Seatbelt Adjusters or Booster Seats? Which are safer? – We may not be as entertaining as TLC’s drama-filled show What Not To Wear is, but here at CarseatBlog.com we do our best to write product reviews that help you decide what to wear, We try out carseats, boosters, and other children’s safety products, share expert advice and gather information regarding price, comfort, installation, added safety features etc. 6-½ year old Sam wearing the Seatbelt Adjuster sold by Amazon, Serious injuries can occur as a result of using any product like this one! Judging by the popularity of this unusual seatbelt adjuster, some may argue that this product is inexpensive and makes seatbelts more comfortable. Screenshot of the Amazon listing. A 4-pack of Hontech Seatbelt Adjusters costs $15.98 plus free shipping! Similar seatbelt adjusters can be found all over the internet too: What Is This Product? As you can see in the picture above, the Seatbelt Adjuster is a piece of mesh-covered-foam folded into a triangular tube and features a single plastic snap.
Can you adjust the tension on a seatbelt?
Give yourself some slack – with the Seat Belt Adjuster! This easy-to-use seat belt adjuster allows you to control the tension of your seat belt and can be adjusted to fit any individual. This useful device moves the seat belt off of your neck to end irritation, chafing and discomfort.
How do I stop my seatbelt from rubbing my neck?
Make sure the shoulder belt is in a comfortable position, about 5′ from the latch. This will keep it from rubbing your neck/chest area as the car moves. Release and drive as usual. Your lap belt is tight on your lap and shoulder belt positioned comfortably.
How high should my seat belt be?
An adult seat belt fits correctly when: –
The shoulder belt lies across the middle of the chest and shoulder, not the neck or throat. The lap belt is low and snug across the upper thighs, not the belly. Your child is tall enough to sit against the vehicle seat back with her knees bent over the edge of the seat without slouching and can comfortably stay in this position throughout the trip.
Where should a seat belt hit a child?
Narrator: As your children grow from toddlers to school aged, the way you keep them safe in your car changes as well. Research shows securing your four to eight year old kids in belt positioning booster seats with both lap and shoulder seat belts, instead of seat belts alone, reduces the risk of serious injury by half.
- On young children the shoulder portion of a vehicle seat belt often crosses the neck rather than the shoulder, which is both uncomfortable and dangerous.
- To get comfortable, kids may put the shoulder belt behind their back or under their arm, which isn’t keeping them safe.
- If the shoulder belt is not positioned properly and a crash occurs, your child’s upper body and head can fly forward and hit the interior of the car causing neck, spine or brain injury.
After your child completely outgrows the internal harness of their forward facing child safety seat, you can switch to a belt positioning booster seat. Consult your safety seat’s owner’s manual to find out when your child will reach the maximum weight or height of the car seat.
- A belt positioning booster seat like this one, raises your child, so the lap shoulder belt is properly positioned across the center of the chest and low on the hips, touching the thighs.
- In a crash, the belt will protect and restrain the child, as it was designed to do.
- Children should stay in a belt positioning booster seat until the vehicle lap and shoulder seat belt fits properly, typically when they have reached four foot nine inches tall and are between eight and 12 years of age.
Boosters require a vehicle seat with both a lap and shoulder seat belt to work correctly. Some booster seats have an internal harness, like this. These can be used with the harness until your child reaches the maximum weight limit, and then without the harness, as a belt positioning booster seat.
Most booster seats have a maximum weight limit of 120 pounds. Check the manufacturer’s instructions for the specific limits on your seat. There are two types of booster seats – a high-back booster and no back booster. A no back booster seat must be used in vehicles with head rests and your child must weigh at least 40 pounds to ride in this type of seat.
All booster seats have specific age, height and weight requirements, so be sure to check your owners manual. Belt positioning booster seats are easy to use. You are not installing them as you would a car seat. Booster seats are designed to raise a child up, so the seat belt fits correctly.
- Of course, you still need to read your vehicle owner’s manual and booster seat instructions, but here’s some general advice on using your booster.
- The right place for a booster is anywhere in the rear seat that has a lap and shoulder belt.
- Have your child sit in the booster seat, hold the lap shoulder belt across their body, buckle it and make absolutely sure the shoulder strap stays in front of your child.
Always use both the lap and shoulder belt. Black belt guides are cut out grooves on the sides of the booster that help make sure the lap portion of the seat belt lies below the hips and touches the thighs.
How should your safety belt be properly adjusted?
The lap belt should be adjusted so that it is snug and lies low across your hips after fastening. If you have an automatic shoulder belt, be sure to buckle your lap belt as well. Otherwise, in a collision you could slide out of the belt and be hurt or killed.
What is the loop on a seat belt for?
Why is there no loop on the driver’s side? – On the driver’s seatbelt, there’s no fabric loop—only a button which keeps the buckle from slipping down to the floor. However, while the loop on passenger seatbelts is there to enhance passenger safety, the lack of it on the driver’s seatbelt is actually to keep drivers safe, as McKenzie explains.
- On the driver’s side, it’s even more essential to keep the driver secured because hitting your head on the steering wheel could be fatal,” he says.
- The energy management loop is absent from the driver’s side because every millimeter matters in the event of a serious collision.” If the driver’s seatbelt were to gain an extra few inches in a car crash, it puts the driver at higher risk of injury.
