Travelling with children!

[becky_jo]

Hello! I am trying to work out the best/safest way to travel in a 7.5t Merc 814 horsebox with 2 adults and 2 small children (4yo and 1.5yo).

I think the main options at the moment are integrating two belted seats into the living area ‘sofa’, and attaching their carseats here. The problem then is that you might have to regularly remove the seats so that they’re not always in the way. Alternatively we could possibly put the two car seats in the cab, next to hubby driving, and I travel just behind in the living space (there’s a crawl-through)… not sure. It would be good if we could all be in the front but I have never seen 4 full-sized seats fit in a HGV cab!!

Obviously safety of the kids comes first. If anyone has any photos of their carseat set-ups in horseboxes they’d be willing to share that would be great!!

Sorry for the long-winded post, thanks if you got this far! ?

 

[Annagain]

Does your sofa in the living face forwards? For a motorhome, any designated travel seats (seats with belts) have to be forward facing. I know horseboxes are different as they don't have to have seatbelts but I imagine once you put a seatbelt in, the seatbelt rules apply and you'll only be able to fit them to forward facing seats.

ETA - just found this - side facing seatbelts aren't illegal but strongly advised against and you can't use child seats with side facing belts. Carrying passengers in horseboxes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 

[becky_jo]

Does your sofa in the living face forwards? For a motorhome, any designated travel seats (seats with belts) have to be forward facing. I know horseboxes are different as they don't have to have seatbelts but I imagine once you put a seatbelt in, the seatbelt rules apply and you'll only be able to fit them to forward facing seats.

ETA - just found this - side facing seatbelts aren't illegal but strongly advised against and you can't use child seats with side facing belts. Carrying passengers in horseboxes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Thanks Annagain, we are going to be re-furbishing it so sofa could be any configuration that works best - hence looking for inspiration!. Yes I've seen similar guidelines about side-facing seats and that's probably not a great option for us. I'm wondering whether a belted swivel seat just behind the crawl-through might work to create the 4th seat, and then it could be turned to face the living area when we were stationary. Just a thought so haven't looked into the logistics yet!