My wife and I are now the proud parents of a little boy. He is now 5 months old. Obviously the 7 has not been out much since he was born because it was winter and being worked on. It is now approaching summer (hopefully!) and I am trying to convince my wife that we can all travel safely in a 73 year old car.
The modern baby cradle straps in using the car seat belt - immediate problem, and is quite a big moulded plastic item - another problem.
I have sent off for some race spec harness points with the intention of bolting them to the floor/chassis and putting a ratchet strap over the cradle. I think this will hold it rigid either on the front passneger seat or sideways on the rear seat.
So, does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing, or know of any regs to say that I cant do it?

I had three britax seats(they have their own harness arrangement)strapped with webbing in the back of my 34 rp saloon. These straps were bolted to the inner wheelarch and either side of transmission tunnel.Worked very well.Now they are teenagers my daughter(the boys dont mind)wouldnt be seen dead in the car-still its her loss!!

Congrats, Well done....when my kids were babies we put them on the back seat of the box in a moses basket(shock horror!). I suspect your talking about a greco seat,Very space age. although installed sideways may be frowned on, it must be bad practice.. WE had one to transport latest G.daughter and it was even too big to fit in a Toyota Starlet,could not be used. small is beautiful. I have fitted a lap belt in the front passenger seat for my 9 year old.the logic being that if an accident occured he would not be thrown forward and his head could not hit the dash.soon he will be too big, then he will have to take his chance with the rest of us!!

Not sure which type they were but they were about 12" wide, no gaps between each seat so they could belt each other etc. We bought a 4x4 with three rows of seats,one child in each row,resulting in much better crowd control. I used to go out in my TR4A if poss because that could only fit two britax seats in the back......divide and conquer!!!

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Here we go again! You idiots will surely get us all taken off the road before you are finished.

At the beginning of the month it was steering arms, now it is the dodgy (if not actually illegal) carriage of children.

Last month we had a Drive-It day to raise awareness of our cause! Why? Because we want the public on our side if there is a move to restrict our usage.

Be advised that the whole shooting match will go to the wall overnight if it becomes known that we are carrying young persons in vehicles where there is no satisfactory mounting for safety belts, and which have steering arms known at least to be suspect.

Fat lot of good the Drive-It day will have been then.

We all know it goes on but do we have to shout about it?

I make no apology - I repeat - IDIOTS.

Mike

The legal requirement for vehicles to have seat belts & anchorage points fitted relates ONLY to those vehicles registered after August 1965, so any Austin seven will be exempt.

However, it is a sensible thing to do if you are going to carry young children in your old car to do what you can to enhance their safety.

I am quite new to this site and have enjoyed the various debates that go on. I always bear in mind that these are the thoughts of a few individuals and do not necessarily reflect the whole vintage motoring world.
I posted what I believe to be a reasonable question in advance of taking a small child in the Austin in the hope that some advice could be sought, and some has been - may thanks. I remember well how things went on in the past and some of the answers reflect this. By posing the question, am I not being careful to examine the risks?
I must admit though that I take extreme exception to being called an 'idiot'. I find the comments by 'Mike Whittorne' not only unhelpful, but downright rude and would suggest that he is missing the spirit of the site.
I did not think that partitipation in a forum allowed one to be directly offensive to others and I would expect anyone doing such should be removed.
I now understand, as thought that regs do not cover this vehicle, but any useful info is still sought.

I'm sorry Mike, but I have to agree with the other's sentiments.

Our dear little cars are exempt from many aspects of modern motoring law, some laws would be impossible to apply, seat belts being one of them, as the manufacturer made no provision for their fitment.

I personally feel that a responsible questions as to the best way to carry a young child, no matter what age, is exactly what forums ( or should it be fora ? ) do best.

If we follow the 'don't rock the boat in case someone notices we are here' principle then we would not use our cars on the road at all.

Whilst I have nothing to add in the way of advice to the original question I would comment that whilst professionally employed in a former life I checked exactly how the users had fitted their 'modern' child car seats in their 'modern' cars and many were so badly fitted as to be dangerous.

Lets not get paranoid !

I might pay more attention to Mike Whittome's rants were it not for the fact that the Solent A7C's website (webmaster – guess who!) contains in the (rather good) Technical section, details of split brake cable end-caps as well as my article on steering arms. I would suggest that this is far more likely to be noticed than our little forum.

Anyway, the ostrich mentality, or trying to pretend that an 80-year-old motor-car won't suffer from faults is ridiculous and counter-productive. IMHO it is far better and more responsible to acknowledge these where they exist, ask for advice and take steps to rectify the situation.

Personal abuse should certainly play no part in our hobby – it is quite possible to make a point strongly enough without it.

David

I consider the way I secured the child seats in the back of my A7 to be a darn sight safer than the method employed by britax which utilised inertia reel belts locked into position with plastic wedges,these frequently worked loose in the modern and the whole chair and child would roll onto its side.In the A7 they were secured with seatbelt grade webbing straps secured to the bodywork with proper seatbelt bolts and large diameter washers. So Mike if you think I am an idiot for ensuring the safety of my family in a better way than the manufacturer then I feel sorry for you and your panderings to the "nanny state". I can remember going on holiday in the 60's in my fathers Ruby,three unsecured children in the back, two unsecured adults in the front,cot ,high-chair and camping gear on the top. God knows how we all survived.Still I suppose it proves I come from a long line of idiots.

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Thank you David.

I did not intend to enter the arena again, save to say that the steering arms and brake cable ends are identified as problem areas with acceptable engineering solutions. Your excellent replacement arms being one.

Mike

It is very difficult to reconcile oneself to the simple facts of this thorny subject. I am afraid I was one of the ‘Ostrich’ brigade in the 70s and 80s when I had a young family, thousands of miles covered in my Fabric saloon, with only a piece of cloth between my precious family and what ever might run into the back of us. You soon take on the habit of driving for the person behind (I still do this in my modern). Things have changed a lot (especially here in Bristol) in the last 25 years. If I had to ask myself the same questions today that I asked then, I am not at all sure that I would come to the same conclusion. But what a lot of fun we would have missed. Alls well that ends well and good Luck to you and your little family.