Adding seat belts to a class A?

I would guess that any seat belt attached to a structural frame member is better than no seat belt at all.

I have actually done this in coordination with the coach manufacturer. They sent me the additional seat belts for installation. The coach came with only one belt per direction in the dinette however the dinette has room for 4 people. I did not need to remove the table. The couch has only two belts but room for 3 people. I used steel frame attachment brackets to allow the installation of the second seat belt at the dinette. The existing carriage bolts are completely through the floor and into the structure underneath the motorhome. The critical thing if you are adding new belts where there is no existing attachment point then you will want to plan for the placement of the attachment bolt. I suggest you use grade 8 bolts, washers, and nuts. If you are attaching to the floor decking you will want to drill through the floor and use a large carriage bolt and put a large fender washer on the bottom and the top as well as use a nut on the top to secure the bolt to the floor and a separate nut to secure the seat belt to the nut. Depending on your application and location you may wish to have a steel bracket fabricated (I used steel brackets I had around my shop.) to hold the end of the seatbelt. I worked carefully with the OEM representative and emailed them photos of my installation and design. Ultimately, your family is safer in a motorhome vs a car the seatbelt just keeps them in one location if an accident occurs or if sudden braking is required. If you like I can post pictures of my installation.

Just attach to any frame member. Seat belts are widely available. (I've bought a couple of different types for our older MG.)

:)
Lynn

Our last MH had seat belts in the dinette. They were attached through the seat platform and into the floor. They weren't attached to the frame. A few bolts would more than secure against the weight of a person. I think most newer Mh's have dinette seat belts and attached the same way. At least any newer ones I've walked though. Sounds like a pretty simple and safe install.

If you have not removed the dinette seat cushions AND the board under them yet, assuming that they are removable, you should do that first. Both of my older RVs had belts that were stuffed under there by the previous owners.

msturtz wrote:
Ultimately, your family is safer in a motorhome vs a car the seatbelt just keeps them in one location if an accident occurs or if sudden braking is required.

Your family is safer in whichever vehicle is driven more safely. Probably on the whole, most motorhomes are driven more carefully than most cars, allowing a greater margin for reacting to changing situations and avoiding really bad weather and operation by impaired drivers.

In the event of a crash, I'd much rather be in a modern car than in virtually any RV. There are far fewer things to become missiles in a car, and the structure is usually more crashworthy (and would stand up to a rollover far better). A car also stands a better chance of being able to avoid a crash in the first place by quicker braking or maneuvering. Cars typically also have better crash protection systems like airbags and shoulder belts and active headrests and well-engineered crush structures in front of the passenger cabin.

In some situations, such as multi-vehicle collisions, the additional mass of a motorhome is an advantage. That's about the only inherent advantage over a car that one has in the event of a serious accident.

DrewE wrote:

msturtz wrote:
Ultimately, your family is safer in a motorhome vs a car the seatbelt just keeps them in one location if an accident occurs or if sudden braking is required.

Your family is safer in whichever vehicle is driven more safely. Probably on the whole, most motorhomes are driven more carefully than most cars, allowing a greater margin for reacting to changing situations and avoiding really bad weather and operation by impaired drivers.

In the event of a crash, I'd much rather be in a modern car than in virtually any RV. There are far fewer things to become missiles in a car, and the structure is usually more crashworthy (and would stand up to a rollover far better). A car also stands a better chance of being able to avoid a crash in the first place by quicker braking or maneuvering. Cars typically also have better crash protection systems like airbags and shoulder belts and active headrests and well-engineered crush structures in front of the passenger cabin.

In some situations, such as multi-vehicle collisions, the additional mass of a motorhome is an advantage. That's about the only inherent advantage over a car that one has in the event of a serious accident.

