Recreational Vehicles and Child Passenger Safety
A resource for CPSTs, CPSTi, and other professionals

Pro Consumer Safety provides Child Passenger Safety Technicians and Instructors, as well as other professionals with educational resources to help improve safety recommendations for parents and caregivers when considering transporting children in recreational vehicles (RV's). However, before providing recommendations, in brief, technicians and instructors must be aware that the safety of rear passengers in a “motorized” RV is unclear due to exemptions of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 seat belt requirements and that RV's are not required to be crash tested. In addition, during a collision, wooden cabinets and bench seats can break apart from the force of the crash and equipment and storage materials can also become projectiles during a collision and injure passengers. Therefore technicians and instructors are encouraged to first review the Fact Sheet below, which describes the classes of RV's, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standards, injury risks among rear-passengers, RV seat belt concerns for child occupants and existing crash test results, and guidelines for parents to consider when traveling in an RV with child occupants. The videos below provide additional background and support to the Fact Sheet. Educational material and resources are also available for download to provide to parents and caregivers, as well as general child passenger safety and other child safety materials. Visit Safe Kids Training for CEU's on this topic.

Questions, call 323-491-6197

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Resources to Provide to Parents and Caregivers

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Link to website

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Educational Handouts

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RV Crash Test Videos

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Bailey motor homes have utilized these crash tests to improve designs of their motor homes to ensure safety of their passengers. This resource illustrates post-test redesign. ​

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Fact Sheet

Suggested Citation (APA):

Pro Consumer Safety. (2014). Recreational Vehicles (RV’s) and Child Occupants [Fact sheet]. Retrieved from http://www.procarseatsafety.com

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