A rather concerned friend had me glance at her FF seat after she connected the top tether (because I sent her the carseatblog article), and the seat was both too loose and she'd used the LATCH in the center of the Subaru. Which made me wonder, what's up with LATCH in the center? Specifically:
1. is something keeping most car manufacturers from putting in another set?
2. What's going on with seats not working with borrowed LATCHes? My guess is that the seats themselves are just too narrow: if they were big enough at the base then they would be too big for the car.
3. What is the outcome of people mistakenly using the LATCH in the center--is it just a seat too loose, or do the crash forces do something really weird to the seats, pulling the bases outward or something?
I just felt bad, because this is a woman who clearly didn't read the seat's manual well, but she read it, and her perception was that the middle is safer and that LATCH is safer, so she put the seat in the middle with LATCH. That's gotta be a pretty common set of perceptions among people who care but aren't detail oriented.
1. is something keeping most car manufacturers from putting in another set?
2. What's going on with seats not working with borrowed LATCHes? My guess is that the seats themselves are just too narrow: if they were big enough at the base then they would be too big for the car.
3. What is the outcome of people mistakenly using the LATCH in the center--is it just a seat too loose, or do the crash forces do something really weird to the seats, pulling the bases outward or something?
I just felt bad, because this is a woman who clearly didn't read the seat's manual well, but she read it, and her perception was that the middle is safer and that LATCH is safer, so she put the seat in the middle with LATCH. That's gotta be a pretty common set of perceptions among people who care but aren't detail oriented.