cars without rear seatbelts

[chrisd1986]

whats the rules for carrying kids in a car with no rear seatbelts? its just incase i have to at some point and i dont want to get caught out by the police, my eldest is 2 and we have a 7 month old aswell.

[Andy]

Never mind the rules,why would you wanna do something as retarded as that?

[Novasport]

I have some aftermarket rear seatbelts you can have for free that will fit, just dont put your children in a car without belts please.
If you want them, just pay the postage. I only removed them from my Swing as I had new genuine ones.

[TeddyThom]

Never mind the rules,why would you wanna do something as retarded as that?

This. So bloody much! If you haven't got rear seat belts then why are you considering putting your kids in the back?!?!? Nothing personal here but that's the most retarded comment I've ever heard. I'd rather go without a seatbelt myself so my kid(s) had some safety.

[Spudly]

Never mind the rules,why would you wanna do something as retarded as that?




Another agreement with this comment, surely the safety of your kids comes first, if you have only the one car and it has not rear belts, then your kids should either be in the front where there is a belt, or you should be walking/selling up and buying something with belts!

[Martin.p]

I agree with all above comments.

But the question of what are the rules according to law!!!
I don't know! But wouldn't be surprised if its ok! Because the car was not fitted with then. But on the other hand! Your NOT alowed to hold your child while car is in motion. They have to be strapped in a seat that is properly suited to there weight and size. And this seat has to be suitable for the car there in.

There are child seats that are designed to fit in centre with a lap belt. I fitted a lap belt to my Calibra and went to mothercare world to get such a seat.
A assistant was helping me and asked 'what car have you got' I said Calibra, to which she said that car did not show on her computer as being a car that has a lap belt and there for said you should not be fitting one and told me which seats I could have.

What I'm getting at is, if you get pulled do you really want to have to argue with a copper that its ok to have a young child in the back that is not properly strapped in despite the fact the nova didnt have belts.

They won't even let you take a baby home from hospital without checking its properly strapped in befor leaving the grounds.

Like the days where my mum and dad let me and my brother travel in the boot! There long gone! They will find one book or the other to throw at you.

Plus could you forgive yourself. Or would your partner.

[meritlover]

https://www.gov.uk/seat-belts-law/if-your-vehicle-doesnt-have-seat-belts
https://www.gov.uk/seat-belts-law/overview
https://www.gov.uk/seat-belts-law/when-you-dont-need-to-wear-a-seat-belt

you can work out what of that applies to you so that when your picking your kids teeth off out the dash board and collecting their limbs from the side of the road, at least you know you have done everything you can to be on the right side of the law.

[Edd]

shoot him down for asking a question lol

i remember when i was a small child there was no law regarding belts in the back, i used to bounce around happily all day long lol



Just get some belts fitted in the back mate

[chrisd1986]

its not going to be everytime i go out but if my other car brakes and i have to use my new nova i wanted to know were i stud and as for the past comments what did everyone do before rear seatbelts, i was carryed in a car without a rear seatbelt back in the early 90's in the family mk2 cav

[kent14sr]

I think the point everyone is making is that it just isnt worth it for a number of reasons;

- its unsafe and puts the safety of you and your children at risk
- its against the law (for certain ages) and rightly so
- whilst it may once of been acceptable, it no longer is!

If you havent got rear seat belts and your other car breaks - just catch the bus or cancel the trip. It just isnt worth it - at the end of the day regardless of what the law says, it would be on your conscience if anything unfortunate happened.

Take Rich up on his kind offer then you are covered whatever happens!

[chrisd1986]

i will be doing, i will just have to wait till payday

[kent14sr]

Good man! It just isnt worth risking safety.

Enjoy your new car, its a stunner!

[Martin.p]

Nice one. :)

[chrisd1986]

i will need parcel shelf supports, how hard are green ones to come across?

[burgo]

Did you never see the ad of th baby flying through the windscreen because it wasnt strapped in?

[meritlover]

no,
was it an advert for windscreens?

