SLROC Forum

The Puma bit would explain it Doug - EU regs require new vehicles ( post 2006 ?) to have forward facing seats. The Tithonus vehicles are retreads of the older defenders, so can be upgraded but still retain bench seats, the Wolf fleet pre-dates the Regs an'all.

We have two newish "white Fleet" Puma 110 SW, the fold up rear seats are pretty useless and take up most of the load-space. Daft to think that a vehicle that used to have up to 12 ( uncomfortable...) seats is now down to 7.   

I just wondered is there any statistical evidence to show that inward facing seats put passengers at greater risk of injury......we dont go fast.

With the new forward facing seats you cant even get the dog in(when in use) folded they still take up a huge amount of space,and no exemption from congestion charges

in tests the safest seats are rear facing seats. in a crash you are pushed back into the seat rather than thrown forward in a front facing seat or sideways in a side facing seat (although rear facing could be a bit tricky for the driver ) there was even campaigns for all buses especialy those used for transporting kids to have rear facing seats....but the modern trend is for forward facing.
landrovers get hit with the same rules as cars with regards to seats, airbags, side impact bars, crumple zones etc etc etc yet it seems these old dinosaurs with no modern safety gadgets has a higher than average passenger survival record (i do hope no one has had experience to the contrary) but they do seem to fair better than average