How do these Radians look?

bnsnyde · Jun 15, 2012

FF kid in pink (just turned FF but she's 4.5), and RF kid in back (almost 3). Their heads are very close together, it seems. Or, is this not a problem? There is only so much I can do.

Our van is really full, and these 2 kids are both in the middle, so I love that! Is this setup OK? Any RF kid probably has a headrest behind him anyway, but this is a hard Radian. And the RF kid is not a baby so...his head is up there, though maybe 3 inches left of shell.

And talk about new reasons to turn FF (but again, she is 4.5). Well, my back gave out from hoisting the baby into his RF seat in the middle, so I moved him outboard for easing RF loading, and then moved my girl to the 8th seat (which works with the FF Radian great).

Bad news is she is 39.5 pounds so I'll have to, at some point in the future, reinstall w/o safestop. We are using SL. I didn't even try the ceiling seatbelt. Anyway, by 2013 we'll have a Frontier85 here. (And I finally did a seatbelt install I am happy with for my other son, over 50 lbs., in his FF Radian. The new 2014 Latch guidelines kind of nudged me to try it again.)

And after all this, my back is shot.

bnsnyde · Jun 15, 2012

Any thoughts?

melniemi · Jun 15, 2012

Can you put your 2 ffers in the third row and 2 rfers side by side in the middle row, leaving the passenger side open for easy access?

That's what I would choose if I had those seats.

bnsnyde · Jun 15, 2012

We did have that set up!

Then I switched my daughter back to RF at 3 years old. And seatbelt installs back there FF are not good. Anyway...

Oldest FF is outboard curbside to get out/in easily at school drop-off, and second oldest (now FF too) is next to him to also easily get out for school in a year. That's pretty much where they need to be their whole academic careers.

The RF child in back can remain in the middle for now, or I suppose go outboard (but there would have to be a really good reason).

I just really like the middle for safety it if works out (so I love my 3 in a row in the middle, and a child in the middle in back). Oh, and easy access is only a dream because if we add baby #5 then we're pretty much going to have to be used to no access to the third row anyway. Maybe a small inflatable (soft) thing they can step on to catapult into the 3rd row from the trunk...it if comes to that.

bnsnyde · Jun 16, 2012

I'm wondering if the safety of the middle (RF kid in third row) is the best choice, or if he should be outboard driver side so if his head ramps up there would be nothing there (as it's just a RF seat in front of him and I could remove headrest).

But I know the middle is a lot safer so I'm trying to weigh the benefit vs. risk.

gsdguenter · Jun 16, 2012

I know the middle is safer, but is it A LOT safer? I guess I thought the difference between middle and outboard wasn't huge, safe for sure, but nothing to loose any sleep over.

bnsnyde · Jun 16, 2012

I read 30%, which is huge. Not sure if that's right; I just remember reading that. But the advantage of the middle, whatever it is, makes me want to use it if my setup seems OK.

I always lose sleep over my carseat set ups, every time I change.

Since I can't do absolute best practice with 4 kids, or well... they'd all be in the middle of the van, middle seat, lol.

Nimommyof2 · Jun 16, 2012

What if you did two in each row? So the RF behind driver stays, the passenger seat FF goes middle and than in the back do the RF outboard and the FF outboard as well(cause isn't there latch in the two outboard postions?) or I guess the FF would weigh to much?

Or couldn't you just put your RF behind the other RF(RF from what I read is quite safe even outboard)

Does the RF diono seat have an angle adjuster if not that should give you alot more room and than they could stay the way they are.

Or what if you put the headrest back on the seat would that kind of put blockage between the two seats touching?

Last option would be to switch the RF behind driver to middle and the FF diono seat to behind driver. can't they just climb under the RF seat and still get out passenger side?

NatesMamma · Jun 16, 2012

Where did you see 30%? I'd be interested in reading that source, as I've never seen that, either. My guy tells me that, especially for a RF child, the actual safety difference can't be that much. But who knows.

If it were me, I'd move the seat in the 3rd row outboard and call it good. However, in a crash both the RF kid and the FF child, plus their seats, are going to be moving in the same direction. My *guess* is that would put enough space between the kids that they wouldn't bonk heads or smack off one another's seats. (I'd feel particularly good about this if the RFer has plenty of shell above her head. If she's close to maxing out the seat by height, then I think I'd feel a little more iffy about it, crash forces being huge and unpredictable and all.) Kinda like how two kids facing the same direction sitting side by side are generally considered safe.

bnsnyde · Jun 16, 2012

I read the 30% on these boards. I googled and it came up again. Not sure where the members heard it, though.

I know it's safer regardless of the actual stats, so I guess I'm just hoping to use the middle whenever I can.

And I always tell them to not mess with my RF tether! So I don't like kids to climb under the RF seat.

I think now my issue is the 4 and 5-year-old will fight. But such is life. I can't seat them based on whom fights with whom or I'd go nuts.

tiggercat · Jun 16, 2012

NatesMamma said:
Where did you see 30%? I'd be interested in reading that source, as I've never seen that, either. My guy tells me that, especially for a RF child, the actual safety difference can't be that much. But who knows.

