Help, no car seats for kids allowed.

Lou · 04-13-2015, 06:47 PM

We have taken our daughter and grandson on several daytrips and one longer trip to visit other grandparents. Now he is out of his infant seat and into a bigger (rear facing) carseat.
Many of them are tricky to install safely and correctly. There is a car seat safety group that trains volunteers to check (and help) with safe installation (local branch of Canadian car seat network).
We had an appointment today to check installation in our Pleasure-Way Excel. It was just cancelled because it is not safe to install car seats in ANY RV.
As background information for their reason they sent us this article which is from a United States Car seat safety group.

http://www.procarseatsafety.com/recreat ... es-rv.html

I do realize that many, many car seats are incorrectly and unsafely installed but I had no idea that no car seats should be used in RVs. I can't understand how it could be so different from a family van when our back bench is steel construction and the seatbelts are attached to the frame of the vehicle.

Does anyone have any other source of reliable information?

gerrym51 · 04-13-2015, 07:07 PM

why are you doing this. if they think carseats are unsafe in rv's then they do. if you take their word are you going to stop. if you are stop now. if not ignore them. it seems to me(my opinion) that you just want someone to say it's ok.

the article you linked to says on first line that it's uncertain because no reliable tests have been done on this issue. if no reliable tests have been done then your never going to get the answer you want to hear.

Davydd · 04-13-2015, 08:06 PM

You only have one option. Contact Pleasure-way to determine if they crash tested your Excel. However, you said bench seat. That document was pretty clear in stating no back facing or side facing bench seats. The only possible approved seat, if crash tested in an Excel, would be the front facing sofa seat with proper seat belts. Technically there are no requirements for rear occupants in an RV. That puts the onus on you.

wincrasher · 04-13-2015, 08:42 PM

The bench seat in my van has a heavy steel frame (about 100 lbs worth of A-frame tubular steel) that is bolted clean thru the floor/frame of the van. It's probably a much stronger seat than what is up front. I'd not think twice about attaching an infant seat to it.

As far as I know, there is no law against mounting a child seat in an RV.

Lou · 04-14-2015, 01:41 AM

Hi I posted a thank you for your responses but it didn't show up. I was hoping that some of you were grandparents and already had experience researching this issue.

I have now received a response from Pleasure-Way that said that the three point seatbelts have been tested and passed CMVSS 207, 208,210, that they are required by law to test every seatbelt, that the belts conformed to federal standards and could be used to secure child seats. I am constantly amazed by how quickly they respond to customer questions.

I shouldn't have called the back seat a bench seat. It is a sofa as David said. The car seat manufacturers apparently don't recommend any RV and seem to worry about wooden seats and projectiles. I too worry about projectiles and we are very careful.

We have had a bit of trouble with keeping the shoulder belt tight after attaching the car seat, both in my Camry and in the Pleasure-Way. Today the safety tech showed my husband how to install a lock clip that stops the shoulder part of the seatbelt from loosening over time.

Fastpaddler1 · 04-14-2015, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davydd

You only have one option. Contact Pleasure-way to determine if they crash tested your Excel. However, you said bench seat. That document was pretty clear in stating no back facing or side facing bench seats. The only possible approved seat, if crash tested in an Excel, would be the front facing sofa seat with proper seat belts. Technically there are no requirements for rear occupants in an RV. That puts the onus on you.

That may be true in the US, Davydd but here in Canada every passenger must wear a shoulder seat belt harness including any passengers at the back of the RV. I had my wife and sister in law back there with my brother and law and I up front and no problem and we comply with the law. Children requiring a childs car seat must have one hooked into the seat brackets which cars have rvs don't so, it is a dicey issue how to transport little oes in our RVs. Havent had that experience. Anybody else from Canada out there who has?
AL

bikerbill · 04-19-2015, 01:08 PM

Interesting that you state Canada requires EVERY seated passenger, front & rear to have a shoulder type seat belt. Our new Roadtrek has 3 belts for the bench in the rear. The 2 outside ones are should type while the middle is only a lap belt. And our new Jeep Grand Cherokee has 3 seat belts in the back seat and again the outside ones are shoulder but the middle is a lap belt. Not sure how any manufacturer would do a shoulder type belt for the middle seat.

Davydd · 04-19-2015, 05:04 PM

The electric sofas also don't all have head restraints. Some do but most don't. We felt that to be an issue in our Great West Van Legend when we hauled our son and grandkids on a long distance trip. With the grandkids they had their own bolster chairs with built in head restraints. With the youngest who sat in the middle, he had a four point harness in the bolster child seat and I devised a cable to fasten the upper back to the floor seatbelt latches. The shoulder harness was not necessary in the middle for that seat. The adult was hung out by the neck but survived the trip.

