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During the past several years, plaintiffs and consumer groups have alleged that due to design problems and lack of testing, child seats and motor vehicles pose severe safety risks to children. There have been numerous lawsuits raising these allegations even involving children assumed to have been safely placed in child seats and booster seats.
In the United States, over half the states – including Florida -- have laws that require parents to either place children in a safety seat or in an adult seat belt after a child reaches the age of four. While the intention of these states law is to protect children in the event of a crash, the reality is many child and booster seats are poorly designed and manufactured, and adult seat belts are not designed to properly fit children under a certain age or height.
This month’s article will outline several of the basic safety issues involving children in automobile collisions and will address some of the very recent developments of the law in this area, including recent Congressional action.
Child Safety Seats: Overview of Hazards
Although most parents clearly recognize the special needs of transporting children in vehicles, many are not familiar with the many hazards associated with child safety seats and booster seats. Each year, hundreds of children are seriously injured or killed even though they are restrained in child safety seats or booster seats. If these devices had been properly designed, built, and installed, many of these children would have survived the same accidents without serious injury.
Consumers cannot easily detect the hazards associated with child seats. Those most often addressed by child safety advocates and experts are as follows:
Child Booster Seats: Overview of Hazards
Child booster seats suffer not only from the hazards noted above but from the additional hazards associated with the “booster-with-shield” design. In 1979, “booster-with-shield” seats were introduced and designed to be used in conjunction with a lap belt. The shield, much like the lap-only belt, tends to concentrate frontal collision forces on a child’s abdomen, causing the body to hyper flex over the shield resulting in lower spinal injuries. This design was found to be so hazardous that automobile manufacturers have placed warnings in owner’s manuals not to use these booster seats at all.
Child Safety Seats: Safer Alternatives
Remedies that exist today, such as built in child restraints, would ensure that the system for protecting children is compatible with the vehicle. An integrated child restraint with a five-point harness is considered by many to be the safest restraint known to exist. Built in child restraints with five-point harnesses have been available since the 1980s in Europe. In 1992, this concept was introduced domestically by Chrysler but few other U.S. automobile manufacturers have emulated Chrysler’s lead in safety technology.
Another way to overcome the issue of incompatibility between the vehicle’s seat belts and/or vehicle’s seats and the child restraint is the use of tethers. Loose fitting child seats are extremely hazardous because in a collision the seats can move, slide or tip allowing a child’s head to strike the interior components of the vehicle. A tether strap is a short piece of seat belt that attaches the top of the child restraint to the back of an automobile. Tether straps are sold as standard equipment with the child restraint in Canada.
Finally, as of September 1, 2002, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires that all new child restraints be tested with a new child safety seat anchorage system. This new system, known as the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) system, is a child seat attachment system designed to work independently of the vehicle seat belt system and to simplify child seat installation. The LATCH system requires standardization of the anchorage system of both new child seats and new vehicles. For child seats, the LATCH system incorporates an independent belt onto the bottom of the child seat. This belt is then latched onto independent anchorages that are incorporated into the vehicle’s seat. This new system, which should now be available in all new vehicles and in many new child seats, addresses the longstanding problem of the lack of compatibility between the child seat and the vehicle. Implementation of LATCH systems in new vehicles and child safety seats is hoped to be a critically important developments in child safety systems that will prevent countless deaths and injuries.
Lap-Only Seat Belts: Overview of Hazards
The hazards of lap-only seat belts are well known and well documented. Lap-only seat belts have been associated with an increased risk of abdominal, lumbar spine and head injuries. Lap-only seat belts cause serious injury when an occupant's torso flexes over the belt or when the belt rides over the bony structure of the pelvis transferring loads to the abdomen. The most frequent injuries are to the lumbar spine causing paraplegia as well as abdominal injuries such as avulsions, hemorrhage, and rupture of the internal organs including the intestines, liver, pancreas, and spleen. Head injuries are also common when occupants flex over the belt and strike interior components.
Despite industry knowledge of these problems for more than 30 years, these belts continue to be used in currently marketed motor vehicles. Automobile manufacturers installed lap-only belts in the rear outboard seats of vehicles in the United States until 1989, and continue to use these hazardous designs in the center front and rear seating positions in currently marketed vehicles. Many of these same manufacturers have sold similar model vehicles overseas equipped with rear seat lap/shoulder belts since the 1970s -- and in many cases in countries that did not require these systems. Approximately 43 million vehicles still on the road today in the United States are equipped with lap-only belts. And, tragically, most of the victims of lap-only belt injuries are children.
