I just posted a big comment on their page so hopefully we see people come here
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/comments?type=story&id=7818004
Here's my post:
I urge anyone with questions to stop by
www.car-seat.org to talk to certified passenger safety technicians and passenger safety advocates.Even my 97th percentile for height son rear faced until he was 2 years old when he was too tall to rear face. Children fit rear facing if they are under the weight limit AND they have at least 1 inch of hard shell over their head. Kids are super bendy. It's the exact reason that rear facing is so important. Since their bones aren't fully calcified things that would be uncomfortable for us isn't for them. I think that 4 is not quite realistic in the USA/Canada because we only have ONE seat that rear faces to 40lbs, several that rear face to 35 lbs or 33lbs. I think that between 2-3 years old is VERY realistic though and should be strived for. Rear facing is safer for a side impact crash as well as frontal/rear impacts as well. Someone asked about being rear ended. Rear facing is still safer then because the motion is still FORWARD not back. The thing that's hard to remember is that a rear-impact collision is NOT the opposite of a frontal-impact. It seems like it would be, I know, but the opposite of a frontal-impact would be if you were backing up and hit something. Since we usually don't back up at speeds greater than 5mph, even that is not going to create a risk for RF children.To clarify - in a frontal impact, the vehicle's forward-motion is stopped by the crash.In a rear-impact, the vehicle is usually stopped, sometimes moving forward. Crash dynamics are going to be complicated, depending on a huge number of variables - the speed (if any) of your vehicle, the speed of the vehicle hitting you, whether or not the impact causes your vehicle to hit something in front of you, etc. In any case, there are going to be forces exerted from both the front and the back.In a backing-up crash, the vehicle's rearward-motion is stopped by the crash, which is what makes it the opposite of a forward-impact.