Misuse rate question

Of the seats that are checked, how many of them that are installed improperly are using LATCH? Is it mostly seatbelt installations? I'm just curious because I used LATCH for the first time today, my previous cars didn't have it. It was pretty easy, so I wondered if it does really help with errors?

I don't have any data, but as a tech with 3 years of checks, I've seen misuse with LATCH.

1. Using seat belt AND LATCH (Wanted to be extra safe! )

2. Not tightening enough / not using tether

3. And the usual: harness not tight enough / chest clip too low

See, the chest clip thing and the loose harness I just cannot wrap my brain around, because it's common sense. It's not a comfy chair for the baby to sit in, it's a restraint. I made mistakes too, but even being young and on the first kid, I read the manual.

I've found younger parents tend to do better than older parents at using the car seat and reading its manual b/c they are less sure of themselves than older first time parents whom seem to think b/c of their age they have it down. (just an observation, take no offense)

bucket2, you forgot ppl using the two inside outboard anchors to use LATCH in the middle.

Some latch systems are easy (britax is beyond easy!) and others make me wish i could hang myself. The hook style can be difficult to remove and some are hard to tighten if you arent pulling at a certain angle. Also not all cars are easy to use latch in. my MIL's PT cruiser has super easy latch in every rear seat, the anchors are visible without looking for them and are super easy to find when installing the seat. My mothers old car (2 door Honda civic) had hidden anchors that were buried in the seat blight, the wide britax hooks were hard to push thru the seat cushions straight up and down to hook on to anchors even though it had little dots showing were they were under the cushion.

Loose harness straps drive me nuts. I dont understand how someone expects a loose harness to do anything for their child. Its like they havent put two and two together and realized its supposed to keep their kid from flying thru the windshield.

I've been shocked that people have taken the time, effort & I-just-don't-know-what-to-call-it to do things as crazy as wrap the LATCH around the springs inside of seat cushions, etc. Also, someone once had LATCH in center (for outboard only vehicle) with both outboard lap/shoulder belts all "securing" the carseat *AIYAIYAI*

I had a fellow SVX owner come see me and after finding out i'm a tech wanna be he asked me to check his wife's seat (also an SVX, we're a weird group of owners like that) so she drove down b/c he thought the seat was too loose and might break. First of all it was sliding about a foot each direction on the leather. But its installed in the center of the bench! The SVX has two rear seat not three, i explain this to the wife and she said she knew that but she had read the center was better so she decided to do it this way. She had both seat belts going thru the belt path and buckled into the opposite buckle but b/c the buckle stalk is so long and the discovery base is too wide to be between them the buckles are both in the middle of the belt path on top of one another sort of wadded up. I cant figure out why the belts are all wadded up so i ask to keep her car over night and sort it out for her (they live about half an hour from me and we see each other often and its common in car enthusiast groups to leave your car with other members) I get out the next morning and discover she'd attempted to lock the belts with a locking clip but she has all 4 belts running thru the clip and the latch straps wrapped around that at least 4 times then clipped together. It took forever to sort out b/c the infant seat was stuck in the base (Its an evenflo discovery which has to be pushed downward to get out of the little plastic lip at the front of the base) b/c the mass of belts is impeding its motion. I got it un'installed' and put it outboard passenger side only to discover with the handle down in this particular year it pushes the rear seats too far forward to be able to lock in the upright position, the proper install was a PITA too b/c the car has ELR belts with long stalks so the locking clip wasnt where is *should* have been. We ended up going and getting her a new snugride b/c it allowed the handle up which is good b/c it turned out the original was bought at a yard sale. The seat only lasted a few days in the car, they were adopting a baby and the birth mom backed out in the hospital (after they had seen the baby ) so we wont have to try to find a convertible for a later model SVX (early models are much easier than late models b/c Subaru changed the seat design.)

The most common I see w/ LATCH is using it in the middle when it's not allowed. Then just the genernal normal misuse of harness etc like was mentioned. I've only seen a few times when they used both LATCH and seatbelt. I've seen 2 perfect installs (one was just an infant base, no seat w/ it to check then) and they were both w/ LATCH.

Okay, so the chances of it being installed correctly are slightly better with LATCH. Seriously though, I don't know of anyone that has had their seat checked by a tech. I saw a snugride base in a car yesterday that was lifted up off of the seat and crooked. I don't know if they locked the seatbelt. (New car) The windows were open, and it was hard to resist trying to fix it.