seatbelts again

[Guest larry clarke]

i have a 95 hymer B544.It has a dining table mid way with 2 seater bench seats fore and aft. The 2 window seats have 3 point belts, the aisle seats have lap belts .All the belts are anchored to the steel frames on to which the seats are fastened. However the benchseat backs are wood, albeit 1" thick,but these are also bolted to the steel seat frame. There are 4 typical head restraints fixed to the backboards(which are bolted to the steel frame).Is anyone"au fait" enough with the imminent legislation to tell me how many pax legal seats I have???

[Guest Brian Kirby]

Larry I suspect that you are legal for a total of six occupants. I don't think the new legislation is, or is intended to be, retroactive. Therefore, if you 'van was legal in '95 (which I believe it will have been), it will remain so. From your description, however, I think you may be right to be a bit suspicious as to how protective the seats and belts might prove in an accident. I think much would depend on the quality of the timber elements, how they are mounted to the steel, and in what order. That is to say, if the main steel frame backs the timber secondary framing, so that the forces from the timber are transmitted directly to the steel (rather than just to fixing bolts or screws etc), and the timber is of high quality (or laminated), the seats may still be well up to the job. However, there is also the matter of the belts. The rear facing lap belted seat should be OK in a frontal impact (on the proviso that its seat back and headrest are capable of transmitting the resulting forces directly to the supporting steel frame), but would be no good in a rear impact. There is also a potential danger to a front seat occupant backing this seat should its back fail. The forward facing lap belted seat would best be avoided altogether as a travel seat. The three point belted rearwards facing seat is subject to the same caveat as the rear facing lap belted seat, except that it should perform properly in a rear impact. Same caveat also regarding risk to the front seat occupant. The remaining, forward facing, three point belted, seat is the favourite under most circumstances. Probably none of these seats would give much protection in a violent side impact, but that is common to pretty well all motorhomes and has to do with the materials from which they are built. I don't know if there is a spacialist to whom you can turn for certainty on the performance of your belts/seats in the event of a collision. Others may, and will doubtless say in due course. If you are a member of one of the motoring organisations they may be able to help. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) may be able to comment. In the absence of specialist advice, therefore, it seems your best bet will probably be to prioritise use of the seats so that the forward facing three point seat is used by the second passenger, or if more than two, by the heaviest passenger, and so on down a pecking order leaving the forward facing lap belted seat unused whenever possible.

[Guest Bill]

My take on all this is that it is so much PC b/s. Look at it this way: If you have a head-on with a 44-ton artic at motorway speed it will be Goodnight Sweetheart regardless of seatbelts. And if you hit anything much smaller than a 44-ton artic with your Hymer you’ll probably be able to get rid of the debris just by turning on your windscreen wipers.

[Guest Mel B]

Larry YI think you'll find that the new regs about having seatbelts fitted in motorhomes, and what type, won't be retrospective as it would be impossible to police. Think of seatbelts in cars, when it became compulsory for them to be fitted at manufacturer none of the older vehicles had to have them retro-fitted, subsequently it became compulsory for passengers to wear them if they were fitted. We had a Bond Minicar for years and no seatbelts were fitted, and couldn't have been as it was made mainly of aluminium and fibreglass!! It didn't make it illegal to use, it just mean that if we wanted to use it we had to accept the risks. The only requirement I can think of that will probably be enforced is if you have seat belts already fitted in your 'van and intend to carry passengers they must use the seats with the belts fitted and wear them. If you're not happy about passengers wearing lap belts then you won't be able to take them - using 'other' seats without seatbelts instead would, I believe, be just plain daft, any seatbelt is better than none with the exception of side-facing seats - don't be tempted to let anyone sit on a sidewards facing seat, whether wearing a seatbelt of not. I'd be more worried about the missiles that would be flying about inside the van in even a small bump in a motorhome, I know some motorhome reviewers make comments about the lack of positive locking catches on doors etc, but even with such catches in place if something really wanted to escape from an upper locker in an accident it probably would.

[Mel E]

Bill, the front of a Hymer is usually GRP or aluminium or a combo of the two and is likely to be quite severely damaged in even a fairly minor bang. But surely that's not the point: it's what happens to the unbelted occupants who continure forward at the same speed as the vehicle pre-crash. An average sized dog takes on the weight of a small elephant at just 30 mph. In my view (and I suspect I'm not alone), anyone who travels unbelted in any vehicle is just asking to be unlucky. But maybe you were making a joke and I'm too thick to get it . . . .