Car Seat Safety Flaws

Child safety seats cannot be sold in the U.S. unless they pass a 30-mph frontal crash test. Cars can't be sold unless they pass a 35-mph frontal- and 38-mph side-crash test. The 2000 TREAD (Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation) Act requires NHTSA to establish a consumer information program for child car seats that would give consumers information about the ease of use and dynamic performance crash testing at higher speeds than 30 mph. The agency still has not included higher speed crash tests in that information. Currently, the car seat information program includes ease-of-use ratings and tips and advice for parents—but no higher speed crash testing.

Child Safety Seat Scare
Adding to the confusion is a recent Consumer Report story that originally showed child safety seats catastrophically flunking crash testing at 38.5 mph in side impacts. As it turned out, the Consumer Report tests were flawed, not the child safety seats, so the publication withdrew its story. Reacting to frightened parents, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that its own tests showed side-impact tests conducted by an outside lab for Consumer Reports were actually conducted in excess of 70 mph—far above the 38.5 mph example cited by the magazine. NHTSA conducted tests of its own at 38.5 mph and found that all the child safety seats performed well: staying on their bases and not dramatically failing.


A recent study at the University of Michigan examined crash data from 1997 to 2002 to compare the benefit of using child restraint systems to seatbelts alone for children two to six years of age. The statistics showed that child seats reduced by 28 percent child fatalities in a crash.

PROTECTING OLDER KIDS
As kids outgrow child safety seats, usually about four years of age, they should graduate to booster seats—not adult seatbelts. A 2000 study by the Journal of Pediatrics found that children who weigh less than 80 pounds and buckle up with adult seatbelts are almost four times more likely to be seriously injured in vehicle crashes than kids riding in booster seats. The study found that 83 percent of 4- to 8-year olds had graduated to using adult seatbelts too soon. A follow-up study by the same group released in 2003 and based on real-world data showed booster seats virtually eliminated injury to the abdomen and spine in auto crashes.

Seatbelt Syndrome
"Besides providing the first evidence of an overall benefit, this study demonstrated the virtual elimination of 'seatbelt syndrome' for children who used the booster seat," says Dr. Dennis R. Durbin, lead author of the study appearing in the June 4, 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and an attending physician in the emergency department at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "We did not expect to see that dramatic a result." Children who don't fit the seatbelt properly can hit their heads on their knees, jerk forward and damage their spines, or slide out of the belt altogether during a crash. Children who are put in seatbelts too young are not physically suited to the seatbelts. Their legs are too short, their thighs are too short and they scoot forward on the seat. The shoulder belt fits over their face; the lap portion comes up over their belly. For those reasons, the seatbelt becomes the child's enemy in a crash causing severe abdominal and spinal injury.