Jan. 5, 2007
Most Infant Car Seats Flunk Crash Tests
Consumer Reports: Many Performed 'Disastrously'; Only Two Made Grade
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(CBS/The Early Show)
The seats came off their bases or twisted in place, the report said. In one case, a test dummy was hurled 30 feet.
Of the 12 car seats tested, Consumer Reports said it could recommend only two, and it urged a federal recall of the poorest performing seat, the Evenflo Discovery.
Evenflo issued a statement disputing the tests' validity, saying, "The magazine's test conditions and protocols appear to conflict with the collective experience of car seat manufacturers, NHTSA (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and the scientific community."
To be sold in the United States, an infant seat must perform adequately in a 30 mph frontal crash, and Consumer Reports found that all but the Discovery did so. But it noted that NHTSA crash tests most cars at higher speeds — 35 mph for frontal crashes and 38 mph for side crashes — so the magazine tested the seats at those speeds.
"It's unconscionable that infant seats, which are designed to protect the most vulnerable children, aren't routinely tested the same as new cars," said Consumer Reports' senior director of product safety and consumer science, Don Mays.
Carmakers have improved the crash protection of vehicles as a result of the 38 mph tests, but there hasn't been any incentive to do it for child car seats due to the 30 mph standard, Mays told co-anchor Hannah Storm on The Early Show Friday.
"Those are actually disappointing results," he remarked to Storm.
NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason issued a statement saying: "We are always interested in making car seats better and safer but not more complicated and difficult for parents. ... We don't want consumers misled into thinking holding a child is better than putting it into a car seat."
Nine seats failed some or all of the higher-speed tests, Consumer Reports said, while meeting the federal 30 mph standard. Another seat was judged unacceptable because it did not fit well in several cars, the magazine said.
Messages seeking comment were left with the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, a trade group.
The magazine tested the type of seat that faces the rear and snaps in and out of a base. It used test dummies weighing 22 or 30 pounds, depending on the seat manufacturers' claims.
In the 35 mph test, seats separated from their bases, rotated too far or would have inflicted grave injuries, Consumer Reports said. At 38 mph, four seats flew out of their bases, it said.
The only seats that passed all the tests were the Baby Trend Flex-Loc and the Graco SnugRide with EPS — expanded polystyrene foam — both selling for about $90. Consumer Reports urged parents shopping for seats to buy one of those two, but it also noted that "any child car seat is better than no seat at all."
It also said some seats performed better when attached by vehicle safety belts than when attached with the LATCH system. The system, which stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, includes belts that hook the base of a car seat to metal anchors in the vehicle.
To read the entire Consumer Reports article describing the tests, click here.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 24 CommentsI'm not sure how strong you are but lets do some simple mathematical calculation to see...if you were riding along in your car and you were to somehow end up in a crash, lets say you rear ended someone, or hit a tree, or some solid object at 30 MPH (which isn't too fast and could definitely occur) and you or your passenger were holding your 15 pound child in your arms, then Newton's Second Law would come into play that states "an object in motion will remain in motion until it reaches some other object to reduce this movement"...the formula F=ma (force = Mass * acceleration)...so to simplify this calculation...Force you need to hold in your arms during the crash described above = 15 pounds * 30 MPH....leading to 450 lbs of force...are you that strong?..that object that was mentioned above in Newton%u2019s second law could be the dashboard or the windshield%u2026please use car seats, even if you think they take away from %u201Cmama time%u201D, they truly do save children%u2019s lives.
Lets start with the fact that your original post was removed from this site because of its invalid and unsupported statements, so that really supports your case nicely.As I mentioned before, I'm sure that your car seat was in there as tight as possible, and that is would not move one bit, in ANY direction if you were ever in a crash (which I am assuming you and your improperly installed car seat and your child were never in, but we do know that you crash your old cars into trees with bowling balls in your car seats...and your newly born child is so similar to a bowling ball...good comparison on that one buddy) it would not have moved at all and all the force would have gone through your childs body, as opposed to being absorbed by the one end (the end not secured by the cars seat belt) of the car seat riding up and then down to absorb the energy of the crash. Physically, a child under one year old and 20 pounds is not developed enough to withstand the forces of a crash if they are forwarding facing, that is why we do not put them in a "nascar 4 point harness system"...as adults, our collar bones and pelvis are fully developed and the best places to for a seat belt, but children under 1 year old do not have this luxury and their strongest part of the body is their back...thus, why we have them rearward-facing in a properly installed car seat and not in nascar 4 point harnesses...perhaps reading the manual would have helped you install your child's car seat properly...
You can't see the warning, when the lamp ain't lit.
Safe roads, NO DRUNKS, driving lessons, no fighting in the car, no smoke, paying attention,no road rage etc. are the things that mean for safty on the road, not these silly buckets!
Those silly buckets are a good way for the local police to make afew bucks on FINES if the kid isn't strapped in, and good income for the bucket makers, but what a WASTE of good mama time when the family is tooling down the road.Waste of thousands of hours of good Mama time,or big sister or Grandpa or....
When those babies should be held out flat in Mama's arms, they are slumping in a heap in those crazy buckets! Have their little backs been checked? NECK PAIN? Do they wake up more cranky than if a human held them? Do held babies bond with their human parents more than bucket babies?
Oh Ya, and don't forget the FLAT heads those kids get that are stuck in the bucket too long!and those crazy stollers too....anti social, teach the kids nothing more than all sorts of feet walking by. A Baby needs to see the world from Dad's Elbow height!
Ok jerkwad, where do you think that the carseat is attached? The seat belts right? Where are the seat belts attached? The frame of the car right? Using my method of restraining the carseat was far the best solution. My solution is equivalent to NASCAR 4 point seatbelt systems, perhaps NHTSA could get a few pointers from them.
I am also looking at purchasing the Eddie Bauer Deluxe and Elite. What can you tell me about those?
And to mr or mrs camaro driver, I really hope you aren't talking about putting your baby in a carseat in the front bucket seats... sell your car and buy something a little more kid minded if you are cause that definitely would not have your baby's best interests in mind.
And to mr or mrs camaro driver, I really hope you aren't talking about putting your baby in a carseat in the front bucket seats... sell your car and buy something a little more kid minded if you are cause that definitely would not have your baby's best interests in mind.
Thanks,
Concerned Nana
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