Middle Seat Inertia-reel Hazard

[Guest scottrb]

I would like to warn other owners of this potential hazard, so they won't suffer the same as my wife:

We don't often use the middle rear seat, which has the inertia-reel fitted to the roof, but yesterday, my wife was using it, with our grand-children in the kiddy seats, either side. She asked me how to use this seat-belt, which is different from all of the others, in that there are two buckles to plug in, one each side of the middle seat. I explained that you pulled the pair together from the reel and plugged in each side, one at at time. My wife first plugged the one on her right side and then went to plug in the other on her left side. It seems that the first one can't have been fully latched, because, to my horror, it pulled out again with such force that it snatched the other buckle from her hand and the pair hit her right in the mouth as they flew back over her right shoulder. Naturally, she didn't know what had hit her (literally!) and was immersely upset. Her lip was cut inside, bleeding badly and she feared that her front tooth had been knocked out. In fact, the lower third was broken off, more at the back than the front and the tooth was loosend in the gum. With that and the pain and the blood, it was very upsetting, to say the least! (Turns out it's about a

[seatkid]

!!

I have had loads of problems with passengers letting go of their belts and the buckle flying off and cracking the window of the door with such a force I thought it would crack. Your experience warrants a complaint to VAG as a safety issue.

[italiastar]

Thanks for pointing this out - I agree with SEATKID.

[mobile armchair]

Much sympathy to your wife. Sounds very sore, and a bad shock.

Thanks for the posting. I'll warn my family ... and anyone who gets in.

Can't see how to solve this really, as any action to slow it would affect the belt efficiency? And the lapbelt only on our old Gal was a lot more potentially dangerous on the move ...

[katman]

[quote name='mobile armchair' date='Oct 20 2005, 17:50:31']
Can't see how to solve this really, as any action to slow it would affect the belt efficiency? And the lapbelt only on our old Gal was a lot more potentially dangerous on the move ...[/quote]
Just an idea .....

Maybe an electrically operated damping device which is in the released positon when the igniton is on so that the seatbelt reacts exactly as it does now, but when the ignition is off* the mechanism is damped so that the seatbelt would retract more slowly avoiding the snatching.

*Could also damp the seatbelts when the vehicle was in neutral with handbrake on so that passengers getting in and out of the vehicle would have damped seatbelts but as soon as the vehicle was moving or preparing to move, the seatbelts would be back to normal tension.

I can imagine how painful this must have been. My windows have been smacked several times by the buckles and I am surprised they havent smashed!

Keith

[Guest keef]

thanks for the warning my 8 year old dauhter often uses the middle seat

[Guest j_mchattie]

My sympathies to your wife

[tim-spam]

We also have the central lap/shoulder belt and 3 young children, and have had absolutely no problems whatsoever. Accidents happen and always will - it is a real problem in today's society that we're always after someone to blame (and sue if we can). If a damping mechanism was incorporated on this middle belt (totally unnecessary of course), someone else would be sueing the company because of the belt retracting too slowly - the scenario is this: the middle passenger leans forward and then back again just as the car has an accident, and is injured by the slowly retracting (and hence still slack) belt. An easier solution is to return to the lap only belt, but I know which I prefer. The manufacturer is really in a no-win situation!
One of my relatives had their kneecap damaged (requiring minor surgery) by a car door being caught by the wind - perhaps the manufacturers should apply damping to doors as well. Oh yes, and how many people have caught their fingers in the door? etc., etc., etc....

[IDH]

Sounds awful. we had a similar incident when we first go our '04 facelift Galaxy, ironically the new three point belt on the middle seat was a selling point to me for safety as on our previous '51 plate there was only a lap belt.

We had a a relative sitting in the right rear seat leaning forward to get out and as our passenger who was in the middle of the middle row was releasing the belt it flew back and hit her in the mouth causing a lot of pain and fortunately no serious injury.

Certainly requires a warning notice somewhere at least!!

[IDH]

As a safety precaution may be worth putting a non permanent clip of some description(perhaps a bulldog clip) on the strap at the ceiling level when the belt is extended. This would stop the belt retracting when not in clunk-clicked in - remove the clip when you want it to retract into the hold. Could prove helpful when the little ones are in the back.

