seatbelts

Aug 05, 2006 52 Replies

Hi,



any url's available to provide a legal answer to the following?



I'm getting a 1998 Land Rover 110 which has the bench seats in the rear, behind the second row of front facing seats.



The front facing seats all have seatbelts.



Q: If there are no seat belts fitted for the bench seats is it okay to carry children (ages??) on those bench seats?



My understanding is that if there are no belts fitted at manufacture then it's okay.



tia Peter


Might be OK, but consider the people you carry !!

How do you do?

That was my understanding too - however, the MOT station decided last year that belts must be fitted - and so they were.

My kids almost invariably travel in the back on the bench seats (without belts) - the middle row is used for stowage on such trips.

AFAIK, rear side bench seats are not a testable item. However at first MoT they need to be type approved for some reason as it is a 12 seater. Only forward facing seats are tested.

Childern *have* to have seat belts, and booster cushions if under a certain hight (even if they are 12 for example). Stupid new law that has/is about to come into force to raise more revenue.

Richard

On or around Sat, 5 Aug 2006 11:00:19 +0100, "wireless" enlightened us thusly:

If you carry children on any organised outing, even volunteer stuff like scout camps, then side-facing are no longer legal with or without belts.

I think that for private use you're still OK. There is a safety issue, though, with unbelted passengers in any seat.

The rear seats will need seatbelts fitting to be legally useable, if a vehicle is made before 1986 then no seatbelts need to be fitted but in your case they do.

That's only the case subject to the cut-off date above.

I got this direct from DVLA on 0870 240 0010, who passed me on to the Construction and Use regulations lot, who passed me straight back then they passed me onto someone called gareth evans in DVLA who was part of writing the legislation in the first place, according to him.

Also on the government website,

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I found some of this by hunting around but don't have the URLs any more. It wasn't hard to find.

Richard,

I have lapbelts on one side of my 110 (9 seater, so two person bench seat) and I'm looking for the same for the other side. How much are they? The "sockets" are mounted on a plate in the middle, and the "plug" comes from the outside of the bench seat (does that make sense?)

Ta, Stuart

Or any belted person in front, crushing such person between their seat and belt as the unbelted person behind hurtles forward.

Just for children?

This particular safety issue applies to /any/ unsecured load IMO.

Side facing and rear facing seats are not required to be fitted with seatbelts see

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On or around Sat, 5 Aug 2006 18:21:07 +0100, "Andy.Smalley" enlightened us thusly:

for the MOT. there are still restrictions on use, though.

On Sat, 5 Aug 2006 14:32:12 +0100, Srtgray wrote (in article ):

Different question, but similar topic:

Is there an inertia reel fitting/conversion for the centre front seat on a Defender (1990 90, if it matters)? The manually adjusted belt currently fitted is a PIA to adjust.

Nick.

Phone the DVLA and tell them that then, for a seat to be legally useable there are further restrictions, and seatbelts do need to be present in vehicles built after a given date, something like 1989 or

1986.

The MOT test is just an MOT test, it's not a definitive statement that your car is ready and legal to drive on the road. You can for example have seats in the back that don't have seatbelts as long as you don't use them, so you'd get through an MOT but you'd get your collar felt if you got pulled with a load of passengers in the back.

"Think of the Children"

;-)

-- Andy He who dies with most toys wins !

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On or around Sat, 5 Aug 2006 19:47:42 +0100, Nick Williams enlightened us thusly:

you can get inertia reel lap belts. dunno if it's feasible to fit 'em to a

90 - you may not have room for the reel.

31st March 1987 And it only applys to forward facing rear seats

and it will fail if first used after 31st March 1987

collar felt

Not necessarily, I had a 1991 camper with side facing rear seats that I added with no belts, this was never even questioned in 8 MOTs.

Greg

Sounds like you need STC8888 - if you mail me I'll get a price on Monday.

Cheers Richard

Not that I'm aware of.

Richard

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