Question Help need RF seat in the Netherlands

Hai All,

I desprately need your help!

I live in the netherlands en RFseats are terribly underestimated. All the seats we have here are FF and I want a RFseat!

Now there is a distributor in sweden - www.carseat.se - however its all nice that he is selling them, but I see no testresults anywhere.

I would love to buy one that is sold in the USA (Britax legend) however it is not sold in EU and also will not happen...

So here I am stuck...

Can anybody help me?

OH I am looking for one with ISOFix base, cause I have a very old car...

Thanx!

Sharonne

Hello and Welcome! We are always happy to see others who realize that RFing is safer despite the lack of resources in your country of residence. :thumbsup:

I am not sure if there is much info in terms of testing in the EU - in Canada and the US all seats are tested to meet standards on a pass/fail basis, and specific safety ratings or test results are not available. I do know though that the seats available from carseat.se are excellent seats with excellent RF limits, and many of us from the US and Canada wish we had them legally available here. I would contact carseat.se and ask for help choosing a seat to fit your specific vehicle and child - AdventureDad (the owner of carseat.se and a member here) has a lot of experience fitting the seats they carry in a number of vehicles and has a lot of great info and tips on correct installs.

Good luck!

If I lived anywhere in Europe, I'd definitely get a Swedish ERF seat and definitely contact AdventureDad.

GL!

Hai again,

actually yes there are lots of test result going from results about front accident impact, sidesways, how easy it is to install the seat, to strap your child in.. etc. All these tests are done by independant organisations. However because of the lack of RF seats there are not a lot of test results about them. And the seats that are tested have avarage scores against some really good scores for the FF seats. They have an extra little "desk"in the seat which covers from the abdomen to the chest, to avoid the neck issue. However I still believe that a RF seat is better...

thanx!
Sharon

We look very little at testing of car seats by organizations in Europe. All car seats must pass ECE R44 testing to be legal to use in Europe. There is a number of organizations also doing their own testing of car seats but this is most often poorly done.

The problem with testing, regardless of country, is that it's biased and subjective. Testing by one organization is also done different compared to another which means it's impossible to compare them. Testing of rear facing seats by organizations in Europe is most often very poorly done and done by people who have none or very limited knowledge of the seats and car seat safety in general.

We more or less ignore testing by these organizations since it's so confusing for customers. An average forward facing seat for a 3-year old might receive a grade of 77/100 while an excellent rear facing seat receive a 37/100 grade. This is very confusing for consumers since the rear facing seat is still 500% safer regardless of the grade.

We have been rear facing children since 1965 in Sweden and have real life experience of the huge safety difference compared to forward facing seats. We know that long rear facing time is most important, type of seat is of less importance.

I run a fitting station for these seats and I ignore consumer test results. they do not reflect what happens outthere on the road. They never did. If they did, there would be no FF seat for the under 4 year-olds period.

I have had many arguments with people in Australia about this FF vs RF issue. Frontal impacts in Sweden are the same as those in the rest of the world. The same thing goes for side impacts and rear impacts. Some nations use top tethers. Others use footprops. These seats are a little closer to RF seats in safety on the road, but still not near them. Cars aren´t much different from one country to the next neither and there are idiots on the road in every country.

The Britax Regent was discontinued last year and it was a forward facing car seat to 36 kg/80 lbs. It has been replaced by the Frontier 85.

Lena

Isn't there a Swedish test that exceeds the requirements that several rear-facing seats have passed? That might be something the original poster is interested in hearing about.

Yes there is. It is called T-Plus and is the only test of it´s kind in the world. It meassures the loads on the neck. It has exsisted for many years - over 30 I think and so far no FF seat has passed it. Not all rF seat can get the approval because they can be turned forward facing and thereby there is a risk that the child´s neck can experience loads that are too high.

http://www.ntf.se/konsument/bilbarnstolar.asp

Lena