How often do seatbelts really fail?

L

LuciaBella

Guest
I know about the Kyle Miller story and I read that if he was in a 5pt harness, he would have survived. What I want to know is that his seat belt would still have failed, so then he would be strapped in a 5 point car seat that would be flying around the car. How is that safer?

How often to seatbelts really fail? What is the difference between a seat belt failing with a booster seat, and one that fails with a child restraint?
 
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Maedze

New member
Well, we don't know for 100% sure that Kyle's belt failed (although the vehicle did have Gen III belts). It's equally possible that Kyle unplugged his seatbelt before the accident. He was three years old, after all, and had the typical maturity of a three year old.

Seatbelt failures themselves are rare. The case can be made, though, that if he had been in a harnessed seat and the belt failed, the top tether would have prevented him from being ejected from the vehicle.
 

keri1292

Well-known member
I know about the Kyle Miller story and I read that if he was in a 5pt harness, he would have survived. What I want to know is that his seat belt would still have failed, so then he would be strapped in a 5 point car seat that would be flying around the car. How is that safer?

How often to seatbelts really fail? What is the difference between a seat belt failing with a booster seat, and one that fails with a child restraint?

No one knows what really happened in that case. Did the seatbelt fail or was it unbuckled before the crash?
And yes, it would be safer to be strapped to a var seat flying around a vehicle. Some of those bumps would be absorbed by the car seat and the big bulky seat is less likely to be ejected. Ideally there would be a tether too. It wouldn't hold, but may hold for a split second and slow down the force that the child hits the interior.
 

bobandjess99

Senior Community Member
Yes to everything that has been said...plus, even if the beklt unbuckles from a harnessed seat, it *might* not actually pull through the beltpath, which means the seat might actually stay in the car, whereas an unbuckled person pretty much flies straight out.
 

NannyMom

Well-known member
I asked the same question a year ago. The answer I got was that if he had been in a carseat, at least he would have it's shell to protect him some, and a built in backboard to help protect his spine.
 

rodentranger

New member
But what about the other passengers in the vehicle? A child in a harnessed seat loose in the passenger compartment is going to do serious damage to the other occupants. If the belt did indeed fail with just his tiny three year body and a booster, it likely would have failed with a 20 lb harnessed seat also.
 

Maedze

New member
But what about the other passengers in the vehicle? A child in a harnessed seat loose in the passenger compartment is going to do serious damage to the other occupants. If the belt did indeed fail with just his tiny three year body and a booster, it likely would have failed with a 20 lb harnessed seat also.

The failure issue of the Gen III seatbelts (which are no longer made) was not due to the weight of the passenger.

Regardless, 3 year olds do not belong in boosters.
 

keri1292

Well-known member
But what about the other passengers in the vehicle? A child in a harnessed seat loose in the passenger compartment is going to do serious damage to the other occupants. If the belt did indeed fail with just his tiny three year body and a booster, it likely would have failed with a 20 lb harnessed seat also.

:scratcheshead: No one is suggesting that someone goes out and tests this theory. It's all a big what-if.
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
Seatbelt failure is an extreme rarity. The Gen 3 belts did have problems, but that was a case of the release button being too easy to release - which even then technically wasn't a belt failure - the belt wasn't spontaneously releasing with no interference whatsoever...

We'll never know what really happened in the case of KDM. The case certainly got a lot of publicity and is very sad, but as others say, we don't *know* if that seatbelt was actually buckled before the crash happened. Or if it was buckled all the way etc... (I don't know if he was responsible for buckling himself or if someone else buckled him in, just stating another possibility.)

I'm going to ask and find out if I can get some sort of statistic on how frequent seatbelt failure is. I would bet it's less than 1 in a million though...
 

rodentranger

New member
The failure issue of the Gen III seatbelts (which are no longer made) was not due to the weight of the passenger.

