legality of rear facing seats

[glenn]

I've always wondered about this. My gut instinct is that rear facing seats are safer than front facing - more often than not, the seat would be restraining you in a collision, and not the seatbelt.

My question is, is it legal to drive with the seats facing backwards? I have kids in booster seats, and want to do what's best, and legal. I know this was all part of the original equipment of the vehicle and there is that second set of lap belts for when you are facing backwards.

Anyone know?

[Meanman]

perfectly legal as long as proper seat belt are worn. Some new minvan/ crossovers have a rear facing set of fold away seats in the "very back".

[Stiful]

Hi.. I am not sure how things work there but here, because the Delica is a grey import and has not passed Aust safety tests for the seats when in the rear facing position, the rear facing seat belts have to be removed when they are complied. So there for in Australia you are not allowed to travel facing backwards in the back. The Australian sold L300 4x4 Starwagon has a middle seat that flips to face backwards and has passed Oz safety standards and in those you are allowed to travel facing backwards. It is all a matter off compliancing. Ask your local compliance workshop about their "Evidence Package". Unless someone imports a Delica and subjects it to your governments crash test to see if the rear facing seats pass your safety regs , I think you will find it is probably illegal there as well. Cheers..

[jessef]

Canada + rear facing seats + OEM seatbelts = legal

[chris]

glenn you also said you want to do what's best. I'm not sure what's legal is what's best when you have the choice of shoulder belts and kids are concerned.

The whole point of a booster seat is to raise the child up high enough so that the shoulder strap crosses the right parts of the kid instead of choking them. And presumably shoulder straps and lap belts are better than just lap belts. I imagine they prevent more neck injuries than just a lap belt.

On a related note, car seat manuals (and maybe booster manuals too?) say never use a car seat in a seat that faces the rear. Probably because there is no provision to tether it.

Another benefit of sitting facing the front - 68% less hurling!

[Mr. Flibble]

But, how do you reach the steering wheel and the pedals?

[Green1]

a shoulder belt is good... a full seat back is better. you're safer facing backwards with a lap belt than facing forwards with a shoulder belt. (the seatbelt's main purpose is to keep you in your seat during the rapid deceleration of a collision)

(and for the record, it's perfectly legal, in fact I believe that any position the seats lock in would be legal, (L300 front, back, and 30 degree angles, L400 front, back and either side)

[glenn]

Well, I contacted ICBC about this - to see what the official position is on our rear facing seats. I described our vehicles and the set up - esp the fact that the seats come with a second set of belts that are used when facing backwards - and that this is all OEM etc. The representative consulted transport canada and here is the response:

Mr. Ross,

Thank you for your patience.

We checked with Transport Canada, which establishes federal standards for seating in vehicles, to get an answer to your question. They said that they have not tested the configuration that you mentioned, so it would not be considered compliant if the seats are facing backwards.

I'm not totally satisfied with this answer, because nothing about our vans has been tested by transport canada, unless they are simply referring to rear facing seats in general. At any rate, it doesn't look too good, and I'm not interested seat belt fines.

[FalcoColumbarius]

I have moved this thread to: "RHD Political and Legal Matters".

Falco.

[chris]

you're safer facing backwards with a lap belt than facing forwards with a shoulder belt.

My gut instinct is that rear facing seats are safer than front facing - more often than not, the seat would be restraining you in a collision, and not the seatbelt.

I think you two are thinking that you are most likely to be in a head-on collision. This story says the most common is a rear-ender.

http://www.driving.ca/Most+common+dange ... story.html

Why wouldn't you strap your kids in facing forward? The shoulder/lap combo protects them if you hit something and the seat back protects them if you are rear ended?

[Green1]

the most common is when someone rear ends you, however the most force is when you hit something.
the seatbelt is plenty for most rear end collisions, where momentum is on your side, and most of the time speeds are very slow anyway, however seatbelts aren't as good when you hit something else and momentum is against you, and the speeds are higher. (why do you think many/most baby seats face backwards?)

rear facing is safer... but harder to drive from...

[loki]

the most common is when someone rear ends you, however the most force is when you hit something.
the seatbelt is plenty for most rear end collisions, where momentum is on your side, and most of the time speeds are very slow anyway, however seatbelts aren't as good when you hit something else and momentum is against you, and the speeds are higher. (why do you think many/most baby seats face backwards?)

rear facing is safer... but harder to drive from...

X2

the baby seat thing isn't most, it is all until they get to a certain size.

[jessef]

You guys realize that by telling them you have a RHD and are asking about alternate facing seating, you will get a cloudy response catering to their = not safe because it's not sold in Canada.

If you would ask the same question about any vehicle with alternate facing seating sold in Canada, you will get a clear answer that because it is sold in Canada, has been cert'd that it is in fact safe.

Chrysler's 2009 Town & Country and minivan models for example are all legal :

[FalcoColumbarius]

you're safer facing backwards with a lap belt than facing forwards with a shoulder belt.

My gut instinct is that rear facing seats are safer than front facing - more often than not, the seat would be restraining you in a collision, and not the seatbelt.

I think you two are thinking that you are most likely to be in a head-on collision. This story says the most common is a rear-ender.

http://www.driving.ca/Most+common+dange ... story.html

Why wouldn't you strap your kids in facing forward? The shoulder/lap combo protects them if you hit something and the seat back protects them if you are rear ended?

Umm... If there are 100 cars rear-ended on any given Sunday ~ does that not mean that there are also 100 cars "hitting something"? I would think that if a car got rear-ended there would have to be another car doing the rear-ending .

Falco.

[RichD]

I am neither an insurance adjuster nor a lawyer, but here's my take on this.

The only concern you should have is if your setup results in injury. So, make it safe.

Traffic cops are not going to challenge you on a seating pattern unless there is some obvious compromise to safety. They don't hand out tickets for "non-compliance", that's not even their job really. Here in BC, the insurance company is the one that approves the vehicle for the road.


The captain's chairs are stock and configure backwards, the vehicle passed BC inspection, so therefore you are implicitly allowed to use it as designed. Asking questions and getting written denials from bureaucrats is just putting your insurance claims at risk if an event occurs and you end up in court, because you were formally advised otherwise. The standard response to ANY question about imported Delicas is going to be "no" because, for lack of data, there is risk in saying yes but there is no risk in saying no.

I think that the prevailing attitude is that 2nd-row rear-facing seats are safer in collisions, resulting in fewer injuries. We can infer a lot from the extensive studies of forward versus rear facing child seats:

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In a forward-facing configuration, the passenger is thrust against belts, neck and limbs flailing. Most importantly, the head is uncontrolled. There will almost certainly some non life threatening injury from this kind of event.

In the rear-facing, the passenger's legs are compressed a bit, almost all the kinetic energy is conducted directly into the back of the car seat. Likely no injury will result from this crash.

Bumper seats (third-row/small rear-facing setups in the trunk) are deprecated because they are primarily used by children, don't comply with the requirements to be compatible with the now-obligatory booster seats, and are in a very vulnerable location for common rear-impact situations. Putting kids in the crumple zone is asking for disaster, IMO.


Its my opinion that rear-facing is safer for all ages, and kids riding in my Delica are going to be safely enjoying the view of where we just came from.