Lou · 04-20-2015, 04:46 AM

Our Pleasure-way only has two seatbelts (both shoulder belts) on the back sofa. The manufacturer said it was due to safety regulations.

FirstSpringFlower · 03-26-2020, 10:20 AM

If I'm not mistaken, children whose weight or height exceeds the forward-facing limit for their car safety seat should use a belt-positioning booster seat. I advise you to read more about them. We used a booster seat as well as some interactive toys (https://www.best-pack-n-play.com/crib-toys/) to make my little one feel safe and entertained.

Davydd · 03-26-2020, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davydd

The electric sofas also don't all have head restraints. Some do but most don't. We felt that to be an issue in our Great West Van Legend when we hauled our son and grandkids on a long distance trip. With the grandkids they had their own bolster chairs with built in head restraints. With the youngest who sat in the middle, he had a four point harness in the bolster child seat and I devised a cable to fasten the upper back to the floor seatbelt latches. The shoulder harness was not necessary in the middle for that seat. The adult was hung out by the neck but survived the trip.

Wow! Old photo. Much has changed in RVs since especially with neck restraints now on many sofas. Our youngest grandson in the middle seat is now 11 years old.

That 2,000 mile trip from Wisconsin to Virginia and back convinced me to never suggest Class B's for hauling kids.

GallenH · 03-26-2020, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bikerbill

Interesting that you state Canada requires EVERY seated passenger, front & rear to have a shoulder type seat belt. Our new Roadtrek has 3 belts for the bench in the rear. The 2 outside ones are should type while the middle is only a lap belt. And our new Jeep Grand Cherokee has 3 seat belts in the back seat and again the outside ones are shoulder but the middle is a lap belt. Not sure how any manufacturer would do a shoulder type belt for the middle seat.

Our Rav4 has a shoulder harness that deploys from the roof for the middle seating position. It interconnects with the middle lap belt. Not sure if it's as good as the outer seating positions in the rear that have conventional belts. Would assume that it had to pass crash tests as well.

Boxster1971 · 03-26-2020, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lou

. . .
As background information for their reason they sent us this article which is from a United States Car seat safety group.

http://www.procarseatsafety.com/recreat ... es-rv.html

I do realize that many, many car seats are incorrectly and unsafely installed but I had no idea that no car seats should be used in RVs. I can't understand how it could be so different from a family van when our back bench is steel construction and the seatbelts are attached to the frame of the vehicle.

Does anyone have any other source of reliable information?

I would not consider "procarseataftey.com" an authoritative seat safety group. They look more like an ad income generation web site started by someone in California. Their service is not free. Here is their BBB entry. . .

https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/los-angele...ty-1216-704930

Better to look at what NHTSA says about child seats here. . .

https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/car-...-booster-seats

The seats added by mainstream B-van builders, like Pleasure-Way, are just as safe as the seats in a passenger van. Just today I was looking at VanDoit and they actually start with a passenger van.

https://www.vandoit.com/

Bruceper · 03-28-2020, 04:55 AM

The big issue here is that the make believe expert website refers to "RV's", which they typically see as they wooden box on a metal frame and not a class B which is a passenger van (or cargo, but still with approved seat belt attachment points)

If your safety people are considering the information on that website as "fact" then just go ahead and make another website that says the opposite and point that out to them. Contrary to popular belief, not everything on the internet is true. Add to that fact that people are greedy and self serving then you even have websites saying oxygen is bad for us.

RossWilliams · 04-06-2020, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lou

It was just cancelled because it is not safe to install car seats in ANY RV.
As background information for their reason they sent us this article which is from a United States Car seat safety group.

http://www.procarseatsafety.com/recreat ... es-rv.html

Here is what that link says:

Quote:

Child safety restraint systems (car seats and booster seats) are NEVER be used in rear-facing or side-facing bench seating in any RV

If your back bench is forward facing you don't have that problem. If it is side or back facing, then it really isn't likely to be safe to stick a child (or anyone else) in it.

Quote:

The seats added by mainstream B-van builders, like Pleasure-Way, are just as safe as the seats in a passenger van.

Unless they are one of the Roadtrek's with second row seats that are subject to recall ... Someone suggested that Roadtrek may not be the only RV manufacturer who has not properly tested seat installations to fully meet standard motor vehicle safety requirements. I don't know if that is true, but I would not make a blanket statement that they all have been.

michaelingp · 04-15-2020, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fastpaddler1

Children requiring a childs car seat must have one hooked into the seat brackets which cars have rvs don't so, it is a dicey issue how to transport little oes in our RVs.

The back seat in my Safari Condo has seat brackets, but then again, it was made in Canada. (I assume you're talking about those U-shaped brackets sunk in the space between the seat and the back of the seat.) I have no qualms latching a car seat to those brackets.

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