Kids and car seats

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Tom

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We've had various discussions here in the past about kids and car seats. Here's a link to the Children of Philadephia Hospital's web site on the subject, developed by Partners for Child Passenger Safety. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer the question for folks with side seats or sofas in their motorhome, but maybe we could question these folks about our needs.
 
I've never looked at our MH for set belts on the couch.  HOwever, the previous MH, 93 CoachmanSpecial MB340 had seat b elts at the booth and in the couch.    Good Point  Tom  I'll have to check the in the AM
 
Good link/info to have.  Correct installation is paramount to a child carseat doing what it's supposed to do in a crash... it's not enough to just buckle it in however it will fit.  Carseats (and common seatbelts for that matter) nowadays are designed to do MUCH more than just prevent ejection, but actually protect and slow the collision forces to reduce the risk of serious injury.  P.S. I'm a certified Child Passenger Safety (CPS) technician.  It's not my primary career or anything, but I'm certified as an educator on the topic and work carseat checkpoints and such. 

To supplement what Tom stated, motorhomes are unfortunately not built for safe child travel... rear seat belts (if they even exist) are often side-facing which no carseat on the market is designed for.  Plus I don't think ANY motorhome companies crash-test their rigs with carseats and child-sized crash dummies installed, to see what will happen.  That's really the only way to know for sure, and even those are simulated events. 

Don't mean to sound like a downer here...  ;)  Just gotta keep those little ones in mind when RV-ing with them.  Anyone on the board should feel free to contact me with any questions on carseats or proper installation.

P.S. Tom, will the PM utility be reactivated anytime soon?
 
scottydl said:
P.S. Tom, will the PM utility be reactivated anytime soon?

Yes, that's the plan, but with some additional security. I'm still recovering from the shock that many folks believed that I sent out that awful email, so I'm being super cautious. Meanwhile, folks might want to turn off email notification of PMs as explained below:

Click the Profile button above, then click Personal message options on the left of your screen. Uncheck the box labelled Notify by email every time you receive a personal message. Don't forget to click Change profile for the change(s) to take effect.
 
In our previous motor home, Class C Gulfstream, there were 3 seat belt on the sofa and 4 at the dinette.  We would buckle the car seats (2) as tightly as physically possible to the seat belts on the sofa.  They were solidly in place, but the kids were facing sideways in the coach.  Part of this was so they could watch TV (movies) while traveling.  We were rearended very hard one day comming down Snoqualmie Pass in extream winter conditions.  The accident totaled the pickup that hit us and force the bumper and spare tire thru the back wall.  The shock ravished the rest of the interior and slightly injured my wife, her mother, and myself.  The kids however didn't shift in their car seats at all.  One didn't realize we were hit and kept asking why the TV went off.
RV's are bigger and heavier than most vehicles on the road, there is safety in size.  But I believe that if it wasn't for the car seats my kids would have been injured as well.  My kids are older now and no longer require a car seat.  In our new Class A, everyone has to be buckled in of course.
 
Tom said:
Yes, that's the plan, but with some additional security. I'm still recovering from the shock that many folks believed that I sent out that awful email, so I'm being super cautious.
C

Tom:

If I received an email that was really from you I would expect it to be announcing the Welsh uprising. ;)
 
NWRVer, thanks for that account... part of the problem with knowing how/where to buckle kids in MH's is that there are no crash tests to show what will happen.  Any story like yours is bound to help others.  I still would recommend buckling kids forward-facing if possible, but that's not always an option.
 
woodartist said:
Do school buses have seat belts????

For the most part, no.  School bus seats are built in a "compartmentalized" fashion w/ very high seat backs, so in the event of a crash (other than a rollover which is very rare with school buses) a child will most likely stay within the space between the seats.  The seat back cushions are also built to absorb crash forces and prevent ejection.

Check out this site for more detailed explanations.
 
I will say this about car seats, alas it does not apply to motor homes. (I have a comment re; motor homes too though)

As a police dispatcher I've either seen or sent troopes to many accidents where a child was involved.  Several of them the child was held in his or her mother's arms (In the early days) and though adults walked away with minor, if any injury it was the skill of the doctors that saved the child's life.

After Michigan's child restraint law went into effect I still sent many troopers to many accidents (or saw them myself) and in thiese in many cases the accident was so violent that the adults, in spite of seat belts, were killed.

The child, however, was not.  Covered in blood, yes, but not his or hers.

One accident I personally saw,  Compatc Pickup truck had rolled, Mom and Dad did not believe in seat belts, Junior was, of course, buckeled in,  When I got there Mom was dead (Truck rolled over her and crushed her after she was thrown from the cab.  Dad was hurting (Mostly road rash, what you get when you go sliding down the pavement on your face) junior... I think he may have needed a band aid or two (I've done worse damage shaving in the morning)


Now RV's.  One tihng going for the child in a collision in an RV is physics. 22000 lbs of RV v/s 2200 (note less zero) car the RV won't stop as fast,  Don't make much difference though if the other guy is 160,000 lbs of steel hauler or a bridge abutment.
 
John In Detroit said:
Now RV's.  One tihng going for the child in a collision in an RV is physics. 22000 lbs of RV v/s 2200 (note less zero) car the RV won't stop as fast,  Don't make much difference though if the other guy is 160,000 lbs of steel hauler or a bridge abutment.

Good points.  MH's (Class A's and big C's anyway) are also like the principle behind school buses, in that passengers are sitting much higher than the other traffic.  Even if a car does slam into any given side of a MH, chances are high that it will impact some part of the undercarriage and not an area level with a seated passenger.
 
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