On or around Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:40:23 GMT, SteveG enlightened us thusly:
trouble is, it's not only C&U now, there's the Road Vehicles (Wearing of Seatbelts) Regulations, or some such as well.
Although C&U very likely states what if any belts or anchorages are required.
Ah, yes. Yet another mine field of gobbledegook and nested exceptions, but which (from a quick search) doesn't appear to make any reference to inward facing seats.
This is one of the reasons I recommended early in this thread that the OP calls the DVLA and Construction & Use lot, as in my experience they are very helpful when it comes to telling you what applies, as it all depends greatly on the age of the vehicle, what was fitted when it was made, the angle of the dangle and the wind direction. You do end up being bounced around from department to department though so be prepared to spend a few days making calls and waiting for callbacks. The information published on the websites is very basic and simplified.
On or around Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:00:10 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
I have the actual legislation. But you need a degree in gobbledegook to be able to understand it.
and no, sideways seats slip through the net entirely, except that there's a prohibition on their use for carrying children under 16 (IIRC) on "organised trips", which includes taking other people's kids on (say) a scout trip, and also going to school.
silly thing about that is that it also prevents use of the single side-facers in the back of a disco 1, which, in fact, are pretty safe as these things go. They have lap belts so you can't get thrown across the car and you can't go far sideways in a shunt as they're right alongside the back of the rear (middle row) seat.
Going back to the original point, now, I'm about to embark on 110 for private hire. It may end up as 7 pax, using 2 forward-facing foldups in the rear. Alternatively, I shall be fitting a (modified) second set of middle-row seats in the rear and probably modifying the rear floor/wheelboxes. The rear floor is much narrower than it needs to be on the 110, as it's still the same width as on the series (as witness the series rear door will fit a 110), they never widened the floor when they increased the track.
This is something that santana addressed on the "series 4", to good effect - I reckon the rear floor on the 110 can be at least 4" wider, maybe 6", without running into the wheels, which would make 3 seats in the back a lot more viable.
It's my considered opinion that you're not going to get more than 9 people in in forward-facing seats, though.
Ditto and ditto :-))
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