Passenger seatbelts aftermarket

[ODABASH]

Winnebago travato. Only carries driver and one passenger. Any one know if additional seatbelts are possible? Retro fit them?

Ridiculous that cant carry our grandsons along! Thanks all!

[mkguitar]

this comes up time to time


if there are not seatbelts, that generally indicates that the seating area is not safe- the seats themselves could detach or collapse in the event of an accident, or that the cabinets above may detach*


belts can be added..you'd have to find an attachment to the van chassis, but if the seat, sofa, bench is going to fly off what's the use.


seat belts can come from an auto restoration catalog or a speed shop


among roadtrek's many sins as the company collapsed and was taken over, were falsified certs for additional seating

the key is to select a van initially which provides the seating desired ( safe and tested and certified)
That may detail a rear sofa bed, which may not be as good a bed as it is a sofa


mike


* I work for rock bands and travel by coach- in the event of accident it's not uncommon for the cabinetry, seating areas, bunks -everything- to just bust apart.
Gloria Estefan was badly injured in her bus crash- her mistake was sleeping head forward...rule #2 is feet forward when sleeping, just in case

[mloganusda]

You could also go to a salvage yard and remove seat belts from a van that would fit. Maybe even have shoulder straps included.

[DelcoBobby]

Originally Posted by ODABASH

Winnebago travato. Only carries driver and one passenger. Any one know if additional seatbelts are possible? Retro fit them?

Ridiculous that cant carry our grandsons along! Thanks all!

Which model and year? I saw the K version with seatbelts on the bed/sofa.
Doesn’t the G have an additional seat?

Seat belts need to be anchored securely.
They may have to pass Federal regulations for each seating position.

I am also leaving the obvious unstated.

[ChicagoTom]

You can’t find them due to the legal ramifications

[JeanM]

Originally Posted by ODABASH

Winnebago travato. Only carries driver and one passenger. Any one know if additional seatbelts are possible? Retro fit them?

Ridiculous that cant carry our grandsons along! Thanks all!

My first campervan was a Travato. It was totaled in a "T-bone" accident.

Miraculously, everyone walked away basically unharmed -- even the occupants of the vehicle that hit us at highway speed.

However, everything in the coach was completely destroyed and no longer in its original location, including the fridge. The coach/"house" part of the van was such a splintered, chaotic mess that it was difficult to extract our belongings from it later that day.

There is no doubt in my mind that -- had we had been carrying any passengers at the time of the accident, in any part of the coach -- they would have been severely injured, and very likely killed, seatbelts or no.

I definitely understand the desire to add seats; I even researched it a bit when purchasing my second camper van. The two kinds of answers that I found were 1) "here's a webpage where you can purchase your own aftermarket belts to install yourself" and 2) "here's an upfitter who will bolt permanent foundation rails into the open floor space in your coach, to secure a third captains chair, if you sign a waiver" -- but very few options in between those two things. Before doing anything, ask whether your insurance carrier approves the modification. Ultimately we decided it's not worth it. That's based on the understanding that it's fundamentally not safe for passengers to travel in the coach.

[JeanM]

I want to add-

Not only are RV manufacturers not required to carry out crash-test studies on their product designs, as motor vehicle manufacturers are required to do, there's surprisingly little interest in collecting info re accidental collisions that occur "in the wild". As the saying goes, "the more you look, the more you see" and it's fair to say that there are certain things that nobody wants to see.