Question When buckling an empty booster

babyherder

Well-known member
should you lock the seatbelt? My seatbelts have regular mode and child seat mode. The child seat mode locks the lap portion of the belt. I always buckle my empty booster (right now mainly a vivo) but generally not in child seat mode cause I'm afraid I'll forget to switch it back to regular mode when a child uses the booster. However, the vivo is kind of heavy and my little bro sits in the back seat but not in the booster. If I don't lock the belt will the booster still fly around in a crash?
 
ADS

glockchick

New member
Will the super light weight boosters - i.e. harmony literider, graco turbobooster - even apply enough force to lock the belt?

Or is it that if they don't, they won't be moving much anyway?

I'm already doing a degree in engineering. I wonder if they have a car seat engineering program. ;)
 

Pixels

New member
Emergency locking retractors are either vehicle sensitive or webbing sensitive. If they are vehicle sensitive, they "sense" a rapid acceleration of the vehicle and lock. That doesn't have anything to do with the weight of the occupant. If they are webbing sensitive, they "sense" how fast the webbing is playing out. In a crash, everything keeps moving at the speed the car was going until something stops it. One of Newton's laws. In this case, it's the seatbelt that is going to stop the booster. The booster pulls the belt out just as quickly as an adult body would (since both are moving at the speed of the vehicle), and the belt locks just like it would on an adult.
 

babyherder

Well-known member
Thank you! I was thinking it was worried it was weight sensitive but I'm so glad its not. I :love: the car seat mode on my seatbelts for installing harnessed seats but was finding it really annoying for the unoccupied boosters.
 

Angela

New member
I'm going to add another question to this... what about the ALR seatbelts? I always lock mine when I buckle the empty seat in. Does it matter?
 

Maedze

New member
I'm going to add another question to this... what about the ALR seatbelts? I always lock mine when I buckle the empty seat in. Does it matter?

ALR seatbelts are what's being discussed (switchables). Pixel's covered the question :)
 

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