As a mother of three young children involved in a fairly serious crash recently, safety is my number one priority with vehicles. Although seriously considering a Tahoe or Suburban, I could not take the safety of the vehicle seriously when I noticed that the middle seats in the second and third row have no head restraints. What happens to my child in a booster seat or an adult riding in those seats during a frontal or rear collision? There is no protection from whiplash. After noticing this during my test drive, I was disappointed that I could no longer consider owning the vehicle and had to go with a seven seat vehicle with seven head restraints, and a tether for all seats in the second and third row. Do the designers at GM have a reason for not including head restraints for all passengers in the vehicle? I would think this would be a standard as providing seat belts for all seats.

 

So, you went through the effort of registering on a Chevy site just to come on here to complain about a lack of headrests?
So I'm a bad parent because I transport my kids and their friends in my Suburban?

I would guess that the middle seats are seen as short trip, infrequently used seats, so the headrests aren't there for improved visibility for the driver. The frequency of a need for added visibility is greater than the frequency of a need for headrests for middle row.

 

SafeMama Welcome to the forum..

I have had up to 8 people in my Tahoe at one time but not often.
I would have to agree with intheburbs that the likelihood of having all 8 of the potentially 9 (though I have not seen a front bench seat) seats filled regularly and for extended trips, is on the lower percentage side... most scenarios are going to be the 4 or 6 configuration (in my opinion) which all have head rest...

 

My 2nd and 3rd rows have head rests. (I think on the 3rd row because I took it out).

What year Tahoe/Suburban are you looking at?

If you don't need to tow... the Model S is the world's safest vehicle.

It's taken me quite a bit of saving, but I'm planning to buy one, hopefully within two years...


Tesla Model S Achieves Best Safety Rating of Any Car Ever Tested | Press Releases | Tesla Motors

 

I have an Odyssey - all 8 seats have headrests. When there isn't a passenger, they retract into the seat for visibility.

Frankly, this shortcoming does smack of GM's (Ford is guilty too) typical engineering - being a real leader in some areas, while stuck with their head in the sand in others. Where you can see the car is designed by groupthink and bureaucracy rather than people who use it every day.

 

Maybe by then they'll have these problems fixed.