Side-impact protection is the next step to improving passenger car safety.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that child safety seats have saved the lives of more than 7,000 children in the past 20 years. Currently, child safety seats are used in passenger cars to restrain infants and children aged 1 through 3.
Despite significant improvements in the safety and use of child passenger seat, federal agencies still lag behind European counterparts, which require side-impact protection as well as protection from frontal and rear collisions.
“We have been designing and building child seats to meet European side-impact protection standards since 1996,”Jonathan Sieber, RECARO America Director of Marketing and Sales, says: “With a quarter of all accidents categorized as side-impacts, we feel it is a critical component for child safety, and we encourage NHTSA to consider rating side-impact protection.”
Particularly safety agencies are paying attention to side-impact protection of motor vehicles. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (51% more drivers die in side-impact crashes than in front), in crashes involving newer cars involved in collisions involving other passenger vehicles. NHTSA announced new standards for 2009 that will require vehicle manufacturers to start equipping vehicles with better protection. This is in order to reduce the number of fatalities from side-impact crashes, which NHTSA claims account for 28 per cent of all fatalities.
Federal safety standards are applicable to child-seat-only test seats. They were tested in a frontal crash that simulates at 30 miles per hour. Child seats are not subject to side-impact protection.
Sieber says that American consumers should search for models that have been tested and/or certified according to European standards or that provide side-impact protection that they can feel and see.
“RECARO child seats look like race-car drivers’ seats for a reason. Our side impact protection system is inspired by our motorsports background, with extra-large side wings and support for the head, legs and side. Our comfortable padding helps to keep children in a correct seating position and create a protective shell that helps cradle the child in a crash. In addition, consumers can feel the solid structure due to the extra structural support included to help protect the child in a side impact.”