If it were me, I'd move the seat in the 3rd row outboard and call it good. However, in a crash both the RF kid and the FF child, plus their seats, are going to be moving in the same direction. My *guess* is that would put enough space between the kids that they wouldn't bonk heads or smack off one another's seats. (I'd feel particularly good about this if the RFer has plenty of shell above her head. If she's close to maxing out the seat by height, then I think I'd feel a little more iffy about it, crash forces being huge and unpredictable and all.) Kinda like how two kids facing the same direction sitting side by side are generally considered safe.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18450877/ this one says 43% safer. But older kids are less likely to be in the center, therefore it seems like the stat is skewed by RF vs FF CRS orientation.
I know there is a better, more recent study but can't find it easily.

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tiggercat · Jun 16, 2012

I don't think I would have a problem with that set up. If the RF seats was more "on top" of the FF one it might concern me more, but in my head I see the front seat moving forward with the pink RN, and the grey radian rotating downward. Rebound would be the part where incidental contact would occur. Is grey RN tethered RF?
But again, with several inches above his head, grey radian occupant's head should be well protected...
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bnsnyde · Jun 16, 2012

Yes, all my RF seats are RF tethered.

Pixels · Jun 16, 2012

tiggercat said:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18450877/ this one says 43% safer. But older kids are less likely to be in the center, therefore it seems like the stat is skewed by RF vs FF CRS orientation.
I know there is a better, more recent study but can't find it easily.

Sent from my iPod touch using Car-Seat.Org

That study accounted for seat direction (FF vs RF) among other variables.

tiggercat · Jun 16, 2012

Pixels said:
That study accounted for seat direction (FF vs RF) among other variables.

Thanks Melissa, I couldn't see the while thing on my iPod

so 43% even with orientation taken into account, eh? That's quite a difference...

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NatesMamma · Jun 16, 2012

Thanks for the link.

I read the entire study, and although a greater than 40% increased risk of injury sounds scary, I actually found it very, very reassuring. The children in CRS were well protected, regardless of seating position. Some things did stand out when I was reading the study:

This was a nice, big study. The sample population represented approximately 95,000 crashes involving more than 100,000 kids.
Overall, an estimated 0.25% of the kids involved in the crashes were injured. (That's fewer than 5 kids injured per 1000 kids involved.)
I'm pretty sure none of the kids over age 1 were RF, or a very, very small number of them were. The study talked about transitioning from a portable infant seat to a stationary FF seat. No mention of ERF. Plus, the latest crash sampled happened back in 2006 (IIRC), when far fewer people practiced ERF than do today. I don't even know what the max RF weight for a convertible seat was back then??
Some of the vehicles included in the study were as old as 1990 models. I imagine there aren't too many early 90s cars on the road anymore, and newer vehicles incorporate more modern safety features, which might make the center vs outboard safety difference even smaller.
The study doesn't tell us much about the severity of the kids' injuries, just that they had an AIS of 2 or higher. That could encompass anything from a broken extremity (which we know is fairly common in FF kids) to a traumatic brain or spinal cord injury with loss of life. We don't know *how* injured these 0.25% of kids were.
You can't forget that these were everyday Joes with typical CR installs/use. We know how bad most people are about using their seats correctly. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the risk of injury would be even lower if all the seats had been used properly. (And I think this has been played out recently with CSO members who've been in horrific crashes and had everyone walk away with (at most) moderate injuries or no injuries at all.)

The authors themselves came to this conclusion:

The data from this study do not indicate that a CRS restrained in an outboard position is a poor choice for children of this age but rather that given the available space and the ability to obtain a tight installation, restraining a CRS in the center rear allows for further reductions in injury risk beyond the already excellent protection afforded by CRSs attached in the outboard positions.

So yeah, I'm still OK with a kid being outboard if it's the best choice in a given situation, particularly if the kid is still RF. (And I don't think this study tells us anything about older RF kiddos.) My DS usually rides in the center, but I've moved him outboard a number of times for a variety of reasons, and I don't sweat it. Once DD is born in a couple months, we'll keep DS center and put her outboard in my car, simply because I think that will be the easiest configuration for getting the kids loaded into their seats. In DH's car, both kiddos will probably be outboard, as I really don't think the seats we'll be using (TFP and MR65) are going to fit side by side in the Corolla and, um, I want the pretty matchy matchy (and more narrow) red seats to be in *my* car.

bnsnyde · Jun 16, 2012

Wondering if the Foonf would work there (the RF spot), give a better angle (no bracing either)... Or maybe it'd be too tall and not be ideal there.

Just playing with ideas, or maybe I want a reason to want one. But it's so heavy, and I would never use the rigid latch, as the seat is going in the middle with seatbelt install, and I might never even use it FF. Still, hmmm...

My kids are tall so more RF room over the Radian is tempting.

Jan06twinmom · Jun 18, 2012

NatesMamma said:
I'm pretty sure none of the kids over age 1 were RF, or a very, very small number of them were. The study talked about transitioning from a portable infant seat to a stationary FF seat. No mention of ERF. Plus, the latest crash sampled happened back in 2006 (IIRC), when far fewer people practiced ERF than do today. I don't even know what the max RF weight for a convertible seat was back then??

Just to answer this question... My twins were born in January 2005 and we bought convertible car seats in fall 2005. At that point, most seats had a rear-facing limit of 30lbs. The Britax convertible car seats had a 33lb rf limit. Within a year of buying our seats (so in 2006), there were some options to buy seats with a 35lb rf limit. I think the Evenflo Triumph Advanced and maybe some of the Dorel seats starting coming out with the 35lb rf limit.

Melanie

How do these Radians look?

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