. As has been said, you have the wrong 'van! In France (and most of the rest of Europe) motorhomes are described as having 'n' seats and 'N' homologated seats. N is normally less than n and is the number of seats approved for travel. We had a 7-berth motorhome in which n was 8 (it would seat 8 passengers) but N (suitable for travel) was only 4! Never did work out how you used the other 3 beds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gillian Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 Andy, I do sympathise with you on this as we almost did the same thing except we did realise the problem just before we ordered. Just a futher comment on the seating arrangement you have chosen. Seated at the back of the mh your passengers will have little opportunity to communicate with the driver and passenger at the front as you cannot hear each other. This in turn will lead to another problem, particularly with 2 teenagers. They will inevitably get up from their seats either to get away from each other or to get_to_each other! They will also want to get into lockers above or beyond them. It is likely that you will end up with rotating one of them with the front seat passenger in order to apply a measure of control. You could well be a bit fraught by the time you complete a journey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CHRISTINE EVANS Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 Spoke to someone at a show who was changing their U shaped seating van as they had to brake several hundred yards from their home and their daughter came flying down the front and turned head over heels between the drivers seats. Sorry to give doom and gloom but my cousin had a swift and he fitted lap seats in the back by a firm not connected with motorhomes and he is glad he did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 i have just purchased an Elddiss Autoquest 200RL It is just coming up to 2 years old and I purchased it last month from a reputable dealer. As part of the deal I asked for rear lap belts to be fitted, this was done by first fitting a metal frame to the chasis to give solid supports. I was told they were not law at the moment.It does surprise me that with the number of vehicles with side facing seats etc, that someone should suggest you can only accomodate the number of people who can sit facing either forwards or backwards.we chose the Rear Lounge ahead of the dinette as the beds are far enough away that you dont stand on each other in the middle of the night when getting up for a natural break. So are we now saying no-one should should be looking to purchase any van with a RL if it means having passengers in the rear seats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brian Kirby Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Andy You have to do whatever you are comfortable with, consistent with complying with the law. You have to remember that the legal requirement does not guarantee safety, it merely reflects a minimun standard below which a user or supplier is liable to prosecution. So, in this context, and since you have asked: 1 Lap belts: wouldn't touch them. Read George Collings in MMM March 2006 Interchange on seatbelts for why. 2 Passengers in motorhome rear seats: Ok so long as you can guarantee you'll never be back-ended. Reason 1, read George's piece on seats and belts. Reason 2, motorhomes are pretty much made of chicken poop and lard! The chassis itself may hold up in a shunt, if it extends that far back - many don't - but the rear panel is thin aluminium or maybe GRP, possibly backed onto on thin ply (3mm or so) on lightweight timber frame with expanded plastics insulation infill with another layer of thin ply or fibreboard as the inner lining, total thickness 30mm or so. That, effectively, is your rear end protection, not the seatbelt. It depends what shunts you, but I doubt the average motorhome rear would resist 40 tonnes even at at 5MPH, at any higher speed I fear it'd be reduced to matchwood. It wouldnt have the strength to propel your motorhome forwards against the hold of the handbrake, it'd just crumple and shatter. To answer your question in my own terms, therefore will, I'm afraid, offer you no comfort at all. I'm sorry, but to me what you have appears profoundly unsatisfactory and potentially life threatening and it would worry me greatly to carry passengers on the rear seats of your 'van. However, clearly, I'm not you. You haven't broken the law, I doubt your dealer has broken the law, I doubt if your seats are illegal. Notwithstanding, I wouldn't - as you'll have gathered - consider using them or let anyone else use them. The safety deficiencies of side facing seats was illustrated some years back in an accident, I think, on the M40 when it was fairly recently opened. A school or college minibus was in collision with another vehicle and a number of the occupants died. Main reason, side facing seats. It was all over the national dailies, broadsheets as well as tabloids. Similarly, the fact that belts on side facing seats are almost worse than no belts at all. It's all in the public domain for anyone to read. Unfortunately, those who miss these things seem condemned to go on repeating the same mistakes. The hardest judgement when buying is "caveat emptor" but if the purchaser doesn't know, how can he be aware? Kind regards and best wishes Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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