Rear facing tether towards front of vehicle - why?

unityco · Jan 30, 2007

Please talk to me about why I'd want to tether my rear-facing seat to the front of the vehicle. I can totally see the benefits of tethering it towards the rear, but other than assisting with proper angle, I don't understand the crash benefits of forward tethering. I have visions of a springboard effect - the seat back moving down in a crash (not restrained at all by the forward tether) then stopping suddenly on the rebound (because it is held by the forward tether) and launching my child's head off the seat until it rebounds itself, causing it to impact the seat - instead of both head and seat moving together. Please tell me what I'm missing!

joolsplus3 · Jan 30, 2007

Check this page for some good information first, see if it answers your question http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/BraceTether.aspx

wendytthomas · Jan 30, 2007

And what seat are you using? Only Britaxes and Sunshine Kids Radian can be tethered RFing.

Wendy

scatterbunny · Jan 30, 2007

Swedish RF tethering, tethering toward the front of the vehicle, prevents rebound, or cocooning.

Australian RF tethering, over the top of the carseat to the back of the vehicle (to a standard FF tether anchor) prevents overrotation (the carseat moving downward toward the front seat or floorboards of the car). Australian seats have anti-rebound features already, so they can tether this way to prevent overrotation and not worry about rebound.

In the US most use Swedish tethering to prevent rebound of the carseat into the vehicle seatback, and brace the top of the carseat shell against a front vehicle seat to prevent overrotation, if possible.

This page might help, too: http://www.carseat.org/Technical/tech_update.htm#toptetherRF

unityco · Jan 30, 2007

wendytthomas said:
And what seat are you using? Only Britaxes and Sunshine Kids Radian can be tethered RFing.

Wendy

I don't have any seat at the moment... just researching my options for number 2... I do realize that not all seats can be tethered while rear-facing.

unityco · Jan 30, 2007

scatterbunny said:
Swedish RF tethering, tethering toward the front of the vehicle, prevents rebound, or cocooning.

Australian RF tethering, over the top of the carseat to the back of the vehicle (to a standard FF tether anchor) prevents overrotation (the carseat moving downward toward the front seat or floorboards of the car). Australian seats have anti-rebound features already, so they can tether this way to prevent overrotation and not worry about rebound.

In the US most use Swedish tethering to prevent rebound of the carseat into the vehicle seatback, and brace the top of the carseat shell against a front vehicle seat to prevent overrotation, if possible.

This page might help, too: http://www.carseat.org/Technical/tech_update.htm#toptetherRF

From the above page: "Finally, tests conducted by a competitor a few years ago showed that dummy neck loads increased significantly when the restraint was tethered to the floor in both frontal and rear impacts."

This is basically what I'm afraid of... so are the risks worth the benefits, or is it 6 of one, half a dozen of another?

NZ Child Restraints · Jan 31, 2007

Here in NZ we only tether to the rear of the vehicle in both rf and ff mode.

Interested in these concepts above.

joolsplus3 · Jan 31, 2007

unityco said:
From the above page: "Finally, tests conducted by a competitor a few years ago showed that dummy neck loads increased significantly when the restraint was tethered to the floor in both frontal and rear impacts."

This is basically what I'm afraid of... so are the risks worth the benefits, or is it 6 of one, half a dozen of another?

Yeah, what exactly does increased neck loads MEAN? Is it really increased injury potential? The swedes have been tethering in this manner for decades and reporting phenomenally low head and neck injury rates for these kids, so the bulk of the evidence points to increased neck loads not being a real concern, I think.

scatterbunny · Jan 31, 2007

joolsplus3 said:
Yeah, what exactly does increased neck loads MEAN? Is it really increased injury potential? The swedes have been tethering in this manner for decades and reporting phenomenally low head and neck injury rates for these kids, so the bulk of the evidence points to increased neck loads not being a real concern, I think.

That's my thinking, too. If it really were a problem, we'd see more real-world proof of that.

And about NZ/AU seats tethering over the top of the carseat to the rear of the vehicle, that's to prevent overrotation, right? And their seats already have anti-rebound features, right?

Here, most seats do not have anti-rebound features. When I consider overrotation and rebound, I guess I'd rather prevent rebound by tethering Swedish style. Overrotation will be taken care of in most cases by the top of the carseat coming in contact with the front vehicle seat(s).

Rear facing tether towards front of vehicle - why?

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