BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to vehicles and in particular heavy goods vehicles also known as trucks. Heavy goods vehicles may have one or more beds or bunks installed in the cabin for drivers seeking rest. It is common practice to place these beds behind the front seats— in particular the driver seat. From a safety perspective this may be undesirable, since, during a collision of a truck, a truck’s cabin may deform and cause the bed to collide. In worst case situation, the bed, in particular a heavy bed platform may impact the occupant seats and even penetrate the seats, which is a big risk for the occupant/driver sitting in it. The bed platform may thus cause, in case of a strong impact due to a collision or forced break manoeuvre, risk of injury to the occupants. The invention aims to reduce the severity and probability of injury due to the bed platform colliding with the occupant seats in the vehicle cabin during a collision.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, an object of the invention is to prevent injury to drivers and/or passengers of a heavy goods vehicle when a bed platform collides with occupant seats in a vehicle cabin. The invention provides for a bed platform laying transverse to a vehicle behind one or more occupant seats inside the vehicle comprising a central portion and one or more outer portions. The bed platform’s central portion aligns with a centre line of the vehicle and the outer portions extend behind the seat in a lateral direction of the vehicle relative to the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. The central portion and/or outer portions have weakened connector portions connecting the central to the vehicle cabin and/or the outer portions. The weakened connector portions align with an inner side surface of the one or more occupant seats. The weakened connector portions allow the central portion to move forward past the occupant seats and the outer portion to remain behind the occupant seats by disconnection and/or deformation of the weakened connector portions from the central portion. Accordingly a substantial mass reduction is achieved of the bed platform that may impact the driver seat.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 shows a front view of a vehicle cabin with a bed platform.

Figure 2 shows a top view of a vehicle cabin with first embodiment.

Figure 3 shows exemplary embodiments having weakened connector portions;

Figure 4 shows a further embodiment;

Figure 5 shows an embodiment having storage boxes.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In Figure 1 a front view of a bed platform 101 is shown. The bed platform may be positioned flat with it’s length transverse to a longitudinal direction of a vehicle inside the vehicle cabin 103. Such a design is common practice in the design of heavy goods vehicles especially long range heavy goods vehicles. The bed platform is located behind occupant seats 102.1 & 102.2 inside the vehicle and provides a platform for a sleeping location. The bed platform 101 has a central portion 104 and outer portions 105.1 & 105.2. The central portion 104 may be approximately in the centre of the width of the vehicle’s cabin 103. It is important that the central portion 104 is not in line with one or more of the occupant seats 102 when viewed from the front of the vehicle. The outer portions 105.1 & 105.2 are the bed platform portions that extend behind the one or more seats 102 in a lateral direction of the vehicle relative to the vehicles longitudinal direction. The outer bed platform portions 105 may be connected to weakened connector portions 202 (shown in Figure 2). The weakened connector portions may disconnect or deform, eg. by buckling, deflecting, collapsing or fracturing which may change a dimension of the weakened connector portion to allow the central portion 104 to move sideways past the occupant seats 102. The extension and mass of the outer portions is lower than the central portions. In the present embodiment the outer portions 105 may buckle, deflect, collapse deform, fracture or equivalent when the bed platform 101 may be pressed against the occupant seats 102 in a longitudinal direction relative to the vehicle, and due to the relative low mass form a limited impact factor to the occupant seat when colliding. The number of the outer portions 105.1 & 105.2 and seats 102.1 &

102.2 are not a determining factor as long as each seat may be associated with the corresponding weakened connector portion of the bed platform. That is to say that if there is only one seat the bed platform may have only one weakened connector portion.

In Figure 2 central portion 104 and outer portions 105.1 & 105.2 are connected by weakened connector portions 202.1 & 202.2. The weakened connector portion

202.1 align in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle with the inner side surface

201.1 of the occupant seat 102.1. Similarly weakened connector portion 202.2 aligns with an inner side surface 201.2 of the occupant seat 102.2. The bed platform 101 may be pressed against the seats 102 when the vehicle collides with another object. The collision may be in any direction of the vehicle and may deform the vehicle cabin 103. The deformation may be due to a vehicle load or freight which may be towed by the vehicle and collides with the vehicle cabin during the collision. The weakened connector portions 202 may allow the central portion 104 to move forward sideways past the occupant seats 102 and the outer portions 105 to remain behind the seats 102 by separation and/or deformation of the outer portions 105 from the central portion 104. The weakened connector portions 202 allow the central portion 104 to move forward past the said occupant seats 102 and the said outer portions 105 to remain behind the said seats 102 by disconnection and/or deformation of weakened connector portions 202 from the central portion. The weakened connector portions 202 may form a boundary between the central portion 104 and the outer portions 105.

Figure 3 shows a number of variations of a bed platform panels 904.1— 904.6 which may be formed by a panel, e.g. of a plastic or organic fiber (wood) product. The depicted panels are rigid and may typically be made from medium density fibre board, plastic or other rigid materials. The portions 905 of the panel 104 may extend past the weakened connector portions 202 and may break away from the central portion 104 of the bed platform 101 due to the weakened connector portions 202. The weakened connector portions 202 may allow the central portion

104 to move forward sideways past the occupant seats 102 and the outer portion

105 to remain behind the seats 102 by separation and/or deformation of the outer portions 105 from the central portion 104. Various weakened forms 905.1— 905.6 are possible to form the weakened connector portions 202 which may include slots 905.1, holes 905.2 which may have any shape such as square, round or polygonal, extending portions such as winglets with grooves 905.3, extending portions suck as winglets with perforations 905.4, grooves 905.5 in the 904 panel or perforations 905.6 in the panel 104. The extending portions 905 may break away from the central portion 104 and may have connectors 906 which connect the extending portions 905 to the outer portions 105. The connectors 906 may be latches, locks, hooks or other connectors suitable to connect the extending portions 905 with the outer portions 105.

In Figure 4, a bed platform 101 is shown with spacers 1001 at holes that are provided in a weakening pattern. The spacers 1001 are designed to slightly lift the mattress 1002 off of the bed platform 101 and may create a space 1003 for ventilating the mattress 1002. Ventilating helps to maintain the mattress 1002 in a good state.

In Figure 5 a bed platform 101 is shown which may have outer portions 105 formed by a cover of a storage container 701. Accordingly, the storage containers 701.1, 701.2 may have one or more top surfaces which at least partially form the outer portions 105 of the bed platform 101 in the same plane as the bed platform 101 top surface. The connector portions 202 may connect the central portion 104 to the top surfaces of the storage elements 701. The storage elements 701 may have a cubic shape but may have other shapes or forms as well which may have a top surface 701 able to form an outer portion 105 of the bed platform 101. The storage elements 701 may be less rigid than the central portion 104 of the bed platform 101 which may cause the storage elements 701 to collapse, buckle, deform or deflect in case of the collision with the vehicle. The top surface of the storage containers 701 may similarly be less rigid than the central portion 104 which may cause the top surface of the storage elements 701 to collapse, buckle, deform or deflect in case of the collision with the vehicle.