Extra Seat Belts - 2002 Adventurer 35U

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Bill N

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Sorry I am not too lazy to go look but the coach is currently in covered storage almost 20 miles away and thought someone who knows could chip in.  We have never had more than the two of us riding in the coach so all we needed were driver and passenger seat belts.  Now our granddaughter has requested that she be able to take our summer trip with us from her home in Canada  (our first stop) for the next 3000 miles before we return home to Missouri.  We gladly said yes and then started to think about her safety when traveling.

Initially I did not recall seeing any extra seat belts in the coach but then the wife reminded me that there was a pile of what looked like dirty seat belts on the floor behind the couch.  I also recall seeing a notch in the dinette seats to accommodate a seat belt but never saw any belts.

The questions(s) is(are):  Are there seat belts on the dinette - perhaps hidden below the pull out drawers?  If there are no seat belts there, is there a mounting where a seat belt could be installed (on the dinette)?  Assuming the belts below the couch could be cleaned and fished up through the couch, I can only say I would not like to ride for 3000 miles sitting sideways on a couch but sitting facing forward at the dinette and having the table to use for books or laptop would be much more comfortable.  I can find no definitive reference in the owners manual to any specific location for seat belts other than the driver and passenger seats.  Thanks.
 
There are seat belts on the couch. I don't believe there normally are at the dinette as it is not constructed to hold up under the stress of a crash with the weight of people on it. There would also be a strong likelihood of injury to a person sitting at the dinnette from impact with the hard table surface. Put the passengers on the couch ...more comfy and safer ...and you could use a lap table or something similar if they want a writing/drawing surface. Our g-kids loved riding on the couch even when quite small in a car seat as they could see so much more than they could when the car seat was tied into the back seat of a car.
 
If you wanted to add seatbelts to the dinette, I'm sure it could be done... but not necessarily "easily" (depending on your definition of that term).  To be effective under any kind of crash forces, the belts would need to be anchored through the floor and/or to someplace on the frame of the RV.  I don't know if your dinette is set up for that kind of belt attachment or not.  Anything bolted into the wood construction of the dinette itself could get ripped right out with any substantial G-forces or unnatural shifting of the furniture itself.
 
cbeierl said:
The 2002 Adventurer Brochure shows three seat belts on the Rest Easy sofa but none on the dinette.

Thanks Chris.  I have the Adventurer brochure and looked at all the pretty pictures of the couch - none with a seat belt showing.  But after you mentioned it I looked again and there they are in the floor plan drawings.  It's a shame they would not show them in the pix and I bet they are a nuisance when the couch is used as a bed but our 13 yr old granddaughter will be able to comment on that later.  I am sure we can move them out of the way.

My comment on the dinette was based solely on the fact that the bottom cushions have a notch in the back edge at the center indicating a place for a belt but I think those same cushions probably are used in many models, some of which have the belts and others not.
 
I expect it would be easy to install a belt at the fwd facing dinette seat, but you may have to do it yourself.  Dealers are often cautious about the liability issue. I'd check first as it is quite possible they are already installed.

Ernie
 
Yeah, seatbelts in the house of motorhomes has been an issue for years due to Federal laws. Our '99 Allegro had them in the jacknife sofa and in the front & rear facing dinette seats. On the sofa, they were a giant PITA to get to if they got pushed or fell down between the crack in the sofa (which ALWAYS happened). There was a little elastic loop that was supposed to keep them from falling down but, with two kids, that loop lasted about five minutes. I ended up keeping a straightened-out coat hangar in the closet to fish them back out.

The dinette's seatbelts weren't such a problem but there was a big red and white warning placard above the table that said, "WARNING THESE SEATS NOT TO BE USED WHILE THE VEHICLE IS IN MOTION" (Yeah, right). I guess the seatbelts were there to keep you from falling onto the floor if you had one too many beverages during happy hour(s). :eek: So while not ideal, I was always glad they were there so the kids could be belted in.

Kev
 
I would be astounded if you could find a dealer that would install seat belts, they are specifically engineered to meet federal requirements and no dealer would accept the liability.  For my Jeep, I installed a five point harness that I use when doing hard rock crawling but it's not DOT approved for highway use.
 
John Canfield said:
I would be astounded if you could find a dealer that would install seat belts, they are specifically engineered to meet federal requirements and no dealer would accept the liability.  For my Jeep, I installed a five point harness that I use when doing hard rock crawling but it's not DOT approved for highway use.

That said, most motorhome seatbelts in the rear "house" area are NOT federally crash-tested or DOT approved.  They are installed by the motorhome body manufacturer as a part of the floor plan, after the stripped chassis (which is crash tested with the steering wheel and front seats only) passed the necessary federal crash requirements for trucks.  Motorhome seatbelting laws fall into a gray area in most states, as motorhomes are too heavy to be considered automobiles and require those rules... and are also not usually commercial vehicles so they don't fall under trucking industry laws either. 

The best safety practice of course is to have all vehicle occupants secured in some way that will protect them in the event of a crash, but you will have a hard time finding those exact rules/regulations for RV's in print form.
 
The thread gets more interesting when you bring in crash testing.  Along that line, my coach is 13 years old so no air bags.  Do any of the newer ones have air bags?  I mean any of the new ones  in the less than one mil class.
 
John Canfield said:
I would be astounded if you could find a dealer that would install seat belts, they are specifically engineered to meet federal requirements and no dealer would accept the liability. 

What I was really trying to find out John is if there were any seat belt anchorages put in place by Winnebago  in the dinette area?  I know that no dealer would not touch it but I would give it a whirl if the anchorages were already installed.
 
Bill N said:
The thread gets more interesting when you bring in crash testing.  Along that line, my coach is 13 years old so no air bags.  Do any of the newer ones have air bags?  I mean any of the new ones  in the less than one mil class.

They should, in the front seating positions as required for truck chassis by federal law.  Remember your motorhome is basically a big box set on top of a modified truck frame... same thing that box trucks or buses (in the case of diesel pushers for instance) use.  NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) is the driving force behind all things "vehicle safety" for American automotive manufacturing.  Go to www.nhtsa.gov and you could read for days on the many topics!  ;)
 
I just finished installing a seatbelt on my 2003 Adventurer 31Y. Right away I found out that the dinette slideout floor has a very thin topping of plywood sandwiched on top of insulating foam and then a metal floor that is on the underside. Because of this weak foundation you will really have to make sure any contact through this floor is dispersed across a wide area to distribute the energy in the event of a crash. I feel confident that my installation of the seatbelt on the window side of the forward facing dinette seat is quite secure.
When I removed the seat I found a large bolt coming through the floor near the outside wall that runs up through the frame, this is very convenient and I feel it's my strongest link. I attached one end of the seatbelt to that bolt with a washer and locking nut.
For the other side of the seatbelt, I placed a strip of flat support hardware along the bottom of the slide and a strip of angle iron on the inside to sandwich the floor of the slide out. The support hardware, washers and bolt heads were thin enough on the bottom of the slide to still squeeze across the carpeted coach floor when the slide comes back in (be careful as this is your biggest challenge to run the slide back in without tearing up the floor). I placed 5 bolts with 2" washers up through the support hardware and the floor. I the passed it up through a strip of angle iron on the floor inside the coach where I connected it with large washers and locking nuts. The seatbelt was anchored between the angle iron and washer on the center bolt.
If you want a 2nd seatbelt on that same dinette seat you'll find that it may be able to be done but its nearly impossible to get the innermost bolt up through the floor because the slide doesn't come out far enough. You'd really have to remove the slide to get to that point and that's more than I'm willing to do.
 

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