sarcasm is not necessary really i dont think , i didnt say half of what you are implying up their . Believe what you like but dont tell me what to believe please.
Qn- do you travel on public transport? Bus? does it have seatbelts (or a nice metal handrail to bang your head on)! Can you stand up on it in motion. Can you walk around on it whilst moving? Can you climb the stairs when its moving? Does it travel at speeds of up to 55/60 mph. Is it less or more likely to crash than you are? What is reasonable. Im sure that Joker has made some good points I havent seen!
Totally agree undergrounds and trains also , its just car manufactures ,having to find ways of justifying producing over powered cars for the public roads .
I wasn't being sarcastic and you appear to have implied that the cause of your injuries were the fact that you were wearing a seat belt and that the airbags went off? You also said you remembered the good old days when motoring was safer as a result of people being more courteous? I did use some common sense when talking about basic facts though - India = 18.9 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants versus 2.75 for the UK, which incidentally when compared to by 100,000 vehicles and KM travelled is actually the safest nation in terms of fatalities on the planet. This is by design and a direct result of the improvements made to vehicle safety and road. Still, there were 1,754 road deaths in the UK last year so its not all good Please don't be offended by my use of artistic license, the "in all seriousness though" and the smiley bit is the giveaway... If you weren't on my ignored list i'd be able to read your posts... No, I don't travel on buses. I've been on a coach though and it has seatbelts fitted as standard from the factory so I wore it, but I wouldn't wear a belt on an older coach where belts had been retrofitted. Vehicle accident severity is measured typically by the volume of passengers on a vehicle/KM traveled and other related statistics. So you are actually safer travelling by bus, train, aircraft, ship than on foot or by car, because statistically these are safer modes of transport by virtue of the regulatory restrictions imposed. They don't let any muppet get behind the wheel of an aircraft for example. Buses typically travel around a town at lower speeds and stop more frequently. Coaches typically are driven by trained professionals. All of these vehicles are statistically less likely to be involved in a collision with another vehicle too - trains rarely crash into each other for example. They've had to make cars safer because they can't make the people driving them all behave in a safer manner. There endeth my sermon
I think you may be mis-remembering that, BR . Folk were generally clueless about any advantage seatbelts might have. Fatalities were quite horrific...you'd be chucked through the windscreen or skewered on the steering column. Decapitations were quite common, as well.
Didnt like that because I couldnt read it but yes - probablt would agree if I knew what youd written.
Have you all finished now , i just gave my own experience that was all , none of you know what will actually happen till it does to you
Yep -sorry any significant accidents ive had were in pre-airbag cars or involved me bouncing down the road following or being followed by various sized two wheelers. Ive been very lucky it has to be said!
Most of the recent research into child safety point towards rear-facing seats...not fold up buddy seats with a couple of M6 bolts and nylocks holding them in situ, but bespoke, ergonomically designed seats with proper anchorage points capable of withstanding shear strengths and loads under various conditions. To reiterrate...if fitting a buddy seat and appropriate safety-belt, make sure the anchors are up to scratch, the surrounding metal is not corroded and fit separate head restraints for both occupants... As @Barneyrubble and @Dicky have both pointed out....you don't know what's likely to happen in an accident....the best you can do is try to ensure your passengers/furniture etc. aren't likely to fly around...it's a grey area...even from a legal stand point
Sold my last van to a mate who manged to write off a Volvo by rear ending it! The rear overhead locker came loose and smashed against the bulkhead! Food for thought!
One reason I'm not too keen on the weedy brackets people use to slot their table tops under the overhead when traveling.... Guess if you sharpen the leading edge it will all be over much quicker
Im sorry it might sound like im dishing belts , but i didnt actually say that joker made assumptions and im sick of people making assumptions especially after what ive ended up with through no fault of mine i might add , i was hit in the side and if you read the biometric evidence re seat belts and airbags they dont "always" help in my case they didnt. I received thoratic injuries and more , i was twisting away as if to protect myself from the vehicle that smashed through the side of my car and the belt doesnt really protect you , these injuries wernt diagnosed properly because of so called experts who didnt understand "oh its just whiplash go away " hmmm what did they know that word is an evil one when you have actually been injured believe me. Of course seat belts save lives im not quite that stupid , some seem to think otherwise, and of course you can get killed if you dont wear one but in my case it didnt help , and as with all stuff in life no two happenings always produce the same result. Unfortunately this threads scenario does not have definates re a buddy seat but as most of you know we are driving a 40 year old vehicle ,and ,the law so be it ,does actually state we dont have to have rear seat belts right or wrong. My main gripe today though is our roads "arnt" particularly up to much some crumbling and falling apart as we speek and even major roads are not capable of taking the heavy amounts of traffic they have to take at some times if not all of the day , accidents happen but normally due to lack of experience , concentration or dam right disregard for others. None of this or the above is to do with the question in the thread and vanorak was very correct in not giving a suggestion on such a subject , i wish i hadnt , their are only normally two of us so it doesnt really affect us , but if i was to look at what can happen to the people in the front of a 40 year old vw camper in a front end accident, then we would probably never drive them . Lifes a gamble , statistics arnt always their to protect us either . Drive safe everyone if you drive fast and with no respect for others you have to live with the memory, they have to live with the scares , the victims. Once again sorry i dont know what may have happened to you either, but some do have a raw nerve sometimes . Icecream vans may not be the same if some wernt knocked over near them
Sorry to hear about your circumstances @Barneyrubble ...I wasn't aware that you'd been seriously injured. Having read the post again , I think we're all quoting from the same page. From what I gather, one of the chief reasons why VW decided to cease production of the Brazilian Bay was that they'd struggle to meet the new safety standards. Anyway....the information's out there, but I hold with my original point....if some posted a reply to the effect that "I just stuck a lap belt on mine, bolted through the bulkhead"...or "I wouldn't bother...these buses aren't worth sh*t in an accident", neither is very helpful
There are many types of accidents and probably the most common and most likely is a low speed shunt. In a bay in this scenario driver and passenger would probably be ok provided seat belts are good (including anchor points) and seats are actually ffitted properly. In the rear of the van (and moving away from the table or roof cupboard scenario) its then about what seat belts you have, if any, and the integrity of whatever they are bolted to. In this scenario a further issue would be with the actual seat covering. An unsecured seat squab such as a loose cusion (vinyl cover on a piece of foiled chipboard - MDF or whatever) can result in submarining as the passenger slides under the belt because the cusion has moved. With lapbelts whats your head going to hit? 3 pointers probably best but kids will slide them down their arm off the shoulder (women do this frequently as 3 point belts arent the cofiest thing when youve got chest furniture!) Person travelling backwards on a secured buddy seat then assuming all is secure at the rear of the bus then logic would dictate that the outcome would be relative to the hight and mass of the passenger. In an approriately constructed and secured seat with a 3 point belt fitted (not difficult to achieve) a child in a child seat would, I think be pretty damned safe - probably the best place to be in my mind. If the issue with larger peeps sitting there is the clash of heads then a head rest surely would prevent this. I managed to stop when someone pulled out in front of me. The car behind me didnt. Result was my head moving from a forward position due to the hard braking to being whacked on the back of the neck/head with the headrest.Rendered me unconscious for a short while and then was groggy for a good while after! Cant imagine the damage had it been something solid hitting me!
