Safe Seating Position?

[The Critic]

There is an infant seat installed in the right-rear, outboard seating position. As a result, the front-passenger seat is moved up.

In our household, we constantly debate whether the front seat is still safe-to-use. My opinion is that there is insufficient distance between the front-passenger seat and the air bag.

Thoughts?

 

[SC Maintenance]

Drive on over to your nearest fire department and ask.

 

[IndyIan]

Looks fine to me. I guess the main thing is the bag is pretty solid for the first few milliseconds of inflation. The dummies seemed to have the seats farther up than you do, and the bags were fully inflated and losing pressure when they hit.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Install the infant seat in the center rear?

 

[Rand]

I'd say its safe its barely in front of the drivers seat.

 

[The Critic]

Install the infant seat in the center rear?

Center console is in the way and both outboard rear seats become semi-unusable.

I'd say its safe its barely in front of the drivers seat.

If I sit in that position, my knees rest on the glovebox door. Is that safe?

 

[Owen Lucas]

I would say that if the can go that far, then the SRS system was designed for it. How far you are from the center pillar for crash protection is another issue.

 

[Number_35]

There is an infant seat installed in the right-rear, outboard seating position. As a result, the front-passenger seat is moved up.

In our household, we constantly debate whether the front seat is still safe-to-use. My opinion is that there is insufficient distance between the front-passenger seat and the air bag.

Thoughts?

The car looks new enough to have the 2nd-gen depowered air bags, which makes this less of an issue. Some systems even detect the weight of the passenger and vary the strength of the inflation charge accordingly.

What does your owner's manual say w.r.t. minimum distance from the front dash?

 

[vavavroom]

Center console is in the way and both outboard rear seats become semi-unusable.


If I sit in that position, my knees rest on the glovebox door. Is that safe?

You could possibly break the glove box door with your knees in a collision.

 

[PimTac]

Wasn’t there a rule of thumb that when you are driving to have a sheet of paper lengthwise between you and the steering wheel? Seems that the same rule could be applied to the passenger seat which would be easy since the airbags are located further away.

 

[Hall]

My opinion is that there is insufficient distance between the front-passenger seat and the air bag.

My first reaction is the automaker will limit how far forward the seat can move in order to keep it safe for the airbag, but....

If I sit in that position, my knees rest on the glovebox door. Is that safe?

The airbags will still deploy* but your knees would probably get hurt from the airbag. Made me think of "sensors" that are airbag-related in cars we've owned where if you don't sit right in the seat, they get disabled. It would happen frequently when my wife or kids would fall asleep and would end up leaning into the B-pillar. I presume it disables the airbag because they're too close.

 

[PF52]

I'd say its safe its barely in front of the drivers seat.

This, exactly. It's what, about a couple inches closer?

 

[The Critic]

What does your owner's manual say w.r.t. minimum distance from the front dash?

This is all I found:

This, exactly. It's what, about a couple inches closer?

In the context of leg room, that is a significant difference.

 

[eljefino]

When airbags first came out they were supposed to work in a 30 mph frontal crash without any seatbelts. So there's some understructure/ padding in the dash to protect your knees. On the flipside the biggest part of crash testing is "Head Injury Criteria" so the odds are you'll survive even if you get put on crutches.

 

[IndyIan]

Center console is in the way and both outboard rear seats become semi-unusable.


If I sit in that position, my knees rest on the glovebox door. Is that safe?

Probably not all that bad really, the glove box is kind of a nice plastic deformable crash cushion. If your car had no air bags or seat belts, the best place to be in frontal collision is have yourself tight against the dash, so you would deaccelerate with the car, instead of you hitting the inside of the car after it stopped.

 

[fsdork]

Some airbag systems that factor for seat position only look at whether the seat is at the foremost position on its tracks (Yes/No). In other words, the system doesn't care if the seat is almost all the way forward. On that basis, one might infer that anything less than fully forward isn't viewed as a high-risk position. Of course there are other variables such as the occupant's size - if they're a few feet deep (chest to back), they're closer to the airbag to start with and probably should have their seat as far back as possible.

 

[Hall]

This is simply a scenario that the automaker can't account for. Moving the seat all the way forward is fine normally. Here, a car seat in the back plus a non-short person sitting in the passenger seat is something that's not normal.

 

[RooflessVW]

It's fine

 

[Malo83]

Too far forward.

 

[andrew_j]

It’s temporary as kid will outgrow seat quick enough. Good luck.