There aren't many good options for 7 people in one car. I'm convinced that, provided two of them are between 40 and 88 lbs, a Volvo is better than most. Mercedes E320 is probably the best; a Taurus wagon has bench seats to accommodate 8. I grew up in the third seat of large American station wagons. There are deficiencies to the third seat, as the another poster mentioned, but I do not think these are critical. True, the mini-van comports nicely with the suburban American lifestyle -- but isn't that all the more reason to avoid it?

Lack of storage space is an issue. A small folding stroller could fit between the 2nd and 3rd seat backs -- there is actually a measurable amount of storage there. And, you've go the roof, which is a lot more accessible than a mini-van's. Is it worth burning the extra gas to carry seldom-used storage space everywhere you go?

You cannot use car seats in the back. But, this does not apply to booster seats -- the third seat is essentially a booster -- rated for 40-88 lbs, and actually comes with a booster cushion. So, no problem putting your booster-seat aged kid in the back. A child at the high end of the range may not be very happy on long trips, but are they ever?

Safety of the 3rd seat during a rear-end collision is often raised. This is a classic risk assessment problem. It is complex and we tend to resort to emotion, discarding the least familiar even when it is better. A couple points to consider:

1. It has been reported various places, although I cannot find it in official documents, that the station wagon does not have the same rear crumple zones as sedans. I would tend to believe this to be the case, especially given that the rear ends of these cars do not share sheet metal.

2. Danger from rear-end impact is relatively mild compared to front-end. In 2003, there were 38,252 U.S. vehicle fatalities. 2,076 were rear end. While 3,986 were front-end collision with a moving car, some 18,000 additional fatalities were from collisions with other objects. (see the NHTSA report), for about a factor of 10 increase in risk from front-end versus rear-end impact.

Generally, you don't back up at high speed into another moving vehicle. The exceedingly rare worst case of getting rear-ended while stopped on a freeway is less severe than a common front-end collision on a residential city street.

However, the rear is significantly safer than any other seat in a front-end impact. We don't have real data on 3rd seat safety, but this is an accepted statement. If the 3rd seat is ten times more vulnerable to rear end and half as vulnerable to front-end (which is heavily biased against the 3rd seat), you are still safer overall in the 3rd seat due to the relative rarity of serious rear-end collision.

I think you could formalize this by looking at the ratios of injury to fatalities for various collisions. For example, the ratio of rear-end fatalities to rear-end injuries is only 0.003 while front-end fatalities to front-end injuries is 0.06 suggesting front-end collisions are 20 times deadlier than rear-end. Some of this is due to the decreased energy available in rear-end collisions and some due to facing away from the collision; both factors tend to suggest the 3rd seat is a good place to be.

3. Now look at side impact, 9,184 fatalities. In the 3rd seat, you are farther inboard than the 2nd and between the wheels. That's got to be a lot safer. And again, this is reduced exposure to to a more dangerous risk than the rear-end collision.

4. So, what about the mini-van? Look at how close that mini-van third seat is to the rear bumper! (Or for that matter, the back seat of a typical subcompact hatchback, like Civic.) And, you are facing forward so your head is only inches inside the rear glass, about where your shins are in the Volvo. Meanwhile, the Volvo's rear-facing seat puts the head and torso well inside the vehicle. And, for this increased rear-end exposure, you are no better off in front-end collisions. There is no a priori basis to think the third seat of a mini-van is safer than the 3rd seat of a Volvo -- if anything it is less safe.

5. Finally, consider how much safer the vehicle is overall compared to a mini-van (rollover, brakes, maneuverability), making it much less likely to get into a crash in the first place. In this Ralph Nader world, we forget that a car does not need to be safe (passive safety) if you can avoid getting hit in the first place (active safety)! There is no way I can believe a mini-van is safer than a Volvo wagon -- even especially the 3rd seat.


Last time I brought the wagon in for service, Volvofinders gave me a mini-van as a loner. If their goal was to make me frantic to get my car back, they succeeded!

-Eric