[steviegsi]

I wouldn't put a child in a nova whether they had seat belts on or were wrapped in bubble wrap and superglued to the seat! They weren't exactly the safest of cars 20 years ago!

[Calamity Josh]

at the end of the day all you need is standard nova seatbelts, all the holes are there ready and there a 20 minute job to fit

[marc69]

My 1960 austin doesn't have seatbelts front or back, there is little protection anyway and I never go over 50 in it, however....I would never take children on any journey in it.

My 1984 1.2 Nova has no rear seat belts and this is legal, but again, I will never take rear passengers.

I did have an accident a few years ago and the seatbelt held me in place, I only had a few small bruises but had I not had one on, could have been serious. A bit confusing with the Austin state of play but it is rarely driven, usually just to a show or as present, a museum.

In short, especially for children in the rear of a nova, whether legal or not, if you love your kids get any colour of parcel shelf supports and get the belts fitted, less than half an hours work.

[L14MNP]

My 1983 Escort does have rear belts.

I still wouldn't take any kids in it.

I cannot believe what I have just read! Yeah, we used to bounce around in the back, but for a lot of the cars our parents owned at the time, rear belts weren't fitted as standard, plus the safety message wasn't drilled in back then.
That's the reason!

[Andy]

Attitudes towards shiz was more relaxed.
Smoking WAS cool etc

[jimbob-mcgrew]

easy on the guy, were all sinners here

[maddogdaz666]

You don't need parcel shelf supports to bolt the seatbelts in....... I think.

[mowgli]

easy on the guy, were all sinners here

speak for yourself...... i have always made sure seatbelts were fitted in all of my novas. its not like a set from a scrap car is big money (but check them to ensure they haven't already been stretched in a bump)

re the shelves. if you only have old tin ones with the mat stuck on them, there should be a slot iirc... basically, the nova was designed with seat belt mounts, but they weren't fitted to uk ones until the law was ratified.

re crashing novas & their safety.. my first one was punted backwards up the road by a mk2 cav on a country lane.. i got out thru the drivers door & gave the other driver a right telling off... the nova was totalled, yet strong enough to let me out unharmed. modern cars simply crush in a vaguely controlled manner to control the g forces, and more importantly, make sure the car is a write off so you need to buy another one.

[Keif]

Just to throw a curve ball into the equation.
Every car seat we've bought to fit in the rear of a modern Vauxhall, hasn't fitted in the rear of the Nova or Lotus Carlton. The rear seat belts are too short in both.

They've HAD to go in the front passenger seat.

[Spudly]

And to comment on the 'zomg weve all done it before' comments, yes i can remember riding in my grandparents mk1 fiesta, early renault five and hilan imp at the time, and iirc they never had belts in the back, BUT, and here is the big but...


People were less aware on safety issues back then, they didnt realise that an unbelted child/passenger in the back was just as much of a danger to the front seat occupants, as they were to themselves!

Yes a lot of us will have done it, but it still doesnt make it any safer/less dangerous!

[mowgli]

i know what you mean spud. my dad always drove like hell up the motorway when we were kids... simply cos the police were never there like these days, and neither his audi100 nor his bmw525 had rear belts, i was always sat in the middle being the youngest... & my mum didn't wear a seatbelt, but she would hang on to the door handle like the door was trying to fall off the car.. lol.. my mum has one remarkably dangerous habit from the old days that she still does religiously.. no matter where she is going on a roundabout, she drives up the left lane, and wanders round it until she is at her exit, then turns off without indicating..when i was learning to drive, we had an agreement that when out practising, i wouldn't attempt to go anywhere near a roundabout, cos my attempts at doing it properly sent her into fits of panic....also using the brakes instead of trying to slow down in the gears only would get me a bollocking, even though her mk1 astra's brakes were really quite good.....
but she did learn to drive in a pre-war ford pop with loose seats, cos my grandad took the bolts out so that when he went to the local cattle market, it was easier to get a calf or a pig in the back!!!!!