Lap belts vs lap/shoulder belts

[cadman2005]

Hello Well its only been 5 years and I am Finally to the point of installing seat belts. My question is which type?, I will not be doing much more than off roading and think a 4 point is too much but should I go with just the lap belt or lap/shoulder belt. I would be interested in hearing what type you are using and if you went with a used set or new Thanks Chuck

[manxdavid]

A good friend of mine is a safety officer specializing in investinating motor accidents and he insists that lap belts can cause some horrible injuries to internal organs and to faces and heads as untethered torsos are flung forwards into windshields etc. They're more dangerous than no belts at all. I'd say lap and diagonal would be minimum spec for safety and safer than some full harneses unless they're very well installed. Some folks just anchor the top mounts down behind the front seats which can cause spine compression issues.

[Ed-Chenal]

As a minimum, I would install a three point seat belt system and a roll cage not a roll bar. If however, you don't plan on colliding with other objects or rolling over, save yourself some money and go without either one.

[Dan B.]

Well said Mr Chenal!

[5150bossman]

I know of several severe crashes with buggies where they did not plan on crashing (isn't that why they call it an accident?). We went with a 6-point cage with side bars, and 5-point harness'. All we do is some street driving and some off-road. Since there isn't much to the buggy, being fiberglass and all, I wanted the best chance of our surviviing a major crash while still being practical about the equipment (the cage isn't so elaborate that I have to shoe horn myself in to the thing).

[theManiac]

We only have lap belts in Xena, though I plan to upgrade them to a 3 point system in the near future! Some buggy drivers don't wear seatbelts, Ken Trongo didn't! He told me, that after seeing some of the buggy wrecks he'd seen, he'd prefer taking his chances by not wearing one.