Damn seatbelt alert!!!

Does anyone know if it is possible to turn off the passenger seatbelt indicator? I like to put my book bag on the seat next to me and the stupid alert goes off. I know some of my books are a tad on the heavy side but cummon!!!! Someone please save me from having to look it up in the manual :o)

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Comment by Victoria Blow, Founder on May 4, 2009 at 9:16am: I think this same thing happened to a friend of mine, and he had to take it in to the dealership. It's a malfunction. In the mean time, you can just plug in the seatbelt to shut it up! Good luck!

Comment by Tim on May 11, 2009 at 11:54pm: It's not a malfunction sadly, here's what's happening: The matrixed weight sensor in the passenger seat detects enough weight to think someone is in the seat, due to the amount and distribution of the weight across the seat bottom. (This is standard on all new cars with passenger airbags btw, not just the MINI) If the books are <60-80 lbs, and you buckle the seatbelt, it will deactivate the passenger airbag to protect a child that might be up front. Airbags are potentially dangerous to small passengers. (This is also why the airbag may disable itself if a passenger doesn't sit correctly when buckling a seatbelt, even if he/she weighs enough.)

On a tangential note, I just learned today, that they may not deploy in a front end crash that isn't straight on (such as impact from corner of car toward center) due to the angle of the driver's body (you'll be headed toward the A pillar), and how the airbag wouldn't be in the right place to actually cushion you (you would actually potentially bounce off its side into the glass/impact). They're designed for straight on frontal (the one in the steering wheel anyway)

And this concludes 'way too much stuff about airbags.'