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Rear middle seat - no headrest concern

18K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  imref 
#1 ·
I'm taking a group of teenagers on an outing soon and will have to carry four in my truck. I'm bothered by the lack of a middle seat headrest in the rear, the teens are tall enough that whoever sits in the middle will have no protection in the event of me getting hit from the rear. I assume the lack of a headrest is due to visibility issues (of course they could have provisioned a removable one).

Has anyone else been in this situation? If so, how did you handle it? I'm thinking of providing an pillow to the unfortunate teen who has to sit in the middle rear. Would it help?

Thanks in advance
 
#10 ·
:frown2:
 
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#5 ·
I've never worried about this in the past. My 2013 Cruze didn't have a middle head rest either (i've seen plenty of other vehicles, cars, SUVS, etc that don't have them). IMO pillow wouldn't do anything in a whiplash situation with so much force involved. Best prevention is defensive driving and checking you mirrors.
 
#6 ·
You put the kid you value the least in the middle. Jan Brady would have gotten that seat on the Brady Bunch show.


Seriously I don't think there is any regulation for this as the odds are slim of anything happening. For one you need to be rearended for the most part for it to come into play while most accidents are other wise.


The other factor is the middle is seldom used as well if it is most are smaller kids that are below the seat.


Finally the odds are you may get T boned by a Semi before it ever comes into play.

The other thing is vision. You put a third head rest in most vehicles it will kill all out ward vision. Only a few cars have ever offered it.


Life is filled with risk and they calculate the odds and that is what is in play here. What is worse no vision out the window daily or the risk of a rare middle passenger getting rear ended.


If they were to build cars to where they really need to be we would have roll cages and seats like NASCAR. That will never happen. Same like school buses. No belts and safety cells as the odds and practicality are in play.
 
#8 ·
Ha! When I was a kid we backed the car so full that the smallest had to lay in the back window...I am not kidding! Yes, we lived dangerously back then...but we were backed so tight in the event of an accident all us kids just served as air bags!
On my first parachute jump, the jump master explained as we were taking off from the cow pasture that if we had any issues above 1000 feet, he was going to toss our butts out the plane as fast as he could, below 1000 feet just hang on, we were packed in so tight and with our chutes, we would "probably" be safe.

Of course, when you looked at the 4-seater Cessna with all but pilot's seat removed, 4 jumpers & a pilot on board, and the cow pasture runway, his plan seemed logical to a 23 year old with no real responsibilities in life.

I do remember packing 4 adults and 5 kids into a 1967 Chevy with no AC in South Louisiana to go down to the ice cream shop when I was a youngster. Seat belts, air bags, head rests? What are those? Amazing how many of us survived back then. Infants were held in a mother's arms, or passed around like a sack of taters to the occupants.

And station wagons were the best. Toss a couple of blankets and a pillow back there and all the kids fought for that prime location on long trips.
 
#11 ·
thanks for all the feedback. My hunch is the biggest issue will be 7 hours for three teenagers in the back seat.

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with only two USB charging ports!
 
#12 ·
7 HR's .... odds are you may be more of a danger to them after that long than any risk of getting rear ended. :grin2:


Wow times have changed. We talk today of head rest in the middle of the backseat of a truck and it was not so many years ago Subaru was putting seats in the bed. Times have really changed.
 
#16 ·
we survived the ride though the teens were a bit cramped. I ended up grabbing the middle row center seat headrest out of my Honda Odyssey and using it for the rear middle seat. It fit fairly well, with the two poles sliding between the seatback and the wall. The color even matched the interior of my van. The center seat passenger appreciated having something to rest his head on.
 
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