Protection of children in cars.

Problems relating to the safety of children in cars were considered in surveys carried out in static and flowing traffic on rural and urban roads. Car drivers were questioned in specific locations where many of the cars contained children. It was established that almost every second child still travels without any form of protection in the rear compartment, and that a child restraint is only provided for approximately 30% of all children. With a quota of about 70%, children in the age group 1-6 years are most frequently protected by a special restraint. As from an age of two years, fastening of the car seat belt is the only measure taken to protect approximately every child in five. On the basis of a 50 km/h oblique impact of a complete vehicle it was possible to prove that conventional belt-integrated child restraints react sensitively to the oblique head-on collision direction and cause greater forward displacement of the body. In contrast, an inverse restraint on the front passenger seat proved to be essentially invariant to the oblique impact, thus demonstrating its suitability for mechanical loads. Sled tests with dummies representing children aged 3 and 10 years and two child restraints also indicated that specific conditions relating to oblique impacts should be included in the test regulation for child restraints. Minimum possible deceleration of the dummies with maximum possible utilization of the free forward body displacement should be developed as the safety target of a revised test regulation ECE-R44 for child restraints. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see IRRD 837684.