I was looking at the new 90 defender with the forward facing rear seats and at older TD5 model with the side facing seats, is there a major safety issue with the side facing seats?

all new vehicles have to have forwards facing seats to comply with the new EU child seat belt laws. with side facing seats if you carry a child in them your not allowed to use and restraints or seatbelts because none of them mee the regs. So it's ok to have an unsecured child in a sidefacing seat but it's illegal to belt em in to one. Ah the law what would we do without it??

apparently a lap belt on a side facing seat will pretty much chop you in half, break your spine and rupture all your lower innards if you're in anything approaching a serious collision - and hence you cant belt kids in.

In fact, no-one has to wear seat belts in side facing seats for the above reasons..

much better to fly forward and be chopped up by a dog guard into human french fries, or kill the front passengers.