Seating in Motorhome

[Len Salisbury]

i have just been looking at my V5 and notice that my Autocruise Boxer Pace is listed as 2 seats, but has 4 seat belts. There is an arrangement to enable a bed to be made up but I would think only accommodate 2 small children. This bed/seat is directly behind the driver. What is the legal position regarding passengers am I covered and should I inform DVLA to expand from 2 to 4 seats?

[PJay]

We had the same problem on our V5

4 belts but only 2 on form. We got a letter from Swift (our van being a Swift) confirming that it had 4 belted seats, and we sent this of to DVLA , with the V5 (kept a copy) got a replacement back with 4 seat on !

 

So contact the manufacturer or maybe the supplier, to get written confirmation of number of seat.

 

PJaY

[Derek Uzzell]

This 2008 Autocruise Pace review

 

http://www.practicalmotorhome.com/reviews/motorhome/30075-autocruise-pace

 

states that the vehicle has 4 ‘travel seats’ and it’s clear from the photos that the dinette’s forward-facing bench-seat has belts.

 

This link

 

https://www.caravanguard.co.uk/news/motorhome-seat-belts-time-belt-10291/

 

advises that

 

“Industry trade body the NCC (National Caravan Council), also points out: “Motorhomes first registered on or after 20 October 2007 must have seat belts for forward and rearward facing seats. These seats must be designated as travelling seats and have a badge stating this. In a vehicle manufactured after this date, if a seat is not badged for travel you should not use it.”

 

So if your 2009 Pace’s dinette seats are not ‘badged’, in principle they are not “designated travelling seats”.

 

There’s also the matter of what the number-of-seats datum was on your Pace’s Type Aproval Certificate of Conformity, because that’s the figure that should have been transferred to the vehicle’s V5C when it was first UK-registered.

 

If your Pace’s belted dinette seats are appropriately ‘badged’ as travelling seats, I doubt that the Pace’s V5C showing just two seats would be legally important if you chose to carry passengers using the dinette seats. This is something you could explore with the DVLA, but if you want “4” on the V5C not “2” you’d need to talk to the Pace’s manufacturer (presumably Swift Group) as PJay did.