Safest place for kids in an 88

[jchamberlain]

This might be a silly question, but I was wondering where people have kids ride in 88's. The back seats don't seem very safe for them with them sitting sideways and no belts (although I guess you could add belts). The front seats middle and passenger seem to be the only safe seats for kids. I guess anoth option would be to install a forward facing rear seat like some of the 90's had with belts. I am thinking of getting and 88 or potentially and older 90, but I have younger kids that I know will want to go for rides. Just wondering how others have done this or conversely if they have not.

Thanks,

James

[RoverDover]

No matter where you sit in an 88(or a 109 or a 90 or a 110) dont expect the safety of a modern SUV or passenger car. A Land Rover is a giant beercan on wheels. I love my 90, I just dont expect it to save me in an accident the way a Volvo would.

[kevin-ct]

My six year old sits in the front pass seat with a booster.
the wife will seat in the back in the jump seats.

My daughter loves taking the Series, see feels grown up to seat in the front

[scott]

the buckle fell off my seat belt about a year ago. i could slip it back on but why bother. a lab belt in a 45 y/o truck just means they'll find you smashed up body in the thing instead of next to it. there is a guy on this board, i forget who he is, that survived a serious accident awhile ago. from what i gathered he and his wife are messed up. maybe they still are. i feel for them. for anyone injured in an accident but i don't kid myself. if i'm hit by one of the countless idiots out there a lap belt ain't going help. so i drive slow and eyeball everything when i drive. super defensive driving is what i'm counting on. when i off road i drive slow. don't worry to much about rocks or trees doing anything unpredictable. gee i think i just bummed myself out

[greenmeanie]

I installed a Bestop fold and tumble seat orignally designed for a Jeep Wrangler. Its designed to mount to a flat surface which makes fitting easy, fits exactly between the rear wheel arches for a good fit and is a fold and tumble so I can get it out the way if I need to.

I modified the seat itself by adding a bar along the base at the bottom and making up latch points out of steel rod. This means teh kids seats are very securely mounted and avoided the issue of trying to fit seatbelts. Its really a kids only seat.

They are about as safe in the rear tub as you can be in a series 88 and very well secured.

Oh, and I've rolled one at 40mph and walked away with nothing more than a bunch of embedded galss from sticking my elbow through the driver's foor window. The truck held up suprisingly well all things considered. That was with modern 3 point inertia belts mind you.

[Mountain132]

i put in a forward facing rear seat that i ordered from a jeep catalog, 3 point inertia seat belts in the front and inertia seat belts in the back. My son at the time was in a car seat that I could belt to the seat and lash using extra tie downs anchored to the tub floor. However, it's currently in a million pieces in the garage undergoing a rebuild. When I did take my son we never used roads requiring going over 30/35.

It all depends on your route and intended driving pattern/style. I thing you should be able to take the kids

[JackIIA]

i remember the write up by the guy who was in that terrible accident. he mentioned his wife broke her neck i think. terrible. though she recovered i believe. it was a lightweight and the dingdong who caused it pulled out just pulled right out across his lane, no way to stop. he said later he 'never saw the lightweight coming'.

how do you miss a lightweight? or any series. i thought everyone was hard wired like me to see them and all defenders on swivel!

(i think i'd consider a rollbar if little ones were going to see much use of my truck)

[yank]

Greenmeanie,

What did you do for seat belts?

[Firemanshort]

I did the same a greenmeanie - I used a junkyard seat and the standard Jeep lap belts.

I am suer it is not NHTSA approved - soft top and no roll bar. But, it is a step in rhe right direction.

My little girl (6y/o) rides up front on a booster with a 3 point belt on her. She will ride in the back on farm roads every once in a while.

[Tim Smith]

Don't forget to think about all the sharp edges and hidden dangers inside the truck. Strapping down with a good seat belt is a good thing but even if you are strapped in tight, you will be tossed around into all those hard corners and such.

