For wheelchair accessible modified van vehicles, both wheelchair access and standard seating need to be accommodated. For the seats in the vehicle, people often wonder if wheelchair seats can simply be interchanged with regular seats. There are a number of factors to consider, but we do not recommend a simple seat swap.

 

• Safety Standards

Standard van seats and wheelchair seating configurations meet stringent safety standards and crashworthiness requirements and have been safety tested to withstand the impact of an accident and provide adequate protection for occupants, and simple replacement of the seats may increase the risk of injury in the event of a collision.

• Airbag Deployment

Airbags are deployed according to the position and direction of the seats in the van. Simply replacing the seats may cause the airbags to change or even fail to deploy properly, resulting in a serious accident.

• Laws and regulations

Randomly modifying the seat may jeopardize the proper use of the seat and the safety system, and may not comply with industry standards and laws and regulations, exposing you to the risk of fines or other legal consequences.

 

From a safety and legal point of view, although it's easy to simply replace a wheelchair seat in a van with a regular seat, we don't recommend doing so because changing the design of these seats could jeopardize passenger safety and legal compliance. If you want to make the change, you can do so safely and compliantly by using a folding seat base, transferring the seat, or consulting a professional van conversion specialist.