Children and Pickups

mainman

mainman

Set Trippin
I am thinking about buying a pickup truck, as most of you know I have a 6 year old son. Children under 10 (I believe) are not supposed to be in the front seat of a vehicle. What is the law in regards to this?

Do I have to purchase a vehicle with a rear seat?

Can I just strap him in the bed of the pickup? :lol:
 
crabcake

crabcake

But wait, there's more...
The big deal with this is if there's an airbag for the passenger seat. If there is, does it have the ability to turn it off/deactivate it? If so, you should be fine. If not, ya might wanna hold off till he's a little bigger. Airbags have been reported to have suffocated small children in the front seat b/c they're so big and the kids are so small. :frown:
 
Pete

Pete

Repete
mainman said:
I am thinking about buying a pickup truck, as most of you know I have a 6 year old son. Children under 10 (I believe) are not supposed to be in the front seat of a vehicle. What is the law in regards to this?

Do I have to purchase a vehicle with a rear seat?

Can I just strap him in the bed of the pickup? :lol:
Click to expand...
The worry with kids in front of a vehicle is the airbag deploying and hurting them.
You can put them in front. Trucks have a airbag disable switch for the passenger that cars do not have.

GMC/Chevy have seat sensors if you are not heavy enough to activate the switch it will disable the airbag.

If you get a truck I believe you should get at least an extended cab with a rear seat anyway. More room is :yay:
 
Dutch6

Dutch6

"Fluffy world destroyer"
What CC said and also I think they go by weight. If the kid is under a certain weight he will still need a booster seat.
 
pearlie369

pearlie369

UnStAbLe YeT sAfE
Just make sure the air bag can be turned off and your little one is in the proper booster seat (if needed) and youll be fine. I have a toyota and a 5year old and Ive never had any problems.
 
bcp

bcp

In My Opinion
90 lbs is the cutoff weight for the airbag on trucks/cars equipped with that feature.
As another poster stated, almost all trucks, and two passenger cars have a cutoff switch for the airbag on the passengers side. It is usally a keyed switch on the dashboard. The only downside, at least with mine is that when the airbag is off, the switch indicater lights up and it irritates me.


I also agree with the extended cab truck. I have the quad cab now and could never go back to a regular cab truck, even if nobody else would ever be in it.
the benifits go beyond having seating for an extra three people.

a down side to the back seat in those trucks, at least mine, Dodge Ram Quad, is that the backseat is designed in such a way that the back of the seat has little backwards lean to it and it does not fit a child seat very well.
other than that, I like it.
 
Mikeinsmd

Mikeinsmd

New Member
mainman said:
I've gotten some negative feedback from some folks about Dodge, I like it (Dakota)... It also has a pretty good rating on http://www.edmunds.com.

I'll be researching for a while....
Click to expand...
I have the Ram Sport Quad 4x4...... great truck but you'll need a raise in salary to afford gas. Mine avg's. 11-13 mpg without pulling the boat!! :otter:
 
bcp

bcp

In My Opinion
mainman said:
I've gotten some negative feedback from some folks about Dodge, I like it (Dakota)... It also has a pretty good rating on http://www.edmunds.com.

I'll be researching for a while....
Click to expand...
I can tell you this.
Chrysler products should be avoided at all cost.
If you are buying new, look at Ford or Chevy, or Toyota, or a ricshaw before you take on the Dodge.

transmissions are weak, the AC units are not going to last, service sucks because every noise is normal until the warrenty runs out, then it becomes a real expensive problem that they find right away.

When I said I was happy with my ram, I was refering to the set up of the seating, I was not refering to the actual truck.

Having had two Chrysler products, The ram, and a grand cherokee, I can honestly say that before I ever purchase another chrysler/dodge product, I will convert to Amish and ride around town in a horse drawn buggy with battery operated turn signals.

plus some of them Amish babes are pretty cute when you unwrap them.
 
mainman

mainman

Set Trippin
Mikeinsmd said:
I have the Ram Sport Quad 4x4...... great truck but you'll need a raise in salary to afford gas. Mine avg's. 11-13 mpg without pulling the boat!! :otter:
Click to expand...
My commute has gone from 80 miles a day to about 22....
Here are the listed ratings for the Dakota:

City: 15-17 mpg
Hwy: 19-22 mpg

....
 
Mikeinsmd

Mikeinsmd

New Member
mainman said:
My commute has gone from 80 miles a day to about 22....
Here are the listed ratings for the Dakota:

City: 15-17 mpg
Hwy: 19-22 mpg....
Click to expand...
Oh your ok then..... you know my drive (hence the girly tracker) :lmao:
 
mainman

mainman

Set Trippin
bcp said:
plus some of them Amish babes are pretty cute when you unwrap them.
Click to expand...
I appreciate the feedback, however I am willing to bet that if we keep this thread active long enough that at some point, someone will say, "Don't buy a ford", "Don't buy a chevy". Don't buy this, don't buy that....

I'm sure I will research the hell out of this and no matter what I end up buying, some will say great buy and some will say, "steeeempy you idiot"...:lmao:


by the way, I'm betting you might need a biohazard mask after unwrapping some of them, they don't bathe very frequently do they? :shocking:
 
Pete

Pete

Repete
Just checked and for about $4K more than a Dodge Dakota Laramie you can get a Fully loaded Chevy/GMC LT/SLE Z71 Ext cab full size truck.

Only drawback I can think of is parking my truck in the small spaces is a PITA sometimes.

I am not a fan of Dodge, owned 2 and that was enough. I know a bunch of guys who bought them since they changed to the big nose style. Before that the only people who bought Dodge trucks were farmers because they were cheap and ugly :lol:

All those guys hated life when the truck wasn't worth shiat come time to trade it. Transmission problems out the ass, milage sucked horribly.

IMO Ford has the best seats, the GM leather captains seats are at the same level as Ford but everything else GM below the leather buckets are sub par.

Power and torque Vs. MPG GM rocks, Ford second, Dodge got tired of getting whacked by everyone else with their tired old 318 so they went to the 5.7 Hemi which has tons of HP/Torque but you pay for it at the gas pump BAD.
 
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