On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, Eric Zeno wrote:

> Seat belts are a real mess these days.    My Jetta has a belt
> that attaches to the door.  The piece on the door is a sharp
> metal blade that aims right at my head.  Any impact on the sides
> would cause this to go right in to me.  I had to cut this off.
> Some real brain dead person let this is a car?

Seatbelts that attach to the doors are a terrible idea.  What if the door
latch fails in the accident?

They mostly were installed during a brief period when the U.S. government
was mandating "passive restraint systems" but not requiring airbags
specifically.  Companies came up with various ill-advised "automatic" belt
systems, some motorized, some just attached to the doors, so they wouldn't
have to spend money on airbags.

David Brodbeck, N8SRE
'86 Volvo 240DL wagon
'82 VW Vanagon Westfalia Diesel (ebay #2481476461)