subject: New design on bus seats [print this page] New design on bus seats New design on bus seats
Bus seats back mounting having a latch pivotably mounted for a limited swinging movement with a recessed catch shaped for engaging a projection on the stationary seat part to prevent forward tilting. The center of gravity of the latch is located laterally and below the pivot point so that during manual tilting of the seat back the force of gravity releases the latch from the projection; and so that during sudden deceleration of the vehicle an inertial force counteracts the force of gravity and prevents unlatching.
A passenger seat back mounting for use in a vehicle seat having a forwardly tiltableback to facilitate rear seat passenger entry and exit, comprising spaced angularly fixed pivot and latch engageable means adapted for fixed attachment to an untilting seat component, back mounting means pivotally engaging said pivot means for movementbetween normally erect and forwardly collapsed back positions, latch means pivotally mounted on said back mounting means movable between normal back erect latching and forward tilting positions, said latch means having a center of gravity vertically andhorizontally spaced from its pivotal center to provide a gravity actuated latch release couple on said latching means when said passenger seat back is manually tilted forward, to provide a predominant inertial activated latch retention force on said latch meansduring sudden deceleration of the vehicle, and to provide an inertia actuated supplemental release couple increasingly responsive to increasingly sudden manually initiated forward seat back movement when the vehicle is stationary.
Bus seats of various constructions are already known, as are hinges of different constructions which mount the rear component of the vehicle seat on the rear region of the seat component of the seat for tilting at least frontwardly from atleast one erect position to a frontwardly collapsed position and back. Then, it is also known to equip the hinges of the hinge arrangement with a fine-adjustment arrangement which enables the user of the seat to select an erect position which is mostcomfortable or convenient to the user.
Under many circumstances, particularly in a two-door passenger car or in a three-door stationwagon, it is desirable or even mandatory that the back rest component of the front seat of the vehicle be tiltable frontwardly into a collapsed positionthereof in order to provide access to the rear part of the passenger compartment of the vehicle, and especially to enable rear-seat passengers to ingress and egress the rear part of the passenger compartment. In this situation, it is desired that theback component of the bus seats be releasable for the frontward tilting in a simple, quick and otherwise convenient way, in order not to unduly inconvenience either the front-seat or the rear-seat passengers of the vehicle.
