Quote:
Originally Posted by Mkaye
2011 Freelander
it has seat belts bolted down under the dinette, but nothing for a child seat
can I add a strap to attach to the top of the car seat?
is this something I can get at an RV shop?
or is it a safety issue & i'm not really allowed to play with it?
mark
|
What you do with your RV after you buy it is strictly your business. Hiring someone to do something like this is getting into foggy territory, even without allowing for liability issues.
That said, understand what you have. There are no Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for any seat belts or child safety seat positions in RV's except for the two front seats. Anything else you see is furnished by the RV manufacturer and may be thoroughly tested, or may not. Some do some limited testing and some sort of wing it based on the installations I've seen of seat belts in the rear. Not only are we talking about the belts, what we are also talking about are the structures the car seat will sit on, and the structure above, ahead and behind the seat. However good or poor all these things are, you need to ask yourself if you think your child will be safer with the car seat installed, even at a questionable structure/position, than without the car seat. If this answer comes up yes, then anything you may do to make that position safer is a definite plus.
I know this isn't the definitive answer you were hoping for, but it's what we have. For manufacturers to do the necessary testing the government would have to write and approve the standard, approve the methods and testing and force manufacturers to then do the work. At this point the price of your rig will probably have doubled. In reality, RV's are an extremely safe vehicle as far as crash survivability and overall crash frequency. Since we don't have the "blood on it" to the level that other vehicles have it's doubtful any new safety efforts will be along soon.
I worked as a Child Car Seat installation instructor and set up the car seat safety program in Delaware before I retired. I'm also a licensed safety Engineer
Child Seat Restraints?
Linear Mode
