I am so scared about this. I’m a Nanny to a five-month old with a Mom who can’t give up her Audi convertible and sees nothing wrong with strapping him into the front passenger seat (in his rear-facing car-seat.) Dad insists that they’ve had the airbags set so they’re activated on someone over 40 pounds; I say it’s not the weight, but the impact. I’ve read horror stories about babies who didn’t survive minor accidents. The Mom says people are always giving her dirty looks and a hard time. Good, I say! Am I just being a worry wart, or is she putting the baby’s life in danger?
This would be illegal in my jurisdiction (law is - no kids under 4 in the front seat, ever, and after that only if the back seats are already full).
If we knew where exactly you are you might find someone could point you at legal information in your locality.
Assuming the airbag comment was that the airbags are OFF since baby is under 40#, but don’t forget to add the weight of the car seat PLUS if installed properly the seatbelt should be pulling it down onto the seat quite hard and that might put it up past 40 and turn the airbag back on.
BTW what’s your location? It shouldn’t be too hard to pull up the relevant law showing that this is illegal.
St. Louis, Mo., if that helps. She bought him a hat today, so that the sun wouldn’t be too harsh when she put the top down!
That it is a convertible is of no consequence.
My airbags in the front see are set to turn on at 25 lbs, not 40, which I know because it is the approximate weight of my dogs - sometimes it is set when they are there, sometimes it is not.
Oh, I know. I just wanted to give you all the info you might need to answer my question. I wouldn’t even think of putting a child in a front seat. You make choices. You choose to have a baby, maybe you get a different car.
Actually, a lot of states don’t have laws requiring them to be in the rear seat. Missouri doesn’t.
But, I agree, the only possible way to be safe is if the airbag is completely off. Joey P nailed it, there’s no way I’d trust the airbag not to deploy.
If you’re worried about it being a convertible, the Audi has roll bars that pop up in the event of a rollover. The convertible part shouldn’t make it any more dangerous than most cars. My daughter (3.5 now) loves my convertible but doesn’t like the wind and I don’t like her getting too much sun on longer drives.
Babies shouldn’t be driving convertibles.
You have to love people who are judgmental about other parents. :rolleyes:
If this is an Audi TT, the passenger airbag is deactivated by via a manual switch and an automatic deactivation sensor if the passenger is below a certain weight (typically 30-40 lbs). I don’t know if it uses a similar system to the Porsche Boxster, but on that car the passenger airbag is also deactivated by using the child seat anchors built into the seat.
Do you want to worry about something real? The average rollover rate for most “family vehicles” (SUVs and minivans) is three to four times the rate of sedans and coupes, and in some vehicles occur in as much as 50% of serious accidents. Airbags won’t prevent most injuries in a rollover, and seatbelts may actually accentuate damage. Rollover accidents account for almost 25% of all vehicle fatalities.
Stranger
Honestly, I’m not being judgmental. This is just one instance of the crap they do/believe. This is the only one that I felt had a factual answer. Just loving the baby too much, I guess. Sorry.
When driving a baby in a convertible, just make sure he isn’t wearing a long, Isadora Duncan-type scarf…TRM
Would this all work out the same if it were a pickup truck with a regular cabin (no back seat?).
Right on! Fucking nannies worrying about the babies they’re being paid to care for… :rolleyes:
I don’t understand. The child is in a rear-facing baby seat, so why are you concerned about airbags? The exploding airbag will hit the back of the baby seat, not the baby.
Does this mean “in some rollover accidents seatbelts have led to increased injuries” or “in rollover accidents seatbelt use may not be a net benefit” ?
I would (perhaps naively) have thought that a rollover was one case where a seatbelt was most useful.
My pickup has a switch by which you can turn off the passenger side airbag and specific instructions for both backwards-facing infant seats and child booster seats. So the fact there is no back seat but children may ride in it as passengers was taken into account when it was built. Although my state does require children in the back, since there is no back seat in the truck that is simply not possible and thus one complies with the manufacturer’s instructions.
