In case anyone was interested in reading the original report that prompted the reply from Dorel, I just found it.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338/jun11_2/b1994
One thing that really gets me - I don't know what kind of seats (if any) Dorel sells in Sweden - is this part of the report: "...70-75% of Swedish children aged under 3 years travel in rear facing seats. ... There are no direct comparisons between rear facing and forward facing car seats as forward facing car seats are not commonly used in Sweden. ...
One study conducted 31 frontal crash tests with 12 month, 18 month, and 3 year old dummies restrained in both US and European rear facing and forward facing seats. All rear facing seats resulted in significantly lower injury measures for neck and chest compared with the forward facing seats;
the European rear facing seats had the lowest injury risk."
It makes me a bit insane that in North America, where as a general rule we have bigger vehicles - especially in places like Alberta & Texas where people have more trucks than anything else! - we have these sad little car seats which can't even take our kids to 40lbs RF. Beyond that, even if the seats are rated to the same weights, why are the European seats outperforming American ones?! If the testing was equivalent, then the product should be equivalent. This tells me that despite that they say that the testing in North America is 'suitable', it's really not. Maybe North Americans would be better served to get our transport bodies to test to the same standards as European countries do. Sure it's different, but why? Is 100km/hr different just because the speed sign says 62mph? It doesn't make sense to me.
I just pulled up a growth chart for North America, and looking at them, a child would have to be above the 95% percentile on weight to break 40lbs before 36months old. With the obesity epidemic continuing to grow and affecting younger and younger children, I can't understand why car seat manufacturers aren't jumping all over this, making more and more seats that RF longer.
The fact that one who actually does is responding to this report by suggesting that kids would be happier (and only minimally less safe) by being turned FF just doesn't make any sense to me.
They might not lose too many customers overall if everyone just writes letters to the company, but it would have a bigger impact if anyone with free time or the desire would catch parents-to-be before they buy any of their products (specifically their seats) and tell them what this company said. I certainly will not be considering anything they make for my lo and will be recommending to others to do the same.
Dorel = :thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown:
Melissa