How many times have we heard muttering, even cursing, from parents (including ourselves) as we try to install children’s safety seats in cars? Yes, we all know how important safety seats are. When properly used, child restraint systems reduce fatal injuries by 71 percent for infants and by 54 percent for toddlers. The key here is "when properly used." So why can’t manufacturers make them easier to install?
As Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters recently said, “even the safest car seat can’t protect a child if it isn’t installed correctly.” And data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicate that 7 out of 10 child safety seats are either the wrong size or seriously misused.
Fortunately, NHTSA has just revised its rating method for child restraints with a new system to better grade child safety seats for ease of use. The revised NHTSA system awards up to five stars in four different categories:
- The content and clarity of the labeling;
- The content and clarity of the instructions;
- The ease of securing the child;
- The ease of installing the restraint system in the car.
There is also an overall rating, with five stars being the highest rating, one the lowest.
Previously NHTSA had rated child restraints for ease-of-use assigning letter grades of A (highest), B and C (lowest) but recognized that though the rating protocol had been successful in encouraging manufacturers to improve their designs, recent ratings resulted in most seats being given the highest A grade. For seats evaluated for 2007, for example, 81 percent received an A rating. The revised rating system is designed to better differentiate among seats and give manufacturers further incentive to add easy-to-use features as well as to address features related to LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) installation.
Unlike the star ratings assigned to new vehicles for their performance in crash tests, this new rating system doesn’t measure how effective each child seat is in protecting a toddler or infant in a crash—although all child restraints sold in the U.S. are already required to comply with federal crash-protection standards.
Even so, the new ratings should provide another source that parents and caregivers can turn to when comparing how easy various seats are to use. For that, we applaud NHTSA's efforts.
How we test
Consumers Union has traditionally provided ease-of-use ratings for
child restraints. And we expect seats that incorporate features resulting in high ratings for ease-of-use in our Ratings will score well
under NHTSA's new system as well. But Consumers Union undertakes two
additional key evaluations. CU installs each of the seats it evaluates
in a variety of vehicles to actually utilize the vehicle installation
features and to arrive at a rating for a seat's fit-to-vehicle
performance. Rather than just checking for the existence of easy to
use installation features these actual installations in current model
cars with different seat, seatbelt and LATCH configurations allow us to
see how seats integrate within a vehicle's seat, if child restraints are truly
secure when seat belts or LATCH straps are tight, how easy connections
are to make in real vehicles, and if tether and lower LATCH straps
reach and are easy to adjust and tighten.
In addition, Consumers Union also includes ratings on how each seat performs in simulated crash tests that either meet or exceed conditions for minimum performance as indicated by government standards. Crash test performance is the other key element of a child restraint's overall performance.
A seat that installs wonderfully but protects poorly in a crash, or a seat that protects a child in a crash very well but is difficult to install are equally detrimental to a child's safety. Our ratings are intended to provide an indicator of both areas of performance and to provide a check for consumers that child restraints are at least meeting minimum standards. Manufacturers of child restraints currently self-certify that their products meet the standards and testing such as ours provides a good "check" that they do.
Regardless of how a car seat rates with NHTSA or Consumer Reports, remember to:
- Use it every time you travel, no matter how short the trip. Any seat is better than none at all.
- If you're not sure, make use of resources such as local seat inspection stations to be sure you have both the seat and your child installed correctly and that the seat is correct for the size and age of your child.
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