rear-facing tether tests, statistics, etc.

tcottawa · Jan 29, 2008

I'm trying to make up my mind about the rear-facing tether, and I'd love to see any articles/stats about it that are NOT written by manufacturers...anyone have links please?

joolsplus3 · Jan 29, 2008

http://www.carseat.org/Technical/tech_update.htm#toptetherRF

That's a good place to start...I'll see if I can find more.

tcottawa · Jan 29, 2008

awesome, thank you...would love more, though!

joolsplus3 · Jan 29, 2008

And from page 34 of the LATCH manual (the carseat installation Bible published by www.saferidenews.com), there's this:
"The Swedish and Under-seat tether positions reduced movement in a rear crash and slightly increased neck loads, but they were well below NHTSA injury criteria".

tcottawa · Jan 29, 2008

so what is the benefit, or am I missing something (since movement is not necessarily bad)?

joolsplus3 · Jan 29, 2008

Well, you get something like this http://www.esnips.com/doc/f7c18149-9f4a-4e32-b0be-e366982367fc/swedish
Compared to a non-tethered seat where the head slams back in to the vehicle seatback like this http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v...rrent=video06A_MGA_213_RearFace-Convertib.flv. It may also help out in a side crash, to prevent this sort of movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yV3gO0dftE&feature=related

CRS · Jan 29, 2008

You may find this document to be good reading: The Effect of Swedish Tethers on the Performance of Rear Facing ...

tcottawa · Jan 29, 2008

Very, very interesting...but you can also see the amount of head excursion in the tethered one...

joolsplus3 · Jan 29, 2008

The thing about the head excursion number is that it indicates the likelihood that the head will strike something in the vehicle interior...if the head strikes something, the risk of injury is considerably increased. Like parachuting, it's not so much the falling that hurts, it's the landing. So to prevent injury, you'd want the head striking nothing, ideally (or at least just a seat shell lined with EPS/EPP foam to absorb a good deal of energy).

Chex · Jan 29, 2008

I've thought a lot about this too. And I finally tethered my baby's BLVD. I did it for a different reason, though. I watched some of the crash tests where it showed the carseat flying sideways on rebound, not just straight back toward the backseat. Well, with 4 kids, everybody's next to somebody else, so my baby's seat is right next to my 2 year old's seat. And the thought of that massive seat rebounding into my 2 year old was what made me tether it. So while I worry a little bit about my baby's head excursion in a frontal crash, I worry more about my 2 year old being hit with a carseat.

And while frontal crashes are the most common, that includes the off-set frontal crashes where the sideways rebound is likely to occur.

-Ann

rear-facing tether tests, statistics, etc.

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