# Why are airline seatbelts lap-belt only? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 1, 2005, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-airline-seatbelts-lap-belt-only/324315 "2005-10-01T06:54:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-airline-seatbelts-lap-belt-only/324315/41 "2005-10-03T19:23:23Z")
I don’t think I could do rear-facing seats. Granted, I haven’t been in a rear-facing airplane so I can’t say for sure, but I do know that the only roller-coaster I ever got sick on was a rear-facing one, and it made me miserably sick. It actually frightened me. I’d prefer not to, really. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-airline-seatbelts-lap-belt-only/324315/42 "2005-10-03T22:08:51Z")
**Vetch** , while you’re legally correct, just about everyone that flies meets all of those qualifications. The flight attendants _always_ ask these questions to everybody sitting in the these rows (at least in airplanes I’ve been on). Som, really, it’s kind of a gimmee. But what **Slaphead** means aside from the obvious meeting-the-requirements requirement is that yes, the airlines tend to give them out on a first come, first serve basis. Except, for some reason, the one time I took Northwest the told me they held them out to frequenter fliers and they wouldn’t dream of accomodating me until no one requested that seat. Eh, I don’t like Northwest much anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-airline-seatbelts-lap-belt-only/324315.md?page=2)