The importance of the use of child seats for keeping children safe in cars is outlined. The results of a series of impact tests at 19mph using child anthropometric dummies are presented. The tests include a six-year-old loose in the back of a car, a three-year-old child in a child seat who had undone the buckle himself, an infant in a wrongly fitted infant carrier with the lap and diagonal belts transposed, a child where the adult seat belt buckle had failed because the buckle was in direct contact with the child seat frame, an eighteen month old child held on his mother's lap with the adult safety belt around both of them, a boy restrained by the lap belt only, a 30-month-old boy in a combination restraint with a wrongly routed adult safety belt, a child kneeling on the back seat facing backwards. All tests resuted in fatalities or serious injuries, most often to the brain or spinal cord. A code for in-car safety is presented. This report may be downloaded from: http://www.aatrust.com/files/reports/01022004_loose_in_the_car.pdf
Abstract