Australia has several decades of experience in the development of child restraint system (CRS). During this time the requirements for child restraints, as set out in Australian Standard 1754, have evolved to incorporate the best features identified from road safety research and to eliminate undesirable characteristics. The most significant development was the introduction of the top tether. The effectiveness of the top tether has been demonstrated in the laboratory and in the real world crashes in Australia. Canada, the USA and recently France have recognised the advantages of the top tethers. Top tether anchorages are now required in North American cars. As part of its consumer crash test program, EuroNCAP proposes to introduce performance criteria for child restraints based primarily on child dummy injury measurements. However, Australian crash test experience suggests that forward facing child restraints with top tethers and harnesses will have great difficulty obtaining better than 'poor' scores under the proposed Euro NCAP assessment protocol. In the real world Australian child restraints perform extremely well. There is serious concern that, to achieve reasonable results based on the dummy injury performance criteria proposed by EuroNCAP test, there is potential that the level of protection be offered by Australian child restraints will be reduced. Specifically, laboratory experience suggests that to achieve good Euro NCAP results would mean allowing greater excursion of the child dummy, with consequent increased risk of head contact and serious injury. This would be a retrograde step in Australia. International endeavours towards harmonisation in the vehicle safety arena can sometimes cause conflict between having universally acceptable test or performance standards and avoiding a reduction in the overall level of protection provided by of a system that has been demonstrated to be performing very well. This is particularly the case with child restraints, where the level of protection provided by Australian restraints is arguably among the best in the world. Since international harmonisation is currently a priority area in the vehicle safety field it is timely that a review of the Australian experience with child restraints be conducted. In addition, greater attention is currently being given to the safe transport of children in the USA with much debate in that country concerning the potential benefits or otherwise alternative anchorage systems including top tethers. This document has therefore been prepared to present the Australian experience with child restraints in terms of design, both of restraint systems and methods of anchorage to the vehicle. (Author/publisher)
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