You’re kidding, right? Yeah, it’ll hit the back of the baby’s car seat and either smash him into the seat or decapitate him (rare, but it happens.) I know there are differences of opinion on this, but is it so important to drive your cute little 2 seater that you’d take such an unnecessary risk?
Thanks, Fuzzy! 
Is it really necessary to pass judgment on people driving 2-seaters? They already have it and then came the baby. Maybe they cannot afford to get a new car or what have you. Which is not to say this is the case of the person in the OP, but I would bet that there are many cases out there where people drive babies in 2-seaters for reasons other than endangering the child for kicks and laughs.
looking at the Audi website I don’t see a listing for a deactivation switch, as would be standard in a 2 seater like a Boxter or a pickup truck. In fact the Audi website says to buckle the child in the back seat of a TT.
This indicates to me that officially the Audi TT is a 4 seater. That would mean no deactivation switch.
About the weight limits. Anybody got a cite for the numbers being thrown around this thread? I know for a fact that Volvo uses 60-80 lbs for the threshold for the front seat bag and they are usually real conservative with this stuff. Where are you guys getting 30-40 lbs?
Also what year is the car? It makes a difference. If it was built before about 2005 it probably does not have auto cut off for children (I would have to research this a bit more to be sure) If it does have the auto bag off system, it will have a passenger air bag off light that is visible to all seating locations (Typically located in the rear view mirror on a convertible) Is that light lit when the child is belted in their seat? If not the bag will go off. (BTW This is a federal regulation, so if it has an airbag off system it will have a light.)
Speaking as a guy that has taught air bag systems for over 15 years there is no way in hell I would put a child seat in the front seat of an air bag equipped car. Deactivation system or not, things can fail. Bag goes boom, child dies.
Quartz The problem is the front of a rear facing seat is only a couple of inches away from a bag about the size of a big outdoor trash can bag, which comes out of the dash at say 200 mph. The seat and baby are then propelled backwards at up to about 80Gs. The resulting internal injuries will be fatal.
The problem here appears not to be the convertible, but rather the way it is being operated.
Curiously enough, if you look on the periodic table you’ll find that irony is not a metal. You’re being judgmental in the same way that water is slightly wet. The o.p. and the follow-on responses by you are semantically critical and give the impression that you are nearly hysterical over this issue (“The Mom says people are always giving her dirty looks and a hard time. Good, I say!”); you give no credence to the parents who claim to have researched this.
I wouldn’t put a child in a rear-facing carseat in the front seat, either (or indeed, any child under eighty pounds or five feet) but I’m not going to fret endlessly at others for doing so. Parents make all manner of choices that are questionable for the short- and long-term well-being of their children. I have one coworker who used to take his children rock-climbing. He used proper gear and techniques and made them wear helmets, but injuries could still result. Should I have criticized him for putting his boys at risk?
The TT Coupe is a 2+2 (I’d actually call it a 2+1/2*2 as only small children and munchkins can fit back there) but the TT Roadster is strictly a two seater as the tonneau takes up what would be the rear seat. The Audi website is giving my browser fits, but IIRC from a coworker that had a first generation TT Roadster it did have a deactivation switch. They got rid of the car not because they had a kid but because the car was maintenance intensive and impractical. If I recall properly it also had a few safety recalls, and one specifically with the DROPS, plus a reputation for high speed rollovers. That, and the possibility of airborne debris would be the reason I wouldn’t want to put a small child in this convertible.
I know the “Seatbelt” alarm starts dinging and the “Pass. Airbag Disable” light goes off when I set a really full bookbag on the passenger seat of my Subaru. I’m going to guess that this is about 30 lbs, but I don’t have the owner’s manual handy to check.
Yeah, it would be like an adult sitting with his head sitting virtually on the dashboard. In addition, the soft, unfused skull of an infant may not be able to withstand the impact by an airbag. (Airbags frequently break noses and cause other contusions when deploying, and anything in your mouth will be shoved to the back of your throat. You don’t want to be smoking a pipe or drinking from a metal cup when one deploys.) This is why there are automatic airbag disable systems below a certain weight.
Stranger