Regardless, 3 year olds do not belong in boosters.
Oh, I'm not suggesting that a 3 year old shoudl be in anything but a harnessed seat.
:scratcheshead: No one is suggesting that someone goes out and tests this theory. It's all a big what-if.
I'm only asking because many people are stating that *Kyle* would have been safer in a harnessed seat rather than a booster, but no one seems to be acknowledging that the other passengers may have been at a higher risk.
At the risk of sounding callous to the Millers' tragedy, assuming the belt would have 'failed' regardless of the seat Kyle was in, the situation as it was resulted in one lost life rather than a whole vehicle's worth. A loose harnessed seat very well could have killed the other occupants.
I don't want to seem like I'm making a smaller deal out of the situation; it is a very tragic event and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. And I'm certainly not advocating the use of a booster for a three year old. My own three year old meets the requirements to use most boosters, and there is no way I'd put him in one.
 

Maedze

New member
I'm not sure that it accomplishes anything to armchair quarterback the scenario at that level. If they had left their last stop 30 second later, the accident would have been avoided and it never would have happened. Not relevant.


The point isn't, what would happen IF but what WOULDN'T have happened, and that is that he wouldn't have been ejected from the vehicle had he been in a properly installed harnessed seat. Further conjecture really...is sort of pointless.
 

mommy-medic

New member
:twocents: If a child safety seat is secured with seatbelt and the belt fails, that belt isn't going to come all the way back through the belt path during the colission unless that one lonnnnng colission! Again, just my two cents, but when you undo the seatbelt, you usually have to manually remove the seatbelt from the car seat, the retractor doesn't pull it out from the shell. (Not saying the seat would stay put or be secure, just saying that the belt is VERY unlikely to come completely out of the safety seat).
 

murphydog77

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
Well, we don't know for 100% sure that Kyle's belt failed (although the vehicle did have Gen III belts). It's equally possible that Kyle unplugged his seatbelt before the accident. He was three years old, after all, and had the typical maturity of a three year old.

Seatbelt failures themselves are rare. The case can be made, though, that if he had been in a harnessed seat and the belt failed, the top tether would have prevented him from being ejected from the vehicle.

They were in a Sienna, so it didn't have Gen III belts.

I don't know of any other instances of seat belt failure. I'm sure it happens, but I haven't heard of it. Nothing is 100% foolproof. If he had been in a tethered carseat, the tether would have at least kept the carseat anchored to the vehicle seat in some manner. It probably would have hit his sister in the process of the van rolling over :shrug-shoulders:.
 

Heather86

Member
The whole situation is a horrible tragedy. We don't know if the belt failed or was un-buckled prior to the accident. imo seat belt failure isn't that common if you look at all the accidents that happen everyday if this was a common occurring things you'd think we'd hear more about it.

Would Kyle have been saved had he been in a harnessed seat ? I don't know. But I think he would have had a better chance survival.

To reiterate maedze (which I seem to do a lot here lately lol) Three year old children don't belong in boosters.Period.
 

Jeanum

Admin - CPS Technician Emeritus
Staff member
The only "official" info. I've ever seen addressing seatbelt failure concerns was this thorough and informative article from Safety Belt Safe USA at http://www.carseat.org/Resources/650_YouTube.pdf that was issued in response to the KDM youtube video. The article cites the relative statistical rarity of seatbelt failure, and also emphasizes best practices for transporting children.
 

Maedze

New member
They were in a Sienna, so it didn't have Gen III belts.

I don't know of any other instances of seat belt failure. I'm sure it happens, but I haven't heard of it. Nothing is 100% foolproof. If he had been in a tethered carseat, the tether would have at least kept the carseat anchored to the vehicle seat in some manner. It probably would have hit his sister in the process of the van rolling over :shrug-shoulders:.

