"seat belt adjuster"

I had to drop off a friend's DS today and he had no booster with him but had a seat belt adjuster, a little pad that the male end of the buckle goes through to (supposedly) make a seatbelt fit a child who should really be in a booster. It looked sort of like this. He rode in the third-row passenger side of my Odyssey and even with the "adjuster," man! that was the worst-fitted seatbelt I've seen in my life. As far as I could tell, all it did was put a bunch of slack in the belt. The shoulder belt wasn't even touching him (though this was probably not the fault of the adjuster doohickey.) This was the only spot available to him, as I also had carseats in all the other seats, and no time to move things around so as to put him somewhere else. I'm not sure that a different spot would've solved the problem, anyway.

DH is saying that maybe we should get a backless booster to have in the car. I don't know much about boosters since my kids are younger. Would a BB be useful to have in a situation like this? We really don't want to spend a lot on an extra booster (and we already have an extra carseat in the car, we don't need more clutter!) but I will not be comfortable driving her son again without something better than what he had today.

The child in question is nearly 6yo, average height and weight. He is the child we are most likely to drive again, so it's him I'd like to keep in mind when getting a booster. He usually rides in (I think) a Turbobooster.

Thanks for any advice!

Those are particularly bad. They pull the lap portion of the belt up off the lap (if it fit there) and place it squarely on the soft belly.

A backless would be better than nothing. Make sure it has a shoulder strap adjuster. Or, make sure that he comes with a real booster.

Yeah, ideally I would know in advance that I was going to take him and insist that he be sent with his booster; today was very last-minute. This mom is a very good friend of ours, and wants to keep her kids safe but doesn't know how; so I'm trying to teach her gently when situations arise where I can give her better info. I've already gotten her to put her 3yo back into a harness (he was in a TB too, from 2yo) and turn her 1yo back to RF (she was FF from about 8mo, and sometimes even taken out of her seat if she was crying a lot). I know if I can find the right way to tell her that the seatbelt adjuster is no good, she will hear me and change things.

Can you recommend some brands of backless boosters that would be okay?

I don't think it came with a clip, but I bought a couple of Cosco High Rises to have as spares. They're rated from 30 pounds, are pretty narrow at the back, offer a lot of leg support, and cost about $15. That was their high point for me.

Wendy

I can't. I'm not good with recommending boosters. I'm sure someone will be along shortly (possibly tomorrow) who will, though.

I'd get a Turbo backless. Don't forget to put the screws in the armrests and to use the belt adjuster that comes with it.

As pp said, those things your friend's child has are extremely unsafe. They force the lapbelt portion of the seat up so that it rides on the child's abdoment, which could have deadly consequence in an accident.

Thanks for the help!

I can recall a presentation at Lifesavers a couple years ago where a car was totalled and the 7yo in the belt adjuster like that was pretty much gutted by the seatbelt...it even got burn marks and he was either killed or just suffered *extremely bad* internal injuries. His 4 year old sister in the backless booster walked away unharmed. Here's a page on how dangerous they are... http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/AMBeltDevices.aspx The reason they are only approved for 50 pounds and up is to skirt NHTSA's carseat rules and not have to be tested.

These products disgust me! I have sent several letters to One Step Ahead who sells them. I have sent many articles & obvious evidence that they are dangerous...but without success. I'm annoying though, I won't give up!