I travel quite a bit for work and therefore spend a lot of time in a wide variety of rental cars. In my experience, it seems that the audible chimes that remind you that you haven’t fastened your seatbelt have gotten much more annoying and aggressive over time. The rental car I’m currently driving is a Pontiac Vibe and its chime starts as a beep with about a two second interval but builds to a nearly constant shrill. I’ve looked in some of the cars to see if there is a way to disable this but have yet to find this option.
Is the audible seatbelt warning required by law? If so, what properties (e.g., duration, volume, frequency) are specified?
If it is legally required I would expect that the automakers would do the bare minimum to comply, thereby resulting in most vehicles having a warning of similar duration, volume, etc.
If it is not legally required, it seems that it would be in the automakers’ best interests to provide a way to turn it off, as I (and I assume others) find it very annoying.
For the record, I nearly always wear my seatbelt, but sometimes do not put it on until I’m under way. Once the warning noise starts, though, I’ll usually wait until it’s finished (at least the first time I’m in a new car) since I am obviously a bit curious about these things.
I’ve tried looking for info on this but haven’t had any luck.
My 1999 Isuzu Rodeo SUV doesn’t have it but SUV’s aren’t subject to some of the same laws as cars. However, my wife’s 2002 3 series BMW does not ever.
Don’t underestimate the power of auto makers doing crazy things with seatbelts. Some tried those auto moving lap belts in the 80’s and beyond but I am not sure why. I wear my seatbelt all the time but those things were annoying.
We had to replace our '92 car last year and decided to get a new one. I guess I started getting cold feet, because when the salesman started doing annoying salesman things, I decided I didn’t want the car because my husband never wore his seatbelt, and that dinging would drive me nuts.
The car salesman told my husband he would show him how to disable it if we bought the car. I wondered if the time if that was somehow illegal. Not that it should be, but crazy laws and all.
We ended up getting the car, and my husband looked online to find how to disable it. The maker’s website wouldn’t say how, but he found a message board of people who had the same car, and they told him how to disable it. It wasn’t easy to do. Not something you would want to undertake for every rented car you drive.
So from our limited experience, they don’t have an easy on/off switch like you would think they would. But if you search around, you can find out how.
As I understand it, it was because of legislation that was passed that required a secondary restraint system. The auto manufacturers’ choices were those automatic seatbelts or airbags. Considering that airbag technology has been pretty much well worked out since the 1970s, I’m not sure why anyone thought those were a good idea.
Those things were one of the reasons I refused to drive a 1990 Mercury Topaz. (The other problems were: it was an automatic, it was hard to see out of, it was too small inside for me to sit comfortably, and overall the car just plain sucked.) I don’t even feel secure in those automatic things considering the way they are mounted and that they never got tight enough–I always imagined going right through it into the steering wheel in a crash.
I did further searching and came up with the answer from the nhtsa web site.
So it sounds like some of the manufacturers are voluntarily making their warning chimes more aggressive and annoying than required. Strange marketing tactic…
Yes it is available at least in Subaru’s, and has been for a few years, well for the front seat passenger. A weight sensor in the front seat determines if:
1 - enough weight is in the front seat to sound a warming every 8 seconds
2 - enough weight is in the front seat to activate the passenger airbag.
My '05 Ford Freestar has it too. And it has automatic airbag shutoff if someone under 50 lbs. is riding in the front passenger seat.
There’s a procedure to kill the repeating alarm. It’s in the owner’s manual right alongside how to not make the doors lock when you hit 3 MPH.
It’s one of those “Turn the key on and off 17 times while working the windshield wipers with your left hand and alternating pressure on the gas and brake with all of the doors open and the transmission in overdrive.”
My mom’s 2005 Ford 500 has the passenger warning as well.
I think one time on this board we talked about how that would really suck if your large dog rode in the front seat as a passenger. You’d have to buckle the belt behind him, or use a doggy restraint that ties into the seatbelt system.
Luckily for my mom her 90-lb granddoggy does not prefer the front seat. But I’m glad to see that there is an option for turning it off in case she (the dog) changes her mind.
It’s to forestall negligence lawsuits. If a driver of one of their cars is injured/killed in an accident and was not wearing a seatbelt, the car manufacturer can cover their ass at trial by pointing out that they exceeded the statutory requirements in attempting to remind their customers to use seatbelts.