Seat belt for "eighth seat"

[kb&2dogs]

This may be posted elsewhere, but I can't find it.....

We have the eight seater, but no seat belt on the fold down seat. Is it legal for a passenger to sit there even tho there is no belt? Don't want to get busted and fined for no seat belt if it isn't legal. Is there a way to retro-fit a seat belt for that seat?

[MardyDelica]

Hi, you need to have seatbeat to be legal, that fold seat need seat belt if you want to use it. in japan they only used it in rural area not highway. but here you need to fabricate seatbelt ( lap seatbelt) if you can fabricate on it. to make it works. By law you need a seat belt attached on it.
hope this help :
Cheers

[monstabishi]

check behind the panel on the sliding door post to see if there are any mounting points top and bottom ( there usually is ) also check to see if there is an extra female buckle on the bench seat.........good luck.


Mick.

[Adrock]

I'm not 100% on this, but i'm about 95 because my cousin runs a taxi company and had knowledge of this kind of thing and I recently asked her. According to her, if all other seats are occupied with users in seatbelts, and there is an open seat but there is no seatbelt it is legal to travel without one. The law is, you must never have a seatbelt that is not fastened while travelling in that seat, and only one person may be in each seatbelt. I believe this law is so that people with old cars that don't have seatbelts in the back are still able to take passengers.

I'm not 100% and I don't feel like looking through the MVA, but it makes sense to me...

[Adrock]

well, I looked into it because I had the MVA section #s on the seatbelt ticket I got 3 weeks ago haha.

Seat belt assembly
220 (1) In this section, "seat belt assembly" means a device or assembly suitably fastened to the motor vehicle composed of straps, webbing or similar material that restrains the movement of a person in order to prevent or mitigate injury to the person and includes a pelvic restraint, an upper torso restraint or both of them.

(2) A person must not sell, offer for sale or operate on a highway a motor vehicle required to be registered and licensed only under this Act and manufactured or assembled after December 1, 1963, other than a motorcycle, unless it is equipped with not less than 2 seat belt assemblies for use in the front seat in accordance with the regulations.
(3) A person must not drive or operate a motor vehicle on a highway in which a seat belt assembly required under this section or the Motor Vehicle Safety Act (Canada) at the time the motor vehicle was manufactured, assembled or imported into Canada has been removed, rendered partly or wholly inoperative, or modified to reduce its effectiveness.
(4) A person in a motor vehicle being driven or operated on a highway must, if the motor vehicle has properly attached to it a seat belt assembly for the seating position occupied by that person, wear the complete seat belt assembly in a properly adjusted and securely fastened manner.
(5) Subsection (4) does not apply to a person
(a) driving a motor vehicle in reverse,
(b) who is in possession of, and produces on request to a peace officer, a valid and subsisting certificate
(i) issued by the superintendent on the recommendation of a medical practitioner, or
(ii) in the form established by the superintendent, signed by a medical practitioner and issued for a period not exceeding 6 months,
certifying that the person is,
(iii) for the period stated in the certificate, unable for medical reasons to wear a seat belt assembly, or
(iv) because of the person's size, build or other physical characteristic, unable to wear a seat belt assembly, or
(c) who is actually engaged in work that requires him or her to alight from and re-enter the motor vehicle at frequent intervals and who, while engaged in that work, does not drive or travel in that vehicle at a speed exceeding 40 km/h, or
(d) under age 16.
(6) A person must not drive on a highway a motor vehicle in which there is a passenger who has attained age 6 but is under age 16 and who occupies a seating position for which a seat belt assembly is provided unless that passenger is wearing the complete seat belt assembly in a properly adjusted and securely fastened manner.
(7) Subsection (6) does not apply if the passenger
(a) is in possession of, and produces on request to a peace officer, a valid and subsisting certificate
(i) issued by the superintendent on the recommendation of a medical practitioner, or
(ii) in the form established by the superintendent, signed by a medical practitioner and issued for a period not exceeding 6 months,
certifying that the person is,
(iii) for the period stated in the certificate, unable for medical reasons to wear a seat belt assembly, or
(iv) because of the person's size, build or other physical characteristic, unable to wear a seat belt assembly, or
(b) is actually engaged in work that requires him or her to alight from and re-enter the motor vehicle at frequent intervals and the motor vehicle does not travel at a speed exceeding 40 km/h.
(8) Despite this section, if a seat belt assembly consists of a pelvic restraint and a separate upper torso restraint, only the pelvic restraint need be worn.
(9) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations as follows:
(a) requiring the use of child seating and restraint systems in motor vehicles on highways and prescribing the specifications for them;
(b) defining the age of a child for the purpose of paragraph (a);
(c) providing for the exemption from any provision of this section of any
(i) type or class of motor vehicle, and
(ii) class or group of drivers or passengers in motor vehicles.
(10) A person who contravenes this section commits an offence.

[josh]

Good job Adam,

That saves me a lot of research... Oh wait, I don't have an eight seater! (Still good sleuthing).

