The Chicago Tribune recently reported that unpublished government crash tests showed 31 of 66 infant car seats separated from their bases or exceeded injury limits.
The government ran the tests, but never published the data—or even informed many car seat makers of the concerns.
Why did so many infant car seats fail? The government’s tests were more severe than the usual tests that car seat makers use. Infant car seats are tested on a bench seat in a 30 mph head on crash. But these government tests used actual vehicles in 35 mph crashes, both frontal and side impact.
Three specific seats were cited in the report: The Combi Centre/Shuttle, which was recalled and redesigned after failing the government test. Also the Britax Companion “exceeded injury limits”—that seat is now discontinued but still for sale on some sites. The Graco SafeSeat also was cited in the report as flying off its base during a crash—
Graco disputes that report and says the government didn’t properly secure the seat.
The Evenflo Discovery also failed the tests—and this led to a recall of 1 million Discovery infant seats last year.
Of course, the big question here is: why didn’t government make public these crash tests? And are the current bench seat tests accurate in assessing car seat safety?
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That is pretty scary. How can we find out what car seats really are the safest?
That is pretty scary. How can we find out what car seats really are the safest?
How come this isn’t in the news? is this something to be concerned about???
Last time Consumer Reports did a test on infant car seats, they found that the tests were performed incorrectly, leading to biased results.
Could there be something similar going on here?
How come this isn’t in the news? is this something to be concerned about???
Last time Consumer Reports did a test on infant car seats, they found that the tests were performed incorrectly, leading to biased results.
Could there be something similar going on here?
I agree. This is scary. We do the research and try to get the safest car seats for our kids, and then we find out they might not be so safe after all. Very frustrating!