Forward of seat bight seat belt

I have a current model Chevy Tahoe as a rental car. Last night while unloading my gear I noticed the seat belts for the back seat. I have never see a seat belt buckle so far in front of a seat bight. That might make this car a nightmare for car seats in that seating position. Luckily I could install my seat with LATCH and avoid the whole problem.

Has anyone seen these buckles and can they be used with car seats? The buckle was for the 2nd row driver side seat.

Thanks!

My Chevy Venture has a forward-of-the-bight ALR lapbelt in the middle seat of the middle row. It is horrid. RF seats install ok, but the Radian won't install there FF, so when it comes time for DD1 to be FF I don't know what we will do.

tl01 said:

I have a current model Chevy Tahoe as a rental car. Last night while unloading my gear I noticed the seat belts for the back seat. I have never see a seat belt buckle so far in front of a seat bight. That might make this car a nightmare for car seats in that seating position. Luckily I could install my seat with LATCH and avoid the whole problem.

Has anyone seen these buckles and can they be used with car seats? The buckle was for the 2nd row driver side seat.

Thanks!

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My mom has a 2003 Tahoe. I've never had any problem installing my seats in her car with the belts... both rf and ff. In fact, I had a harder time in her car when I tried to use LATCH.

I think the seat belts are different in the most recent model revision (release last year perhaps).

yeah, the new ones are the worst I've seen (at least, in newer vehicles). Then to take away one more option, one of the two sets of lower anchors in the middle row is on the passenger outboard- as in, the seat that you have to fold to reach the third row. I was able to install a ff FPSVD in the driver's side outboard without much trouble, but I can see those buckles being a major issue with certain seats. :thumbsdown:

This is a GMC Yukon (they're clones):

Thanks for posting that pic. It really shows what I was trying to explain. If I purchased that vehicle w/o knowing how important that seat belt positioning could be... I'd be pretty angry. Why do they design the seat belts that way?

tl01 said:

Why do they design the seat belts that way?

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They fit adults better - stay low across the hips, less likely to ride up on the abdomen.

There's an interesting dilemma that vehicle manufacturers are going to have to address in the very near future... they're continuing to make vehicles safer for passengers, but they're not considering how increasing the safety to adult passengers interferes with installation of child safety seats. Many of the things that improve safety to an adult passenger, cause problems with car seats & booster seats, so this is really quite a big issue... The back seat is designed for 110lb adult, and it's great to find way to keep them safer in the vehicle... but most people buy larger vehicles because they have families and they will be using carseats and/or booster seats for many many years.

And this is why, when parents go car shopping, they should take their carseats with them and test them in the vehicle before buying - unless you're prepared to possibly replace all your seats or lose seating locations in the vehicle that you thought you had. (And read the vehicle manual before test fitting the seats, sometimes important info affects compatibility of a car seat & it's always good to know that beforehand instead of just thinking the car seat isn't going to work...)

The whole idea of LATCH was to be able to make car sats compatible with cars independent of the adult belts, Thus the adult belts could then be better designed to protect adults.

Now if the LATCH anchors actually went to high enough weights, and if they were available in all seating positions the theory might actually work.

safeinthecar said:

Now if the LATCH anchors actually went to high enough weights, and if they were available in all seating positions the theory might actually work.

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In my perfect dream world...

safeinthecar said:

The whole idea of LATCH was to be able to make car sats compatible with cars independent of the adult belts, Thus the adult belts could then be better designed to protect adults.

Now if the LATCH anchors actually went to high enough weights, and if they were available in all seating positions the theory might actually work.

Click to expand...

Yup. IMO, every rear seating position in a vehicle should have an independent set of lower anchors and a top tether.

Minivans that only have two sets of lower anchors and three top tethers are absolutely. ridiculous.