Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 06, 2025 ...

[Adding side-facing] Seatbelts [for young children]

July 01, 2025, 12:38:40 pm

Speaking of seat belts, I need to add some to the rear. I need to secure 2 child seats. Anyone have any ideas? Kits? I have a 342SE. Couches both sides. The passenger side is a pullout sleeper.

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Re: [Adding side-facing] Seatbelts [for young children]

Reply #1 – July 01, 2025, 12:53:58 pm

Seat Belt Safety in RVs

"Rear passengers should have access to seatbelts, but they may not be front-facing and they may only be lap belts. This can be a problem when it comes to children riding safely in your RV because all infant and booster seats should be placed in a forward facing seat. In order to safely and legally carry children in your RV, they need to be in a child or booster seat attached to a forward-facing vehicle seat with a three point belt system (lap and shoulder strap). Some RVs cannot accommodate this because there are no forward facing passenger positions other than the driver and front passenger. "

Seat belts on side-facing seating is at best useful for latching in pet safety harnesses. 

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Re: [Adding side-facing] Seatbelts [for young children]

Reply #2 – July 01, 2025, 03:45:58 pm

4 Point Seat Belts - Push Button Buckle (Charcoal Shown)

I've used this company for sear belts. Added a 3pt belt to the front seats in the 91. I used the 4pt setup they have at the kitchen table for my daughter in the 04. She also has that in the 91 with a 3rd seat we added behind the passenger seat.

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Re: [Adding side-facing] Seatbelts [for young children]

Reply #3 – July 01, 2025, 05:59:14 pm

So I did add belts to the couch . They are only lap bets and do not meet the required minimum strength rating because there is no engineering for them. But I own a lot of vehicles with unapproved seat belts also. We use them every trip to secure the dogs. Being mounted 90 degrees to most impacts is less than optimal IMO. I did mount the belts directly to the slide frame. Occupants might stay within the slide??? The dogs have not complained too much and Kim seems happy. If you want to install proper seats and belts it's certainly doable but they must face rearward or forward facing to work. Im guessing that they would need to be 4G rated or higher

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Re: [Adding side-facing] Seatbelts [for young children]

Reply #4 – July 07, 2025, 10:20:08 pm

Only way I could figure out a good child seatbelt system was to put the grands in the toad and have the wife drive them separately. Easy, simple, safe and not what you want.

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Re: [Adding side-facing] Seatbelts [for young children]

Reply #5 – July 08, 2025, 08:01:49 am

We took our grandkids for trips with us beginning when they were 8 or 10 years old.  I drug the lap seat belts out of the sofa and they used them for a bit.  When they took a turn in the co-pilot seat, they always used a seat belt, as did I.  But in the rear, sitting at the table with me, or laying on the sofa reading when there wasn't much scenery, the seat belts went by the wayside.  I taught them the "3 points of contact" rule. We alerted them to traffic, when starts and stops were going to make things jerky, and they always had my eye on them.  School busses do not have seat belts, for the most part.  The kids used their heads, they were supervised, and we never even had a "near miss". 

Dogs, however, are a different story. We had 2 little ones who would not remain crated. They each had a bed on the floor that they preferred to travel in. They wore harnesses (NOT collars) and I could secure them by that with a slightly elastic "seat belt" that is meant to go over the headrest in a vehicle.  It would keep them from flying around, at any rate. 

Just do what seems sensible.  It'll be fine.

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