Vehicle seats and seat belt anchorages

Crash safety of vehicles is taken for granted today, as is a good work environment in goods vehicle, buses and contractors' vehicles. This means that various regulations apply to seats and to their fastenings, as well as to seat belt anchorages.

Seats

Safety requirements for protection against accidents in private cars, goods vehicles and buses are set out in ECE R17 and EU Directive 74/408/EEC. In addition to basic strength requirements, seats must not compound any injuries through sharp edges or hard, non-yielding materials etc.

Tests on seats in private cars include the strength of the seat back and the effectiveness of the head restraints, tested by mechanical loading. Seatback locks are tested by dynamic crash tests: the seat back must not tip forward during the crash, and the seat mountings must not fail.
SP tests vehicle seats in accordance with ECE R17 and Directive 74/408/EEC.


Seat belt anchorages

The requirements applicable to vehicle seat belt anchorages relate to their positions and strength. Anchorages must be correctly positioned in order to be sure that anyone in the seat is safely restrained in the event of a collision.
SP tests seat belt anchorages in accordance with ECE R14 and Directive 76/115/EEC.


 

SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Box 857, SE-501 15 Borås Phone +46 10-516 50 00, E-mail info@sp.se