Car Seat in the front of a sports car?
 

Most likely will get a lot of slack, but my daughter has been asking me ever since I got the miata as a DD.

Is she allowed in the front passenger seat with a car seat?

A quick Google shows yes and no answers, or states it is required by law by deactivating the passenger air bag?

TLDR
7 yr old child in car seat okay to go in NA Miata passenger seat?

It is confusing... it says they have to be 145cm tall (4'9") to wear a shoulder belt without a booster seat... but when you look at the regulations for booster seats, it doesn't appear there's an acual law saying it can't be in the front seat. The only purpose of the booster seat is to allow the seatbelt to function correctly so I would say from a legal perspective if she's on a booster seat you are good to go.

There's just lots of advocacy groups and orgs like BCAA saying it's "not recommended" to let children ride in the front for safety reasons... but they're not specific.

You will also probably fail the wife test when you ask if it's okay with her hahaha

don't do it

if it's not modern enough to dynamically disable airbags, i wouldn't do it

Does the car seat manual specify where it can and cannot be used?

Legally, she's allowed. If a car is not equipped with rear seats then she's allowed in the front. When I imported my MR2, I had to get a child safety seat anchor installed even though there's no rear seat.

also, depending on the year, the NA didn't have an airbag, so that concern may be a non-issue.

Thanks guys.

Its a 97, so the last year of the NA, resulting in airbags for the driver and passenger =P

I am gonna see what I can do about it, maybe installing a hidden switch for the wire leading to it or something, unless the miata is kind enough to have separate fuses for driver and passenger bags, in which case I can just pull out the passenger fuse...

It's not gonna be an actual "day to day" kids hauling car at all, that goes to the actual family vehicle...more so of an once in a blue moon because she is into that kind of things (all those years of sitting in my lap while I play Gran Turismo am I right?)

She goes to piano class and painting class once a week and its a 5 min drive from my house... giving me the excuse of taking out the Miata instead of the 2.9L/100KM Hybrid lool

Again thanks everyone for the input. If I can convince the wife to deliver my kids to auto-X, hehehehehe.....

I drove my 3 day old, son home, in the front seat of a '64 El Camino. No airbag, no problem.

I found a pretty detailed guide on the BCAA website...
https://www.bcaa.com/community/child-car-seat-safety

Basically yes allowed on front seat. On current new cars, i only see the SRS warning label state no rear-facing seats on the front seat

Not sure how the Miata setup is like, but on the '06+ S2000, the airbag is disabled if the passenger is under a certain weight.

Those can be weird about the weight setting though. In my buddies old Saturn Sky the passenger airbag wouldn't enable even with a ~120lb person sitting there, but in my wifes Toyota Matrix with the passenger seat folded in half and just the end of my exhaust sitting on it and the airbag was enabled.

It's legal if you can disable the airbag and can retrofit a top tether strap anchor (if front facing).

We had our kid's seat in the front of the Sonoma pickup this way.

if your tether was long enough to reach the anchor in the rear seat I wonder if that would still be safe enough or if the extra length makes it ineffective.

No I think if it reaches it would be fine. Tightened down is tightened down.

saw this in a parking lot and reminded me of this post. child seat on passenger side
https://i.imgur.com/97cJly3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FWBnDkZ.jpg

hmmm TE37 on an elise

No airbag, so I suppose it isn't a huge deal.

No way my wife would sign off on that one though!

Yes it's legal. A friend drives his kids in his NSX.

Will your wife agree to it tho.

^ lol no... but the classes are super early and wife already complains about getting up early Monday to Friday to drop kids off for school, since my work starts even earlier....

So she sleeps in on Sat/Sun, and I will drive what I want!!! lol...

At least that's the plan...