Shame On You Nissan!

[replicant]

Shame on you Nissan, this is a car that Mums are going to carry the kids in. How can you sell a brand new car without a backseat centre lap sash belt in 2006? Or was it cheaper to get Kim Cattral to sit on the bonnet... judging by the target market they won't know better until things go ker-crunch.... For the record, Ford and Expensive Daewoo don't sell cars with lap belts.

from www.stuff.co.nz

New cars with lap belts slammed

07 February 2006

By RICHARD BOSSELMAN

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.

AdvertisementAdvertisementAt 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.

[5INFUL]

Just more reasons to buy FORD

[ZAP]

It is Ironic that all areoplanes still have lap belts.

[thebrunks]

It is Ironic that all areoplanes still have lap belts.

I find it ironic that 1st class is up the front.

Planes don't back into mountains!!!

[harvyk]

It is Ironic that all areoplanes still have lap belts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But in the event of a crash you are usually given a little more time to prepare yourself, and besides during a crash in a plane your told to get into the brace position (which they have proved on myth busters that the brace position does actually help save you during a plane crash) Also the seats in a plane are designed to litterally fall apart (and absorb most of the shock) during a crash...

[sixfan]

It is Ironic that all areoplanes still have lap belts.

But in the event of a crash you are usually given a little more time to prepare yourself, and besides during a crash in a plane your told to get into the brace position (which they have proved on myth busters that the brace position does actually help save you during a plane crash) Also the seats in a plane are designed to litterally fall apart (and absorb most of the shock) during a crash...

the brace position works because that's how you'd wind up sitting anyway if you hit the ground...hard. Mostly the seatbelts are to stop passengers bouncing off the overhead lockers if severe turbulence is encountered.....I say let people do whatever they want, If they don't want to wear seatbelts in cars, then they don't have to. lets selectively breed for IQ.....

[harvyk]

the brace position works because that's how you'd wind up sitting anyway if you hit the ground...hard. Mostly the seatbelts are to stop passengers bouncing off the overhead lockers if severe turbulence is encountered.....I say let people do whatever they want, If they don't want to wear seatbelts in cars, then they don't have to. lets selectively breed for IQ.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm all for that, darwinian evolution at work (hey it's needs a bit of a kick along since we have been trying to protect idiots from themselves of late...)

[turbomuz]

An old schoolfriend of my wife gets around in wheelchair today courtesy of a lap belt. Whilst they are safer than getting thrown out the car through the windscreen, they are still dangerous. I would not buy a car today without it.

[Mick Molloy]

It is Ironic that all areoplanes still have lap belts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

DO you really think those belts will do anything in a crash .....

they are just to make you feel good... and for turbulance..

[hrb93]

Speaking of belts. One of the reasons I am looking at a XR6t is to carry an expanded family. THe centre belt in the ford, is too short to fit a bay capsule in the correct position.