I'm sorry; I was told it was gen III seatbelt issue :eek:
 

Kecia

Admin - CPST Instructor
We'll never know if a 5-pt harness would have made a significant difference in this crash. Nor do we really know how often seatbelts actually "fail" since it's very difficult to prove a failure (i.e., inertial unlatching or false latching) post-crash. Add to that the fact that it is entirely possible to be ejected from a properly worn and properly functioning 3-pt seatbelt in a severe side impact and/or rollover crash.

I think it's also worth mentioning that the vehicle ('98 or 99 Sienna I believe) did not come with factory installed tether anchors. And although it is possible to retrofit them in these MY vehicles, the seating position that the child was using (middle row passenger side) is not a seating position that Toyota allows a TA to be installed in.

If this was a situation that we encountered at a carseat check event today, the best practice recommendations would likely be - put the 3yo in a 5-pt higher-weight harness CR in the captains chair on the drivers side and have a TA retrofitted for that seating position. Keep the 5yo in her booster but move her to the captain's chair on the passenger side since her CR doesn't need a TA.

And yet, none of us can claim to know what the outcome of that rollover crash would have been for these children under different circumstances. We aim to stack the odds in our (and our children's) favor as much as possible but there are never any guarantees in a severe crash.
 

Carrie_R

Ambassador - CPS Technician
My understanding was that the argument that had KDM been in a 5pt harness installed with LATCH, seatbelt failure wouldn't have been a concern... because there was no seatbelt involved?
 

JerseyGirl'sMama

New member
:twocents: If a child safety seat is secured with seatbelt and the belt fails, that belt isn't going to come all the way back through the belt path during the colission unless that one lonnnnng colission! Again, just my two cents, but when you undo the seatbelt, you usually have to manually remove the seatbelt from the car seat, the retractor doesn't pull it out from the shell. (Not saying the seat would stay put or be secure, just saying that the belt is VERY unlikely to come completely out of the safety seat).

I just don't understand this. Even if the seatbelt emergency locking mechanism comes into play at the moment of impact, wouldn't the force alone pull the belt out of the belt path of the restraint? :scratcheshead:
 

bobandjess99

Senior Community Member
I just don't understand this. Even if the seatbelt emergency locking mechanism comes into play at the moment of impact, wouldn't the force alone pull the belt out of the belt path of the restraint? :scratcheshead:

We don't know that. I happen to think there's a decent chance it wouldn't, personally, although of course I have zero true evidence to back it up.

I'm thinking there is a decent chance the male part of the buckle might, for example, get hung up on the shell and NOt get pulled back through the beltpath. Haven't you ever unbuckled the seat belt to uninstall a seat, and you're yanking on teh seatbelt, but the buckle gets hung up and doesn't come stright back through the beltpath? So you ave to grab it and feed it through part way, and then pull it out the other side?
Or...we don'tknow..maybe it wuold pull straight through. Maybe it would get huing up on the shell somehow and the force would rip the shell to pieces.
Heck..the seat belt failed prior to the belt lokcing mechanism kicking in, or if the seatbelt were accidentally unbuckled prior to a crsh, perios, then there might not eve BE enough force on the belt *TO* lock it, depending on the type of retractor used.
Regardless, in the scenarios I can envision in my head, I see an unbuckle harnessed seat without tether swinging towards the shoulder belt, since it would remain inside the beltpath for at lat s a short time, so essentially, the seat swings out towards the door/window, basically smashing the kids face into the side window(assuming a frontal impact). Not a cool picture, to behonest, but stil probably better than being ejected, and really a harnessed seast isn't going to fit through most windows by height, so the seat should stay in the vehicle.
There are just way, way too many variables to have any idea what would truly happen.

as to the ijury aspect...yep, i think having a harnessed seat bouncing around the vehicle as a giant projectile would be hugely dangrous to the other passengers. You would absolutely be trading some measure of safety for the person IN the seat for a reduction in safety to other people in the car.
again, obviously no way to know for certain which woudl be the "better" choice for any given crash. Optimally, all occupants would remain restrained during a crash, of course.
 

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