Why Is It Dangling? Who Knows the Answer?

[rmoore]

Responder Test:

Who knows why the driver's seatbelt on this car is dangling out the door like it is?

[Profireman]

Many seatbelts have a locking position if you pull them ALL the way out.
Comes in handy for installing child seats, since there is no pull on the belt as you thread it through the seat.

Then you just give it a quick tug and it takes the slack back out of it.

[ChiefKN]

Tensioner locked upon impact and that's the buckle we're seeing?

Hard to tell....

[drerict]

I agree that the pretentioner has gone off and locked the automatic retractor up

[nmfire]

Ditto. However I'm going to stare at it for a little while longer and rack my brain incase this is a trick question.

[yjbrody]

Or the car's retractor on the seat belt is just old and doesn't work like on my car.

So what's the answer and what does it mean? While I've heard of pretensioners on newer cars I've never thought to check it on a scene. What's the benefit of looking for it? I would think that it would indicate the same thing as a deployed airbag (that there was a significant high speed impact) which is easier to see in your 360.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Edit: Looking at the pic again, if that's where the pretensioner locked the seat belt (if that's even what were looking at), it seems too short to have gone across the hips of even the smallest adult. Maybe it's the angle of the pic, but it just looks too short to me. Almost as if they had it buckled but were sitting on the belt instead of wearing it. I don't know, just throwing ideas out there.

Nice topic.

[ChiefKN]

Edit: Looking at the pic again, if that's where the pretensioner locked the seat belt (if that's even what were looking at), it seems too short to have gone across the hips of even the smallest adult. Maybe it's the angle of the pic, but it just looks too short to me. Almost as if they had it buckled but were sitting on the belt instead of wearing it. I don't know, just throwing ideas out there.

Nice topic.

The seat looks like its moved all the way up... so, not sure about it being too short.

Good catch though.

[yjbrody]

Where's Ron?! I want some answers!

[ff900]

I would say the pre-tensioner that was on the retractor mounted in the b-pillar fired. Most pre-tensioner are only going to move the belt a couple of inches.

[Bowbreaker]

It almost looks like it had been caught in the door and was dangling outside the vehicle at the time of the accident. Just my opinion.

Brad

[Rescue101]

I used it to roll the car back over? Hehe. My REAL answer is also pretensioner. T.C.

[captain7]

If the pretensioner fired it would have drawn the seat belt in tight. Not make it slack as the pic shows. I think a rescuer cut the seat belt at the base of the b-post to get it out of the way to remove the patient.

[Rescue101]

If the pretensioner fired it would have drawn the seat belt in tight. Not make it slack as the pic shows. I think a rescuer cut the seat belt at the base of the b-post to get it out of the way to remove the patient.

Doesn't tighten it THAT much.Belts are designed to fit snugly and a pretensioner when it fires adds say another inch or so of tension. AND locks the belt. At least thats my experience with them. T.C.

[nmfire]

You're right. The pretensioners only pull a few inches back into the recoiler.