Car Seats – Are They Really Child Safety Seats?
Posted by John Sedgewick - 24/02/11 at 08:02 amTwenty years ago, NHTSA, the federal government agency charged with overseeing vehicle safety, changed the official name of the child’s car seat from “child restraint system” to “child safety seat.” Every parent and grandparent will tell you that child safety is what they expect when they buy and use these special seats. But what is the difference between child restraint and child safety?
Child safety in a car seat starts with the idea of restraint. First the seat must be restrained in the car and then the child must be restrained in the seat.
The safest way to restrain a child’s car seat is to belt or tether it to the vehicle at both the base and the top. Child seats that are not designed to be secured top and bottom are more likely to move within the car during a crash. This creates obvious and avoidable risks of injury.
When it comes to restraining the child in the seat, studies show that the safest approach is the five point harness, which secures the child across both shoulders, both hips, and at the crotch. Other restraint systems, including the three point harness, the tray shield, and the T-shield, are not as effective because they both allow more movement within the seat and increase the risk that a child will strike a sharp edge or a hard object during a crash.
Child safety does not stop with a good restraint system. A good car seat will also be rugged enough so that it does not break or bend too much during a crash event and will have adequate padding so the when the child is thrown against the seat back or sides (or suspended upside down) during a crash event the crash forces will be soft enough that no injury occurs.
Attention to padding and seat integrity in child car seats are extensions of the concepts of crashworthiness which have dramatically altered all aspects of automobile design since the advent of the seatbelt. Cars are much safer today, and child seats should be also. Recognition of this fact was the driving force behind the name change from “child restraint system” to “child safety seat.”
A car seat that does not have adequate straps to hold the seat securely in the car or the child securely in the seat, or which allows a child to suffer lacerations or head or neck injury in a crash may be a defective product.
If you or someone you know believes that a child’s car seat did not perform as a safety seat should, you should promptly contact to a lawyer who understands crashworthiness cases. It is very important to move quickly to secure and protect all of the critical evidence so that the case can be fully and properly evaluated.
John Sedgewick and Berman and Simmons have handled such cases, mostly in Maine but also in other states. Mr. Sedgewick is listed in Best Lawyers in America under the Plaintiff’s Product Liability section, and Berman and Simmons has been named by U.S. New and World Report as Maine’s best Plaintiff’s Product Liability law firm.