Josh

[Green1]

be aware though that those laws differ by province (I know you're in BC, but if you travel outside of BC), I'm not going to dig around in the Alberta ones right now but I do seem to remember them closing exactly that loophole in the Alberta one a couple years ago after some rollover where a whole bunch of people died due to having more people than seatbelts.

Also, one thing to think about is why you wear your seatbelt... personally I wear it to survive collisions, not to be legally compliant...
in short, don't skimp on safety! if you plan to transport someone in that seat, get a seatbelt installed!

[kb&2dogs]

Thanks for the info all, so if I am reading the act correctly, I can have a passenger in the 8th seat without them using a seatbelt, as long as all the other seats are occupied by people wearing seatbelts????

I'd hate to get out on the highway to anywhere and get pulled over and told my passenger couldn't stay in the vehicle because they don't have a seatbelt. That would suck very badly.

[Green1]

one other issue you may run in to is proving that that seat never had a seatbelt (because you legally must maintain a seatbelt there if it was originally fitted) and cops are unlikely to believe that an 8 seater vehicle would have been manufactured with only 7 seatbelts....

[MardyDelica]

Hi, dont try to go in the highway & used the seat without seatbelt, if anything goes wrong & the passeenger who seat there where there is no seat belt attached , ICBC might not covered your insurance.
as you remember i think 2 months ago where a van carrying farm worker without seatbelt died. its in abbotsford Highway one where it happen. i dont know if there covered it cause they dont have seatbelt attached only seat. then it has big investigation about that case. now i heared that you need to installed seatbelt to any of the seat that you used to tranport passenger as for safety, dont take a chance. be safe
Cheers;

[Adrock]

I believe if i read it correctly, you could be empty in the back except for a person in the 8th seat, and they would not be required to wear a seatbelt. I'm not saying do it. Then again, if I have 8 people in the van I would bevery cautious anyways.

Not saying you should ever ride without a seatbelt, but its allowed as far as i know.

[JethroBean]

So, what about just installing a belt for that eighth jumper seat? Is it possible? Has anyone done it? If so what does it entail?

I'm shopping for an 8 seater and I need this question answered in order to know what to look/ask for. I've asked a number of people if the 8th seat (jumper) has a belt and I'm getting different answers. I think I'm going to differ to the experience of ccautos who told me that the Chamonix all have 8 seats but only 7 seat belts - the little jumper seat doesn't have a belt. I would still like to hear the experience/knowledge of others

BTW, It makes no sense why the belt is not installed in the first place. To me it's saying that if in an accident happens, only seven of the passengers are worth keeping alive the 8th is expendable. So, if your friends invite you out for the weekend fishing trip and you're in the 8th seat you know where you stand in the pecking-order.

[MardyDelica]

Hi, Jethro, as i said before thru my experience as i am also a importer, delica chamonix or delica exceed with 8 passenger seat, the 8 passenger seat dont have the seat belt, in japan they design this additional seat for urban or off road which you travel on low speed like doing sightseeing & etc. the 8 seat is not design to used this seat without seatbelt while traveling in high speed & in the Hwy, i ask icbc about this its only legal to used this seat in the highway if you put additional seat belt on it bolt in to the frame Or chassis i mean like fix bolt on it, then they say its legal to used this as 8 passenger. if no seat belt it categorized as 7 passenger, but remember get the seat belt with mark & tag in the belt with compliance labels on the belt. dont get the one without it, used seat belt is o.k.
you can get it from auto wrecking just see which one match the length. you can install like a lap seatbelt on it. make sure its secure. this 8 seat is good for short trip not for long trip , that only my opinoin.
so if you put this i think your be o.k. cause you do the proper way to keep the passenger secure & safe when using this 8 seat.
just think safe even it cost your time & few extra dollar.
hope this help
Cheers :

[torchard]

While you might have a legal argument for not having the 8th belt, you don't have much of an argument from a safety standpoint.

As Mardy suggests it should be pretty easy and relatively cheap to install a lap belt for the jumper seat. I dunno if they have pre-existing mounting points, but you could probably get a couple of mounting tabs welded on. Easier still you could mount both ends through the floor. If you choose this option you'll likely want van/rv belts as they are long and made for this style of mounting.

—Todd

[JethroBean]

I agree with Todd. If you're going to have the seat than it must have a belt or it's just taking up space. I'm taking suggestions here and will go and look closer at things. Existing mounts would be nice - that may facilitate putting in a three point belt. The problem is I don't have a Deli to look at. Kathy & Clan - maybe we can get together on this and take a look? I live in Victoria as well. If there are others in the city with the eight seater that would'nt mind letting me take a look inside please let me know.

Glenn (ccautos) at Coombs Country has been kind enough to take a look at this as well. He's not installed one himself but is sure it can be done. For liability reasons, they're not willing to install belts for clients. They don't want to be on the hook if something bad happens. I can understand this. All I care about is whether or not it can be done and done safely - I'm capable of installing myself.