When it comes to car safety, it’s important to think about the position of each person in the car—for instance, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends keeping children in the back seat until they’re 13 years old, and they should fit within the seat belt properly.
WorldToyota.com : “Award-Winning Safety” Jake McKenzie, Content Manager at Auto Accessories Garage Grant Clelland, IT Consultant & Tech Expert at Infiniti Tracking National Highway Traffic Safety Administration : “Car Seat Recommendations for Children”
Why do seat belts ratchet?
Webbing-sensitive mechanism: Retractors that are webbing sensitive have a part that moves out of position when the belt webbing spins out of the retractor quickly. The movement of the part causes the ratchet teeth to engage with the locking gear, which locks the belt.
What is a seat belt clip?
The Locking Clip – A locking clip is a metal I-shaped piece that is included with most child restraint seats. Most seats have a place on the back or bottom of the seat where you can store the locking clip. When you purchase the seat it may be there or in a separate bag.
(Nov.2015-Seats rarely come with a locking clip any more.) And some car seats now have built-in locking mechanisms. Be sure to read the car seat manual. If your seat doesn’t have a built-in mechanism and didn’t come with (or you lost) the locking clip, you can call the child seat manufacture to purchase one.
The locking clip is not needed for most car seat installations. The locking clip is needed when the shoulder portion of the vehicle’s lap/shoulder seatbelt cannot be locked to hold the car seat securely. This is the case when your vehicle has emergency locking retractors on the shoulder belts — meaning that the seat belt only locks upon sudden stop or collision — and cannot be switched as in some older vehicles. However, some vehicles that have emergency locking retractors use locking latchplates to keep the seatbelt tight, so check to see if the seatbelt can be held tight with a locking latchplate before using a locking clip. You should not use a locking clip if it is not required to properly install the car seat in the vehicle. It is never used for a LATCH installation or a lap-only belt installation. 
The other situation where you may use a locking clip is if the seat is tilted to the side when it is appropriately tightened to be snug in the vehicle seat and you are using a lap-shoulder belt in the locked mode of a switchable retractor. In this case you can take the seat belt out of locked mode and reinstall using the locking clip.
This way the child restraint will not tilt. The locking clip is a pre-crash positioning device. It is designed to hold the seat belt tight up to the moment of impact in a crash when the emergency locking retractor of the shoulder belt takes over. It is not uncommon for the locking clip to bend or even break during a crash, but as long as it has held the seat belt in position up to that time, it has done its job.
To use a locking clip, slip both belts (lap and shoulder portion) through one side over and through the other side of the locking clip no more than about an inch away from the latchplate (where the seat belt buckles).
How do I know if my seat belt tensioner is bad?
2. Check Engine Light Is On – One of the easiest ways to determine if you have a malfunctioning timing belt tensioner is to look at your engine light. The check engine light turns on whenever the system detects a problem in the car. It indicates that the car engine is not functioning correctly.
The light on the dashboard will be on if the timing belt tensioner is loose. You should be able to notice the timing valve going off, which causes the light to turn on. Although this symptom is one of the easiest ways to determine if the timing belt tensioner fails, it is not quite perfectly reliable.
The reason is that there could be many other issues that could lead to the indicator turning on. To confirm that the belt tensioner is the reason, you can resort to using an OBD2 scanner. OBD2 is a tool that you can use for further diagnosis of a car engine.
How do seatbelts and airbags work together?
Motor Vehicle Accidents and Spinal Cord Injury Did you know that motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of spinal cord injury? According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Database, motor vehicle accidents have accounted for more than a third of all reported cases of spinal cord injury! Motor vehicle accidents also account for other injuries to the spine such as whiplash, vertebral fractures, and herniated discs. It is not unusual for some spine injuries to become apparent weeks or even months following an accident. Some injuries that appear later may be severe.
- Bigger is Not Necessarily Better Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) are everywhere.
- Some people say they feel safer in a large, heavy-duty vehicle.
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that since 1992 there have been more fatalities involving SUVs and cars than in car-to-car accidents.
Although NHTSA attributes this to the differences in vehicle weight and height, they also reported that SUVs are four times more likely to roll over during high-speed maneuvers. It doesn’t matter if you drive an SUV, a Corvette, a Honda Civic, or a Mercedes S Class sedan.
- What does matter is to understand that each vehicle type is designed with a different center of gravity for a particular style of driving.
- Advent of Vehicle Restraints Seat belts became available in new cars during the early 1970s.
- Shoulder belts followed shortly thereafter.
- Beginning in 1985, American car manufacturers offered airbags as part of a ‘supplemental restraint’ system in automobiles.
Trucks and SUVs have trailed safety automobile requirements for passenger vehicles. Trucks and some SUVs have been the last to get padded dashboards, collapsible steering columns, ABS brakes, and side airbags. Since their introduction, airbags have become a controversial topic.
It is true that some people have sustained serious injury from airbag deployment. However, the fact is that airbags combined with seat belts (lap and shoulder belt) do save lives and help prevent more serious injury. Recent Research Proves Airbag/Seat Belt Effectiveness Results from an eight-year study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was presented at an annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Researchers found airbags combined with seat belts effectively reduced spinal injuries from automobile accidents. The medical records of 7,170 patients who suffered spinal injury in automobile crashes were analyzed, resulting in remarkable outcomes. The study compared four groups of patients.