I used to work traffic with an accident crash investigator. While the safety systems in modern cars are great cars don't have the mass that large vehicles have. The police accident investigator used the "the lug nut" rule. The larger and more lug nuts wins. This has been proven time and time again with thousands upon thousands of accidents over many years. This is pure physics. While larger vehicles are more prone to rollover than are smaller vehicles that issue is offset by the significant additional space between the roof and the occupant. Most modern Class A motorhomes have steel or aluminum structure above the passenger compartment to protect the occupants in the even of a rollover crash. It is important that occupants are restrained in the vehicle as an unrestrained passenger could strike internal structure or be ejected and injured or killed. It is also important that objects inside the coach are secured to avoid having them become missiles and striking passengers. Finally, it is really important to understand that if a large vehicle hits a small vehicle the large vehicle will slow down much more slowly than the small vehicle. If you spend much time on social media you can see some interesting dash cam videos demonstrating this. For me I would much rather have my family inside our motorhome than inside my wife's Nissan Leaf in a crash. Your point about the maneuverability of a car vs a motorhome is warranted and true however that is offset by how they are usually driven. Finally, on my background. I have directed traffic for years on a volunteer basis, I have a Commercial Driver's license with a School Bus and Passenger endorsement, and I have been working in IT for a large commercial heavy truck manufacturer. The biggest problem we have in accidents isn't the truck driver, or passengers being injured it is the people in the vehicles that either the truck or bus hits or hit our vehicles. Occupant protection in our vehicles is really built in due to their size. We are working on ADAS and automation to allow the truck to see a hazard and attempt to avoid it prior to a collision and or reduce the severity of a collision if one occurs. All most all of this work is to reduce the death and injury for the occupants of the other vehicles.

msturtz wrote:
I have actually done this in coordination with the coach manufacturer. They sent me the additional seat belts for installation. The coach came with only one belt per direction in the dinette however the dinette has room for 4 people. I did not need to remove the table. The couch has only two belts but room for 3 people. I used steel frame attachment brackets to allow the installation of the second seat belt at the dinette. The existing carriage bolts are completely through the floor and into the structure underneath the motorhome. The critical thing if you are adding new belts where there is no existing attachment point then you will want to plan for the placement of the attachment bolt. I suggest you use grade 8 bolts, washers, and nuts. If you are attaching to the floor decking you will want to drill through the floor and use a large carriage bolt and put a large fender washer on the bottom and the top as well as use a nut on the top to secure the bolt to the floor and a separate nut to secure the seat belt to the nut. Depending on your application and location you may wish to have a steel bracket fabricated (I used steel brackets I had around my shop.) to hold the end of the seat belt. I worked carefully with the OEM representative and emailed them photos of my installation and design. Ultimately, your family is safer in a motorhome vs a car the seat belt just keeps them in one location if an accident occurs or if sudden braking is required. If you like I can post pictures of my installation.

My table is attached by an aluminum extrusion it sorta hinges on by tipping it up it then rests on a single leg at the edge near the center of the coach. If the table was attached differently I could see leaving it in place but it seems to me if in an accident it could fly into one of the people sitting in the dinette. I am no expert but than seems like what would happen.

Although your ideas are great, their execution is where you run into problems. Securing the belts to the floor with large through bolts and large washers is about as good as it gets in that position. When seat belts first became available the Air Force Base I was stationed at required all cars be fitted with belts using that system. It worked but the difference in that system for your car and your idea in the RV is the structure of the seat. Car seats are MUCH stronger than the typical RV dinette. Just about all I've seen are made of 1/8" plywood with 1x1 soft pine structure held together by staples. In a crash the forward facing seat will collapse due to the downward force generated by the individual belted in. If the seat could be reinforced properly, it would go a long way to help. The rear facing part of the dinette would probably collapse and roll as the same flimsy structure broke up.

All that said, seat belts in the rear of an RV are simply there to make the buyer feel good, and as a selling point. There are no Federal Safety Standards for their use, installation or testing as there are for front seat belts and belts in other vehicles. Does this mean they are useless? I'd say no, but recognise what they are and why they are there. They probably serve to hold active children in position rather than allow them to be all over the RV. In a minor crash, they may well help to prevent injuries from being thrown about. msturtz's comments above are particularly relevant in large vehicle crashes, but seat belts in the rear of an RV in a catastrophic crash are at best problematical. Do what you need to do and what you think will be best for your family, but just understand what you are doing and don't think just installing a seat belt is giving you the protection currently available in other vehicles.

I was a licensed safety engineer and set up the child passenger safety program in Delaware before retirement.

Thanks for the info we have 5 grand kids and we would like to be able to travel with them at times.