Children up to the age of at least six to seven year, must use an extra device to be restrained properly in a car. Such devices are normally only sold as extra equipment and are thus far not available in the car from the manufacturer. Child restraints are extremely effective in preventing injuries in car accidents and the use of restraints must be high and efficient. The fact that child restraint must be bought and mounted by the user and is still not part of the car leads to certain consequences; e.g. restraints are not always available and misuse occurs. Several studies have shown that the misuse level in various countries can be high. In this paper a study on the misuse of child restraints, as well as a construction of a fully integrated child restraint for children 0-10 years old, are presented. The misuse study was conducted to find common types of misuse and put them in relation to an integrated restraint. The integrated restraint was built into a passenger car as a design study. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see IRRD 837684.
Abstract