I used to be an EMT/Firefighter and I will tell you one thing, I will never drive around in a modern car with my window half way down. I won't explain this any further than to say, imagine what can happen in a situation where you are side swiped and your head is bobbling around while your body is strapped in.

Personally I'm not too worried about getting hurt in my truck. It's probably ego, but I like to think I can read traffic pretty well and avoid situations before they happen. However, when I have passengers it's a totally different story. Now I'm in charge of their safety and even if I'm in a Volvo, I still take extra precaution.

[greenmeanie]

Greenmeanie,

What did you do for seat belts?

I welded a piece of square tube stock into the base of the seat back frame. I then drilled through this and used steel rod bent to shape to form a set of LATCH points. The kids seats have straps that hook into them.

If you carefully at the picture above you'll see the strap from my son's seat running down the back to hook into one and the ends of the straps from my daughter's infant seat hooked inot it on the other side. I did this as I feel it secures the seats more securely than any seat belt mounting I could come up with.

[Lalo88DK]

Land Rovers are not as unsafe as you might think.

Try and read this link:

http://www.dlrk.dk/forum/images/Defender%20protects%20the%20best.jpg

[fishguy]

Rear seating

This thread has me thinking about my rear seat plans...I have a Defender rear folding bench to be installed. We've got 2 kids 7 & 10 who will be riding in the Rover. I had originally planned to put the bench as a forward facing seat then was considering making it rear facing for ease of access. I'm now also considering heading to the junkyard to look for a folding bench with headrests...

The bench would sit very close to the front wall of the tub and allow for the use of seat belt tie in points for the front center seat which is not fitted.

Anyone have any commentary on a rear facing seat in a SWB?

[yank]

I was also thinking about a rear facing seat. I've had a couple Volvo's with the jump seats. I would think it would be easier to get in and out and give a little more usable space.

I really like the highback jeep seats.

[yorker]

Rear facing might very well be superior to forward facing in a crash for anyone IMHO. Remember when station wagons all had those rear facing seats under the loadspace in the back?

I suppose it could be a problem if you put a kid in a rear facing child's seat on a rear facing seat in the rover- then the child would be forward facing.

http://www.car-safety.org/rearface.html

http://www.carseatsite.com/rear-face_article.htm

http://fcs.tamu.edu/safety/passenger_safety/certified-tech/rear-facing2.pdf

also fwiw:

(Reuters Health) - Children under 4 years of age fare better in motor vehicle accidents when they are riding in rear-facing rather than forward-facing car seats, according to according to a report published online in the British Medical Journal. Infants are typically switched from a rear- to a forward-facing seat when they reach about 9 kilograms (20 pounds), which occurs at roughly 8 months of age for an average boy, study authors Dr. Elizabeth A. Watson and Dr. Michael J. Monteiro, from Royal Surrey County Hospital Guildford, UK, note. They add, however, that growing evidence suggests it may be best to delay the switch until 4 years of age.

For example, there are data that many fatalities in young forward-facing riders could have been averted with a rear-facing seat. An analysis of US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data of 870 children involved in crashes from 1998 to 2003 found that through 23 months of age, better protection from all crash types was provided with rear-facing seats.

In terms of specific injuries, recent crash test results suggest that rear- rather than forward-facing seats provide better protection of the lower neck and chest, the authors note. In another crash simulation study, it was concluded that manufacturers should develope rear-facing seats for children up to 4 years old.

Watson and Monteiro note that in contrast to forward-facing seats, rear-facing seats provide full alignment of the head, neck, and spine, so that crash forces are dispersed over these areas rather than centered on one site.

The message for healthcare professionals, the authors say, is that they should recommend rear-facing car seats for children under 4 years of age. To fully address the issue, however, seat manufacturers and retailers need to "increase the availability of rear-facing car seats for children over 9 kg."

SOURCE: British Medical Journal, 2009.