OK, so here are some statistics about child safety seats. 8 out of 10 seats are installed improperly. That means nearly every child who is sitting in a seat specifically designed for safety and costing upwards of $200 is still at great risk if in a crash. Seats for newborns to children up to 30 pounds should be faced backwards in the back seat. If installed properly car seats reduce the risk of death by 71 percent. For children weighing more than 30 pounds a front-facing car seat (properly installed) reduces the risk by 54 percent.
Parents and child care professionals obviously think that they are installing these seats properly, when in fact most of them are not. Most states hold safety inspections for new parents with new car seats; for instance, local emergency workers in Austin-Travis offer inspections free of charge - they take the process very seriously. For a list of child safety inspection locations, click here.
Then there is the question of design: Gracco recently recalled nearly 44,000 car seats that included a comfort pillow. This pillow obstructed the installation instructions. The design was to provide comfort to the child, but laws state that the install instructions have to be in plain sight. Britax is recalling certain versions of their Frontier safety seat. These models of the Frontier were designed with straps that can become detached (from a metal fitting in the back) if the straps in front are loosened separately. This is a design flaw that would not be able to be detected since it is at the rear of the seat and out of view.
Designers and engineers have a tough job. They have to make new, innovative and exciting products every year; possibly even manufactured without enough time to thoroughly test them through repetitive use and crash tests.
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