Stupid question?

goldsych

Guest
Hi.
I'm brand new to all this mularkey. Having had a static caravan for years I'm seriously getting hooked on the idea of one day (soonish) getting a campervan. I fancy a coachbuilt, rear louge type.
Anyway - my stupid question is. Is it legal to sleep in the bed in a campervan/motorhome when the driver is driving????????
(Must be brilliant to wake up in another country!)

Thanks very much for any replies.
 
Zzzzzzzzz

I do not know if it is legal or not but last August, when travelling overnight from Yorkshire to Tenby, we put the rear bed up (8' x 6' 6") for our three youngsters (9, 7 & 4 at the time) and they slept through our 8 1/4 hr journey! Saves a lot of " Are we nearly there yet?" earache and as you said... they woke up parked by the beach in a different part of the country... Wonderful!
 
I don't know the actual answer, but I'm sure it will include the words 'passenger' and 'seat-belt'.

If you can strap them in their beds you're probably OK (now that sounds like a good idea anyway!)

Must admit I've thought about it on a long motorway journey when womaninahat is driving.
 
maninahat said:
I don't know the actual answer, but I'm sure it will include the words 'passenger' and 'seat-belt'.

If you can strap them in their beds you're probably OK (now that sounds like a good idea anyway!)

Must admit I've thought about it on a long motorway journey when womaninahat is driving.
Click to expand...


Dont see how you can bring seat belts into it as a lot of camper vans do not have seat belts in the back, wouldnt it be safer for som1 to fall asleep on a made up bed rather than a bench type seat?
 
I don't care if it's illegal or not, I always have a kip in the back when the chauffeur is driving, talk sport normally sends me off to sleep in minutes ;)
 
Straps....

Now ... I wonder if it is illegal to strap someone to the bed??? ;¬)
 
no difference if lie or sit in eyes of the law

personally i would say, that road traffic act states if no seat belts fitted at time of manufacture of vehicle then none have to be fitted. As always with legislation though there are contradictions, and in fact there is an offence of insecure load - which can refer to anything not being strapped down in a vehicle and is not commonly used unless by traffic officers. As you can sit in the rear of the vehicle and this is not legislated against ergo it makes no difference if you sit or lie quite frankly.
 
Yep, Lady Barnet is right. If no seat belts were fitted to the vehicle at manufacture, there is no need to have them (for MoT purposes, anyway). And if you could legally sit in the back while travelling, what is to stop you lying down?

However, there is a safety issue here, and not just the seat belts. If the van were to be involved in an accident, would you want to be in the back, surrounded by flying crockery, fire extinguishers and leisure batteries? If you are driving a coachbuilt, you are sitting or lying in something that is effectively a caravan. We've all seen caravans turned to matchwood after a smash. A coachbuilt in a big accident would be just the same. I'm always amazed at the people we see sleeping in a lay-by, a couple of metres from the road: just one slip by a car driver, and what's between your head and the car's front end doing 60mph? Not a lot.

A panel van gives you some protection against penetration of the living area in an accident. I would think that the safe (or safer) way would be to travel in the back only if you have religiously strapped things down (off-roaders at an advantage here!) and have an arrangement to keep you in or on the bed - a couple of webbing straps would do. Fit those, crawl underneath and if the worst happens you stand a chance of staying in place until the action stops.

Having said all that, one of the things I am looking forward to when we do our first long trip in the camper will be doing proper shifts on the driving and getting my head down in between!
 
Black dog, what you say is very true, but wherever you are sat in a coachbuilt, (even strapped in in the driving seat,) in a serious accident you are going to be pelted by flying debris.
Thankfully not all accidents are that serious, otherwise we might all become paranoid and never use the van.
My wife is disabled, and sometimes, going to bed is the only relief she gets from her pain. So in answer to goldsych's original question, she has used our fixed bed more than once whilst travelling. Whether its legal or not, I have no idea.

On a flippant note, I suppose it depends whether its a passenger or the driver who intends to use the bed whilst driving.......ooo errr!!!

Voxy.
 
Two more observations:

We are now told that driving whilst tired is a major cause of accidents - usually very serious ones as the drivers tend not to brake before impact. Being able to get your head down and have a proper kip on a long journey is surely better than swapping drivers and trying to snooze in the passenger seat.

A second thought is that, for me, travelling is the great thing, possibly more important than the destination. If I get a break from driving, I usually make an effort to sleep in the passenger seat, but after about 10 minutes I am bored and end up looking out of the window. So I would probably find it very hard to bed down in the back and actually get some sleep (I'd be thinking:

  • the diff wasn't making that noise yesterday - or is it because I am listening to it from a different position?
  • I can hear the water sloshing about in the tank - that means we'd better fill up at the next stop - where will that be? Better look at the map.
  • I got 100 euros out of the ATM this morning and now I have 20 left - where did it all go?)
It's an impossible problem! To get back to the original question - I doubt if it is illegal in the UK, but not sure about other countries.
 
get ya head down

just wondering how long distance european coach drivers grab some kip when their co-driver takes over.
i know they have dedicated sleep area's somewhere in the coach but what safety measures do they have or do they just get their head down and hope for the best.
 
We went to Poland twice by coach, it was hell but cheap and a while ago. There were three drivers as it was non stop except for the so called "comfort" stops once the onboard loo was full.Charming. However, the drivers took it in turns to sleep in a dedicated bed fitted for and aft very much like a ships bunk with sides to stop them falling out and they were doing that day in a day out right across Europe
 
I have seen long-distance coaches where the driver gets out and slides into a hatch above the front wheel and behind the driver's door. It looked like a long narrow pod, a bit like a coffin to be honest, but comfy. I doubt if I would be able to manage it, although the guy I spoke to said he could sleep in there fine. There was no access to the interior from the "pod", though, which I would have thought was quite dangerous if, say, the coach rolled onto that side and trapped the driver.
 
Ok, so if these guys can do it i see no reason why you cant get some hard-earned in an overcab bed. in an accident you are well high enough to avoid most things, low bridges and h.g.v's excluded, and if you have a fixed bed why not sleep to one side behind the wardrobe/toilet or whatever to stop you flying forward. i cant see a problem but theres no telling what plod might say.:rolleyes:
 
As far as I know the seatbelt requirement is only for forward facing seats
 
I've often done it. In fact, once, when we both had food poisoning, one slept in the back, one sat in the drivers seat and the van must have drove it'self home!

Seriously though, I got a suspiscion that the seat belt law does not apply to m/h's. Even if it does, ask yourself if you are likely to get caught. If you do, it's a £30 fine if you're not too lippy. You're not exactly risking a public flogging....
 
child seat belts

I know this thread is quite old but I need to find a motorhome,not too new that I can carry two children in in child seats...how the heck do I do this...One could poss be in the passenger seat forward facing but I need another forward three point belt...any suggestions...
 
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