[s-cars] 3rd Row Safety

[HOOG23 at aol.com]

Just doing some research on the subject.  The electronics on my wife's  '01 
330 are starting to go wacky.  I only have one 2 yr old but  my wife is always 
going out with her sister and her 2 toddlers.  She  wants something larger to 
fit everyone but neither of us wants a SUV.   Right now they can barely get 3 
seats across to fit in the sister's  saturn vue.  
 
I actually never tried to fit 3 child seats in the audi but it actually has  
a inch more width in the rear seat than the saturn.
 
It seems in general that the consensus is that the 3rd row is very safe for  
kids large enough to not need child or booster seats if they have headrests 
and  3 point belts.  
 
Interesting read from the NA President of Volvo on the subject.
 
_http://au.geocities.com/ozbrick850/crash-rear.html_ 
(http://au.geocities.com/ozbrick850/crash-rear.html) 
 
So from my limited research, depending on what we eventually replace  my 
wife's car with, I think my solution will be finding seats that aren't  as wide as 
the current seats and foregoing the 3rd row for now. 
 
Dave