Kid Seats and LATCH vs 3-Point Debate

[White05X3]

There has been some discussion here and in other places about whether or not you should use LATCH and shoulder/lap belts together. Some people have gotten information that you must NOT use the two together.

I have never understood why that would be. From a logical perspective it would make sense to distribute the force of an impact across as many different points of the car as possible to minimize the change of a belt failure.

To investigate I contacted Recaro (the maker of my car seats). Following is a quote from their reply to me:

"Recaro sees no reason safety reason why using the 3 systems cannot be done. We have tested the seat this way and it has passed testing. I do need to let you know that NHSTA does have issues using both the latch system and the 3pt. harness. They feel you cannot get the proper tension on both the latch and the 3pt harness if using both.



Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards"

Now I don't know if this helps or not but I did find it interesting. Anybody else with information from any manufacturer please post what you get.