Re: Rumble Seat Risk
In my mind, the risk of the seat closing per se is not the important risk - rather, the risk is that the bodies of the grandkids, which are in motion, will tend to remain in motion when the brake is applied. The danger is from the metal parts immediately in front of them, not from the backrest behind them.
The way we addressed this problem was to install lap belts in the rumble seat and then to put the kids in standard safety carseats with five-point harnesses. The seat is sufficiently rigid to keep the rider's torso from rotating forward. However, this won't work after they outgrow the car seats.
You could take the car out with no one in the rumble seat and try a panic stop to see what happens. My guess is that the pivot point for the seat is high enough that it would not close on its own.
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