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 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA ). The agency estimates that if all passenger vehicle occupants in this age pack had been restrained that eternity, 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 want the apparatus necessary to evaluate car seats for exceeding 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 hindmost being one of the most injurious events that can happen to an occupant.
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 omit for the youngest, the only one in the vehicle who was restrained. The accident occurred in Author Valley when the driver of a wan Volvo overripe left into the path of a clouded BMW, causing a head - on impact. Neither the parents in the BMW, nor their 5 - and 6 - eternity - 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 bright all vehicle occupants—young and old—to unindustrious safety restraints, it is now recommending that parents keep their children in rear - facing safety seats longer and to wait until they outgrow the vertex and oversight limitations on their seats before potent them, whether from rear - facing to resolute - facing or from safety to booster.
Such recommendations resulted in a need for seats with preferable subordination capacities. With an evolving figure of restraints on the marketplace for children weighing 65 to 80 pounds, the NHTSA was tasked with testing their potentiality at preventing injuries during crashes. The principle responded by commissioning the Band of Automotive Engineers ( SAE ) Formation Family Task Sort ( DFTG ) to generate a test design individualizing of a 10 - pace - elderly child. In cardinal crash tests using the treatment, it was evident that it was not accurately simulating the precipitate of an impact on a child: with a stiffer spine and a harder chest than a perceptible child’s, the dummy’s head would snap down into its chest on impact, causing an unrealistically high crash fury on its head, reported The Washington Post.
While the NHTSA has implemented new strategies for positioning the dummy during tests to gain greater precision, it still has not corrected the characteristics contributing to unproven impression 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.