Seatbelts?

[Billysurf]

 Looking for seatbelt ideas.  There are six of us. Our bus has typical household furniture.  We hit the road in June,  and the only seatbelt on the bus is in the driver seat. 

[Astro]

Buy and bolt in three sets of bus seats with seatbelts. They are often cheap and available on CL.  Either that or put people at some elevated level of risk. A seatbelt wrapped over a wooden kitchen chair will be insufficient if called to duty. IMO

[Oonrahnjay]

Buy and bolt in three sets of bus seats with seatbelts. They are often cheap and available on CL.  Either that or put people at some elevated level of risk. A seatbelt wrapped over a wooden kitchen chair will be insufficient if called to duty. IMO 

      A lot of it is down to the anchorage.  You can have an ordinary sofa (so long as the sofa is firmly fixed to the floor to carry its own weight) and -- if the anchorages are solid -- the seat belts will work fine.  IMO - if it's a situation that puts you in a position that your passengers in a bus* need shoulder straps, it doesn't matter; you're all already going to be dead.  Especially, if a passenger's seat if not near the windshield, instrument panel, etc., lap belts -- worn correctly -- are good enough. 

(* A bus has significantly different characteristics to a smaller vehicle.  Generally, if you hit something hard going very fast, that "something" is usually a car or small truck and the greater mass of the bus will give you a lot of protection.  If you hit something hard when you're going fast and what you hit is BIG and HARD, nothing in the front 4-6 feet of the bus will survive.  But belts are great to provide quite good protections in side-swipes, in-traffic bumps, and slow intersection accidents; plus every driver should be belted to keep the driver in the seat during "difficult conditions" (don't forget, many accidents are multiple, you hit something that deflects you into hitting something else -- if the driver is thrown from the seat by the first hit, from then on, you're all just passengers with no way to influence things.)

[Geoff]

The only seat belts required in an RV/Bus Conversion is the driver and front passenger.  I have a recliner a few feet back and I have a seat belt for it, and I bought three seat belts for the couch, but have never installed them because I need to weld a steel bar behind the couch to attach the belts to.  It's on the list of things to do....

--Geoff

[sixtyseven]

If you're looking for new, I got mine here     

http://www.andoauto.com/index.htm

[daddysgirl]

A lesson I learned through the near death of two family friends...

Make sure the furniture is secured to the frame, and the belts as well. My bus has several locations I'm looking at when I put the interior back together.
If you have not already done so...do NOT remove the stainless panel in the front on the curbside. I know many folks take it out with the seats, but it's there for a reason...it acts as a grab bar entering the bus, but it's also a safety curtain for your co-captain.

And although this goes a bit beyond seatbelts, make sure EVERYTHING inside the bus is secured so that should you need to stop quickly, nothing can become a hazard...flying up to the front at speeds that might surprise you...and hitting anyone in the way.

[windtrader]

Just curious, what percentage of bus conversions even have seatbelts behind the driver/co-pilot seating? For so long even school buses had no passenger seat belts, it sure makes sense but it seems many subject passengers to being flying projectiles in case of hard stop or crash.

[Oonrahnjay]

Just curious, what percentage of bus conversions even have seatbelts behind the driver/co-pilot seating? For so long even school buses had no passenger seat belts, it sure makes sense but it seems many subject passengers to being flying projectiles in case of hard stop or crash.

     Long story but school buses are different.  Other things are going on.

[Scott & Heather]

Meh. In a crash we all expect to rattle around inside our bus like dried apples in a barrel.



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[Chris & Beverly]

Put in seat belts for every seat. My university employer required a safe driving course for everyone driving one of their vehicles. They showed a couple of videos from dash cams pointed at the drivers (commercial rigs to make sure drivers were being safe) during accidents. The drivers were tossed around like pop corn in an air popper with zero control. After a couple of flips the driver went right out the window. In another, a Kleenex box was sitting on the deck by the back window.  In the accident the box kept going forward and hit the driver in the back of the head and killed him. Fasten everything down. We all think an accident won't happen to us. In college I was in a bus on the Mass Pike that slid of the road and tipped over.

[kyle4501]

Are you asking about seatbelts for the household furniture? If so, I don't think there will be much benefit as the seats weren't designed to provide the necessary passenger support for the seatbelt to function properly ( seatbelt could cause more harm). The forces created in a collision may surprise you.

My thoughts/ opinion - - -

If passenger safety is the concern - buy real vehicle seats that are designed to work with seatbelts. And install them properly!

A seatbelt is part of a complex system - A system that must be properly designed and properly installed.

Good luck & safe travels   

[windtrader]

I'm with Kyle. If you do want passengers secured during a collision you'll need to get NTSB approved seats that are properly bolted into the frame along with approved restraints. Then go through the entire coach to have it engineered and constructed to ensure stuff won't go break loose and fly around hitting a secured passenger. I'm new to all this but I doubt there are but a handful of converted coaches that would pass a full NTSB crash test.

[luvrbus]

Sticks and staples as they are called here have had seat belts on every sitting place since the 80's.The seat belts in our Trek sure don't look like a complex engineering marvel,the 3 point belt for the driver and passenger look ok.
It is dumb for people not to wear a seat belt but here in AZ the driver or anyone in front area are not required to wear seat belts and I think CA is the same.The last I read only 1/2 the states require a driver or co-polit to wear a seat belt when driving a RV   

[lostagain]

Here is, in my experience driving charter buses and  motorhomes for  40 years.

Going down the road with a charter group, the escort is standing up talking to her folks. The folks are up getting something out of the overhead parcel racks, or walking down the isle to the bathroom, or standing up visiting with one another.

In a motorhome while I am driving, the wife and kids are lying on the couch or the bed having a snooze, up using the bathroom, in the kitchen making a sandwich or fixing a drink. My kids when little would have a shower while going down the interstate a 70 mph.

So yea, ideally everyone should be seated and belted while under way, but in real life, they are not.

It is very important that the driver drive in a smooth, defensive manner, to keep his passengers safe.

So don't sweat the small stuff. Go down the road and enjoy yourself. Just the driver has to be super diligent.

JC

[luvrbus]

Here is, in my experience driving charter buses and  motorhomes for  40 years.

Going down the road with a charter group, the escort is standing up talking to her folks. The folks are up getting something out of the overhead parcel racks, or walking down the isle to the bathroom, or standing up visiting with one another.

In a motorhome while I am driving, the wife and kids are lying on the couch or the bed having a snooze, up using the bathroom, in the kitchen making a sandwich or fixing a drink. My kids when little would have a shower while going down the interstate a 70 mph.

So yea, ideally everyone should be seated and belted while under way, but in real life, they are not.

I agree Sonja has made me a many snacks going down the road lol how do strap a woman into a seat belt laying on the sofa reading a book just asking 

Yep I agree Sonja has made me a many of snacks going down the road lol how would strap a seat belt on a woman laying on the coach reading a book just asking

It is very important that the driver drive in a smooth, defensive manner, to keep his passengers safe.

So don't sweat the small stuff. Go down the road and enjoy yourself. Just the driver has to be super diligent.

JC