Nissan's New Tiida Braces for Flak: Lap Belts

[FISH]

07 February 2006
By RICHARD BOSSELMAN

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3564720a11,00.html


Nissan is bracing for flak when it next month releases a brand-new car with a lap restraint seatbelt, a type blamed for causing horrific injuries in smashes.

The Tiida model range launching on March 1 replaces the Pulsar, a popular model which also had a lap belt of the kind criticised last week by Huntly coroner Bob McDermott.

Nissan New Zealand said Tiida hatchback, sedan and station wagon variants for New Zealand and Australia conformed to the same specification accepted in Japan.

While Nissan NZ would have preferred to sell cars with three-point seatbelts all round, this was not possible. He said a Primera sedan sold here also has a lapbelt in the centre of the rear seat. "It's not our preference but we get what we are given," the spokesman said. "It is not something we necessarily like."

Very few New Zealand-new cars now feature lapbelts, which Mr McDermott called to have banned and three-point seatbelts made compulsory. He said lapbelts could cut a person in half.

Recommending that the Tiida be considered a four-seater car, even though it was designed to carry five people, was a consideration, but nothing had been decided, the spokesman said.

He anticipated some customers would be displeased, but believed it would be more of a media issue.

At Tiida's media release in Australia recently, motoring journalists criticised the car for not have a full complement of three-point belts.

Recently, a seatbelt specialist said it was impossible to make older cars as safe even if lap seatbelts were replaced.

Chris Sweetman, the New Zealand spokesman for Autoiv, the world's largest manufacturer of seatbelts, said converting lapbelts was a major exercise.

"Internationally there are huge developments in occupant safety, but with older cars there are problems. "The mounting parts behind the seat are designed for child seats, not designed to take the force of an adult."

It could cost between $1500-$2000, depending on the engineering requirement of the vehicle.

In a crash on SH1 near Wellsford in January, a 77-year-old woman died when the impact of the crash snapped her body around the lapbelt she was wearing and ruptured her internal organs.

The case of Hamilton woman Ana-Marie Le Roux has also troubled Mr McDermott.

The mother of two young children is a paraplegic still suffering from major organ damage, as a result of a crash in January, 2003. She was also wearing a lapbelt.

[asim]

Lapbelts should be banned! It's all about the 3 point!

[Gm786]

Yeah. Lapbelts should be banned. My Mom and Dad's 1992 Toyota Corolla has lapbelts. Personally though, I don't like lapbelts. Who should like lapbelts anyways. They can kill you or seriously injure you in an accident anyways.

[2648562]

It could cost between $1500-$2000, depending on the engineering requirement of the vehicle.
--------------------
That's funny, another article says it would cost $15-$20 per car.

[uujjj]

My goodness. Carlos Ghosn is getting cheaper and cheaper. There ought to be limits to cost-cutting.

[JoeT]

I can not understand why in this day & age any first world nation would allow lap only seatbelts.

Also, why are live axle's allowed in non-commercial passenger vehicles? But thats a different story.

I remember Wheels magazine told Holden that its Barina would not be eligible for the Car Of The Year award in 2003 if it wasn't fitted with 3-point seatbelts, so Holden had them installed. The Holden Barina went on the win the gong!

[Dumb_Ass_2003]

Lap belts are stupid, and there's no way it would cost $1500 to $2000 to equip them with a 3 point in the center seat. But even 3 point seat belts don't do the trick in side impacts. Just lean sideways to see how they do very little to prevent your body from smashing into a window or the person next to you, although I'm sure pretensioners reduce this problem. I honestly don't think it will be very long until we see 4 point belts in mainstream vehicles.

[Martino_z]

The irony of it all is that its legal to sell a new car with a lap belt. However if you wanted to install a 4 or 5 point racing harness which is far, far safer than a standard 3 point belt it is illegal. I think that any modification which makes a vehicle safer for people inside or outside of a vehicle should be permitted, if not condoned by roads departments. This nissan tiida is just a rediculous cost cutting vehicle, i dont know about everyone else but i dont think that japanese standards of safety quite meet my own (after driving a toyota corrolla) and i feel that something should be done about this. Granted I have a lap belt in my car which was built in 77' i cant legally cahnge it but for a new car to have the same system. I think its a little cheap and nasty.

[redimpss5]

Cheap is bad.

[Parkwood60]

I suggest you don't hit anything.

Eveytime something like this comes up, in the US anyway, I wonder how long I'm legally going to be able to ride a motorcyel on the street. I mean, come on, a motocycle offers you no protection what so ever! And all these new cars have radar reverse assist, and collision avoidance systems, and 12 airbags, and seatbelt pretensioners, and all that stuff. How long before the insuarnce companies pressure the goverment to make it harder to ride a bike? The problem for the insuance companies, you see, is that in even a minor accident a motorcycle/rider can be so damaged that they have to pay the maximum amount of the policy, and they can't pass those cost on to the bike riders cause its not their fault they got hit. But it is their fault for riding in the first place.

My '60 Parkwood could be ordered with optional lapbelts, it still didn't have any in 1999 when I got it. The 1/4" of foam padding under vinyl on the steel dash was considered a saftey feature.

[Erunion]

One lap seatbelt in the rear middle. Get over it.

[Carver]

Originally Posted by Erunion

One lap seatbelt in the rear middle. Get over it.

So four passengers are worth saving but the fifth is just dead weight? (pun intended)

This is the flippin 21st century, there is no excuse for this, which is a completely unnecessary risk created by the auto builder.

The vehicle should be banned.

[rmodys]

Well we have a car that has all lapbelts and I grew up around cars with lapbelts only, so I guess I could say I don't really have a preference. Three point belts are safer though. I thought that lap belts only was done away with a while ago.

[from oz]

Originally Posted by 2648562

It could cost between $1500-$2000, depending on the engineering requirement of the vehicle.
--------------------
That's funny, another article says it would cost $15-$20 per car.

I think it means that it would cost $1500 - $2000 to retrofit a lap sash belt to an existing car whereas the $15-$20 is the extra cost to the company per car to have them as standard

[johnriley]

I think a lab belt in the middle rear is more common than you think. The implication is that it is all that is required in Japan. In discussions about the Mazda5 before it came to N. Am, there were people upset that we would not get the middle seat in the rear, as was pictured in this car in some markets. The reason we didn't was because the car was not set up for a lap belt in the middle rear.

Not a defense, but I am wondering if some of these injuries don't come from the lap belt being too high. As they say on the airlines, belt should be "low and tight..." It should be below your hip bones.