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You can watch the story online at the NBC news site by going to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ and then clicking on the 70 mph sign to view the video.
Today, Nicole Nason, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in a statement that NHTSA re-tested the same child seats tested by Consumer Reports and found all were safe at speeds of 38.5 mph. NHTSA said that the Consumer Reports side-impact tests were erroneously conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at 70 mph.
They outsourced it? They OUTSOURCED it? They want us to believe they are doing everything to keep our babies safe, that our kids are going to die if we don't do exactly as they say, and they OUTSOURCED the tests? Oh. My. God. I'm.... I'm totally speechless. I knew they sucked, but THIS?
I heard on the radio today that CR had retracted the carseat article because their side impact tests were actually faster than initially claimed.
The NBC article said that at first too, but then later in the article it said, "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . . . said the crash tests were conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at more than 70 mph — about twice as fast as the magazine contended."
(emphasis mine)
So I'm betting that the tests were actually conducted at 35 and 38 mph as Consumer Reports claims, but they didn't realize that this did not even come close to representing the crash forces on an infant seat within a car crashed at those speeds. Which is really not too bright on their part.
A gal on babycenter's husband works for the place where they did the testing. I guess they do lots of test for carseat companies... but they are told what to test and they do it. It's a school testing lab. CR said do it at 38mph - but I guess (I don't understand the physics) - whatever they do is like an accident at 70mph. The lady said her husband told her from the get go that CR was crazy. He said it wasn't a real life test. Obviously someone took these results and interpelated them COMPLETELY wrong. so dumb... don't they double and triple check their results? idiots.
It is also concerning watching the video clip when they interview a woman at the end saying that she is still unsure about infant seat safety because 70 mph is what she drives on the freeway. People don't understand crash dynamics and what speeds crashes actually occur at--they just know how fast they drive. I didn't know that a 30 mph crash was actually a very severe one before learning on this board.
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