News Car Seat Report

tl01

New member
I was just watching one of the cable news shows (can't remember which one) and the health tip of the week was to make sure you install your child seat in the center of your car. The doctor said that there was a newly released study showing that a child is 46% more likely to be injured in a crash on the side rather than the center.

My humble opinion about this recommendation is that it is not truly helpful. He should have mentioned that the least protected child should go in the center. What if you have more than one child.... he didn't arm parents with info they can use at that point. I think that most people think that a newborn is least protected b/c they are the smallest... but we know this is not really true. WIth the info he gave, when you have more than one child, you just have to pick which child you love most (obviously you don't love one more than another).. and put them in the middle. I wish his recommendation had been to take your car seat manual, READ it and then make sure your seat is installed and used properly.

Anyway else see this segment... thoughts?
 
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Wineaux

New member
They never give the car seat safety segments enough time to do more than give a cursory overview. Stuff either gets glossed over or ignored completely. I'm about ready to try contacting CNN to see if they would do a full 30 min to an hour show on child passenger safety. Maybe an Anderson Cooper 360 or a Housecall's episode. As a community, we might want to put together a proposal to email to one or more of their show producers about this very subject.
 

fyrfightermomma

New member
I know they are "trying" to be helpful and the whole 46% may be true, but the more they keep saying "center! center! center only!!! you MUST put your child in the center" the more I have to fight with parents at car seat checks trying to convince them, no you can't use LATCH in the center on your car or try to explain why a seat is safer secured correctly outboard than secured loosely center.

There are plenty of cars that seats just dont install well in the center because of wierd belts, non locking belts and a locking clip just isn't cutting it, or have a wierd hump. And because parents heard its so much safer they INSIST on having their seat installed there even though there isn't any way to do a correct install.

Yes it is safer, but they need to add a *but* at the end and let them know the position you can get the best install in is really the best and safest
 

Mommy2Marcus

New member
I agree that the seat needs to be where it is installed properly. I can not get a good center install in my Subaru for the life of me. It always has more than 1 inch of movement no matter how I try to tighten it. So while the report was trying to be helpful I think it may just do more harm. Not to mention scare parents about putting their child in the outboard positions.

I also agree with Wineaux that we should get together a proposal to have CNN or some other show that is important like 60 mintues do a segment on car seat safety. One person could write it & then get signatures from people. Then when we have so many signatures send it in.

I know I just hate how much misuse I see all the time. I think alot of it is per stupidity, but some of it is just that the information is not there. I know it seems that everytime I share the ERF information that they are suprised & really had no clue, b/c the law is 1 year AND 20lbs. I have talked to at least 2 people this week that had their small children FF already that after I talked to them were going to turn them back RF. So I think we should totally get together & try to get a well known news show to do a segment!
 
Plus, we should all look closely at the alleged study to see if it actually says what the media is reporting. The thing I find in most "center is safer" studies is that the safety is based on a average over a number of collisions. For example, saying that the center is safer because it takes longer for a car to incur into the vehicle and come into contact with the child is techinically true if you lump all of the collisions together. However, a child sitting right passenger side is farther away from a collision on the left driver side and in that individual collision is farther away from the colliding car. The opposite is true if you reverse the crash scenario. From either side (given that we don't know which side is going to be hit before it happens) the center is statistically safer. If we know that the right side is going to be hit, then the rear driver side may be realistically safer (farther away for the incoming car).

Each study may have a different number of crashes as their basis for their conclusions. Unfortunately, there is little way to tell what kind of crash in which we may be involved. Thus, though these types of studies make great media bytes, they don't really mean much. As a previous poster said, it is far more important that the seat be installed correctly and that the parent ensures the child is seated correctly every time than dogmatic requirements to place the seat in the center. Especially, if the rationale is based on poor scientific studies. :twocents:
 

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