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Is Your Booster Useless? Check This List!
The IIHS came out with a booster seat study today, highlighting the need for parents to be more conscious of their choice of carseats. A comprehensive study found that several popular models of booster seats were failing to do their job properly.
In a nutshell, belt positioning boosters only work to restrain and keep a child safe if the booster elevates the child to a seating position where a lap/shoulder belt fits across their body properly. A poor fit can actually increase the risk of abdominal injury in a crash. Although this premise is a simple one, the differences in the car seats and belts in various cars, and the assorted shapes and sizes of kids who might be seated in a booster, make evaluating booster seat fit complex and difficult. Additionally, boosters that can be used with and without the backrest portion, need to be evaluated as two separate entities.
In the end, the IIHS came out with a list of seats that performed (best and worst), when tested in several car models by an average sized six year old. Interestingly, many of the models that performed poorly are "convertible" styles that advertise themselves as the only seat you will ever need to buy. These same seats may have received favorable ratings in their five point harness and/or rear facing modes, but fall down miserably when used as a backless booster.
The study, while canning several models of boosters, is also a reminder of our need to be vigilant. It's not enough to pop our kids in a booster seat, if the seat does nothing to keep our kids safe. We need to check the belt fit in every car/booster combination that our children ride in. Also of note - price had little to do with the list of seats recommended. Favorable ratings were giving to seats in multiple price categories.
If nothing else, this study is a good argument to keep kids in five-point harnesses as long as possible.
in | by Ciaran Blumenfeld | Car News, | by Ciaran Blumenfeld | Safety | Permalink |
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