What is the law regarding juniors in the front seat?
I am presuming the height and booster seat law applies but is there an age limit that prohibits kids under a certain age from sitting in the front?
We have been talking with neighbours about lift sharing for nursery and it is an unanswered question.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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I put my granddaughter, not quite 11 yet she shirtily informed me, in the front tonight for a mile or so at urban sub-35 speeds. Made her wear the belt properly though.
Not that it's anyone's damn business.
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Does this help?
www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/child/summaryseatbel...6
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Excellent, thank you, just what I was looking for.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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Thanks Bromptonaut. Cool. We were legal, as it happens. More importantly however: we were as safe as two individuals can be in a middle-aged cheap car driven by me in London.
I was going to say, safer than the Bank of England. But one doesn't want to ask for it, knowImean?
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The rules quoted as future are now in force and have been since Sept 2006. At that stage Bromp junior was 11yrs 11mths, 1.34m and had abandoned his booster cushion in spring 05 when he found he could see out of the Berlingo.
I never did get round to buying him a new one................
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Does this help? www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/child/summaryseatbel...6
A new variation on that old acronym, NSIT (not safe in taxis) - NAIT = not available in taxis.
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On a long trip last weekend I noticed a number of cars with several little blonde heads bobbing from side to side in the rear. Restrained ? I think not. Mother was probably on the mobile as well.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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My 4 year old today is a regular front seat passenger and can't see any problems. She is very tall for her age (alwys been mistaken for being 1-2 years older than she really is on height alone). In the car is in her booster seat, which has back rest that holds the seatbelt in place away from her neck and passenger airbag switched off.
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Do you still have to turn off the airbag? I thought that that was only applicable to rear facing seats?
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You certainly do have to turn off the airbag. The logic is actually very similar to that in the case for booster seats: that a child's muscular and skeletal structure is not as robust as that of even a small adult. This means that an airbag detonation close to a child - especially when you consider that a child's head and neck will be much lower in the car than an adult's - could cause more injury than it prevents.
RoSPA suggests it may be OK to install a child seat aft of the deployment zone of the airbag, but I've never seen a car with any markings to show where this might be. In any case, it's likely to require putting the passenger seat so far back that there isn't room for the child behind who is probably the reason for wanting to put another child in the front anyway.
www.rospa.com/roadsafety/advice/motorvehicles/airb...m
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Thanks WillDeBeest.
Does make me wonder about each manufacturers deployment zone though. Seems best to keep the nipper in the back when at all possible.
On the airbag issue...within that link it refers to lighter smaller drivers too who sit right up against the steering wheel. Surely they should have the airbags turned off too? Trouble is that you can't turn off the drivers side anyhoo.
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My boys like to sit in the front. As I prefer an unobstructed view of the nearside I simply push the passenger seat all the way back - if one is in the front there is no one in the back on that side.
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I used to love standing on the front passenger seat with my head through the sunroof at some speed.
Anyone who suggests that my parents were psychopaths is a moron.
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i remember years ago , in the 60s my old man had a vauxhall estate and we went to skegness with nine on board , how things have changed...for the better
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About three weeks ago some 17 year olds were racing along a local country road. Speed limit 60mph. Lad in front passeger seat had his head out of the sunroof. On lowering himself back into the car, he lost his balance and landed on the driver. Driver lost control and hit a tree. Passenger killed. Driver done for dangerous driving (?).
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I used to love standing on the front passenger seat with my head through the sunroof at some speed. Anyone who suggests that my parents were psychopaths is a moron.
As children in the late 50s we used to sit on the lowered LandRover tailgate dangling our legs over the road, or recline inside the spare wheel on the bonnet with legs hanging over the edge. It was also fun riding in the back and throwing lumps of sheep dung at following cars.
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I used to stand on the lower arms of the Fergie's three point linkage as my dad drove it from field to field.
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