[Masked Marauder]

[quote name='IDH' date='Nov 7 2005, 11:35:44'] As a safety precaution may be worth putting a non permanent clip of some description(perhaps a bulldog clip) on the strap at the ceiling level when the belt is extended. This would stop the belt retracting when not in clunk-clicked in - remove the clip when you want it to retract into the hold. Could prove helpful when the little ones are in the back. [/quote]
Freezer bag clips are very good for this.

[tim-spam]

What all this really boils down to is exercising reasonable care - my very lively 10, 8 and 4 year old boys have never had any problems with the central belt hitting anything or anyone. Reasonable care also extends to all of the other seatbelts, doors, tipping the seats forward and back, opening and closing the tailgate, climbing into and out of the car, etc., etc, etc..... and the biggest hazard of the lot........ driving the thing. Accidents happen - it's a fact of life - and the best way of minimising the likelihood of an accident is exercising reasonable care, and not in finding someone to blame.
I bet more people have trapped their fingers in the door than have been swiped by a seatbelt buckle. In fact, it is quite possible that more people have been seriously injured or killed today on our roads than have been swiped by a seatbelt buckle.

[IDH]

Thanks for the Life-style lesson Tim-spam will remember to live life with reasonable care!!! Reasonable care is also to warn others of a potential hazard.

[GSMGuy]

Now now... Anyway I can confirm that I also thought the recoil was way to harsh on all 3 of the middle row of belts.. I found this after getting tired of telling the kids to stop whacking the windows..... Until I tried it myself...

Mike

[tim-spam]

[quote name='IDH' date='Nov 7 2005, 13:58:22'] Reasonable care is also to warn others of a potential hazard. [/quote]
I agree, and I am not presuming to tell others what lifestyle to adopt. All I was pointing out is that accidents happen, and that sometimes no-one is to blame. We are sometimes very quick to point out when we think that the manufacturer should be exercising reasonable care, but sometimes very slow to accept our own duty of reasonable care.
The retraction force and speed of seatbelts will have been the subject of numerous FMEA's and safety considerations in the design and development of seatbelts fitted to any make and model of car, but to make it impossible for someone to get hurt is itself impossible.

[tim-spam]

One more thing....
I have timed the retraction of all the second row seatbelts in my car. The two outer belts take around 1.1/2 seconds to retract, and the effect is quite gentle. The centre belt takes around 2 seconds when guided and aound 3 seconds when left to swing - the slight swinging to and fro tends to slow the retraction down. Again, the effect is quite gentle. In other words, on my car there is no significant chance of the retraction mechanism 'snatching' the buckle from anyone's grasp.
However, one thing has occurred to me: perhaps different manufacturers have different ideas as to what constitutes the best retraction force and speed. It could be that the VAG group cars have lower retraction forces and speeds than Ford cars, and it may be possible that the Galaxy is different in this respect to the Sharan and Alhambra. This would be surprising, but it is just possible.

[Guest scottrb]

'Thank you' to everyone who has expressed their sympathy for my wife's suffering.

I would like to re-iterate that my intention in posting was to warn other users of a potential hazard. I take the point that there are many other ways in which one might be injured in the everyday use of a vehicle, but maybe there is room for a simple improvement in this respect. It seems to me that inertia-reel seat-belts have been around in the UK for perhaps 35? years and people have a certain expectation of how they will behave when released (unintentionally or otherwise). Given that this roof-mounted deployment doesn't appear to conform to that expectation, then it does no harm to give other users a specific warning.

BTW: My son tells me that his Peugeot 306 SW, which has a similar kind of middle seat arrangement, has a loop on the top of the seat through which the middle seat belt runs. This does have the effect of limiting its speed of retraction, though whether this was the objective of the design, I cannot say.

Once again, take care.

[Guest paule230]

My Mercedes had a thing called "Comfort" seat belts fitted. Once the car was started the belt retraction spring had some of its strength taken away. This resulted in a seat belt that didnt cut into you, hence the comfort .

Sounds like a silly thing but it made a big difference when on long journeys.