NHTSA Complaint #11594282 — 2017 HONDA CIVIC

The seatbelt in our Civic became entangled around our child and locked. The more we tried to get her out, the tighter it became. It was so tight around her waist that it left marks. She unbuckled the seatbelt and let a little more back into the retractor, hoping it would unlock but it only got tighter. We were on vacation and had to find a hardware store to buy a socket set to disconnect the seatbelt from the frame of the car, so at this point has to drive on I-70 with a kid tangled in an unbuckled seatbelt. Once we purchased a socket set, there was plastic obstructing access to the bolt, so we had to then purchase a knife to cut away the plastic to access the bolt. All the while, our kid was tangled up tightly in the seatbelt, squeezing her abdomen. There needs to be an emergency seatbelt lock release button. Had this became tangled around her neck, she could have been seriously hurt or killed.