Is New Nhtsa Crash Test Device The Best Tool To Evaluate Child Car Seats?

Is New Nhtsa Crash Test Device The Best Tool To Evaluate Child Car Seats?

Safety restraints significantly reduce the risk of suffering serious injury in a crash, saving the lives of an estimated 13, 250 passenger vehicle occupants over the age of 4 in 2008, according to the State Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA ). The agency estimates that if all passenger vehicle occupants in this age combine had been restrained that bit, an additional 4, 152 lives could have been saved. A car accident that recently occurred in Orange County, California illustrates the dangers of neglecting to properly secure children in vehicles. While safety restraints save lives, the agency responsible for testing them, the NHTSA, may still need the apparatus necessary to evaluate car seats for massed children, explains an attorney.
According to the NHTSA, motor vehicle collisions are the primary cause of death for children ages 3 to 14, on average claiming the lives of 4 children and injuring 529 every day in 2008. Safety restraints can minimize the impact of a crash and prevent the ejection of passengers from the vehicle, the later being one of the most injurious events that can happen to an resident.
A recent car accident in Orange County illustrates the importance of safety restraints for preventing injury. In early February 2012, all of the members of a family were injured in a crash erase for the youngest, the only one in the vehicle who was restrained. The accident occurred in Origin Valley when the driver of a neutral Volvo overripe left into the path of a charcoal BMW, causing a head - on impact. Neither the parents in the BMW, nor their 5 - and 6 - while - olds were wearing safety belts; all suffered trauma. Only the infant, who was restrained, was not hurt, reported the Orange County Register.
Although the NHTSA has always positive all vehicle occupants—young and old—to indolent safety restraints, it is now recommending that parents keep their children in rear - facing safety seats longer and to wait until they outgrow the roof and check limitations on their seats before lusty them, whether from rear - facing to daring - facing or from safety to booster.
Such recommendations resulted in a need for seats with worthier rule capacities. With an flowering figure of restraints on the marketplace for children weighing 65 to 80 pounds, the NHTSA was tasked with testing their bent at preventing injuries during crashes. The element responded by commissioning the Sort of Automotive Engineers ( SAE ) Makeup Family Task Suite ( DFTG ) to mature a test arrangement marked of a 10 - past - senescent child. In first crash tests using the plan, it was evident that it was not accurately simulating the fruit of an impact on a child: with a stiffer spine and a harder chest than a intrinsic child’s, the dummy’s head would snap down into its chest on impact, causing an unrealistically high crash sock on its head, reported The Washington Post.
While the NHTSA has implemented new strategies for positioning the dummy during tests to perform greater validity, it still has not corrected the characteristics contributing to questionable impact concerning the potential for head injury, prompting it to eliminate head injury criteria from its testing procedures.
As the car accident that recently occurred in Orange County illustrates, safety restraints can significantly reduce the risk of injury from an impact, explains an attorney. However, until the NHTSA’s crash test dummy can accurately measure forces to the head during an accident, it may not be the best tool for assessing the safety of child car seats.