Lap-Only Seat Belts: Regulatory Overview
NHTSA delayed rulemaking to require rear seat lap/shoulder belt protection well beyond the time it was known that lap-only seat belts caused injury and provided far less protection to occupants in crash. The turning point in this long saga of delay came in 1986 after the publication of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) study of lap belt hazards based on 26 crash investigations. The NTSB, an independent federal agency charged with investigating transportation safety, but with no rulemaking power, noted that lap belts were causing serious injuries in real-world collisions and recommended that lap/shoulder belts be required and available for retrofit into older vehicle models.
Ultimately it took an act of Congress in 1987 to force NHTSA to issue new rules for the installation of lap/shoulder belts in rear outboard positions. The NHTSA requirements for lap/shoulder belts in rear seat outboard seating positions left three significant unresolved problems: pre-1989 vehicles were not required to have retrofitted lap/shoulder belts; the center middle seating positions were excluded from the rule; and lap/shoulder belts are not specifically designed to fit children.
Based on NTSB's recommendations manufacturers developed various retrofit programs. However, these programs were poorly advertised, lap/shoulder retrofits were not available for all models, consumers were forced to bear the cost, and dealers were not made aware of or did not stock the necessary parts. As a result most consumers were unaware of lap/shoulder belt retrofit availability or the significant safety advantages of lap/shoulder belts. At the manufacturers' request NHTSA's rule also exempted outboard seating positions adjacent to a walkway in minivans, leaving another occupant vulnerable to lap-only belt hazards.
The front and rear center positions in many vehicles, including many popular sedans and pickup trucks, still use hazardous lap belt designs. However, on November 19, 2002, Congress passed lifesaving legislation (H.R. 5504), known as Anton’s Law. Up until the recent passage of this legislation there was no NHTSA requirement to install lap/shoulder belts in the center rear seat. This new legislation now instructs NHTSA to require automobile manufacturers to begin installing lap/shoulder belts in the center rear seat by 2005 with a completion year of 2008. Various automobile manufacturers have been providing lap/shoulder belts protection in the rear seat since 1987, and there are clearly no technological obstacles to adding a safer seat belt design. Lap/shoulder belts were installed even in some low-price compact cars, clearly debunking arguments that these designs are too costly. Unfortunately, it has taken an act of Congress to force manufacturers to properly protect children belted in the center rear seating position.
Children in Adult Seat Belts: Overview of Hazards
The automobile industry has known for years that a large percentage of rear seat occupants are children and that installing shoulder belts that will protect large children and small adults is an important safety related issue. Properly fitted seat belts prevent paralyzing injuries as long as the shoulder belt functions effectively to restrain the upper torso in a crash. However since lap/shoulder belts are designed for adults, children between the ages of 4 and 8, who are typically less than 49 inches and under 80 pounds, have been injured as a result of poor belt fit.
Children who prematurely graduate to an ill-fitting safety belt are up to four times more likely to receive serious injury in a crash than other children who are restrained in a child restraint. The injuries often occur when the lap portion of the belt rides up over the pelvis causing the occupant to "submarine" or slide under the webbing, resulting in abdominal injuries. Injuries also occur when the shoulder harness portion of the belt crosses the face or neck resulting in unsafe conditions. Lastly, there is the potential for serious injury or death from ejection, either fully or partially. A poorly fitted belt does little to prevent a child from rotating and falling out of the safety belt. If a child is fully ejected in a collision, the results are often deadly. If a child rolls out of the shoulder portion of the seat belt in a frontal collision, he or she is essentially restrained only by the lap belt. The elimination of the upper torso restraint creates the same dangers found with lap-only belts systems.
Children in Adult Seat Belts: Safer Alternatives
Proper fit of traditional vehicle-mounted shoulder belts depend largely on the adjustment of the seat and location of the anchorage. Remedies for poorly fitted seat belts include adjustable upper anchorages and seat-mounted belt systems. Seat-mounted belts provide improved geometry and fit because all of the anchor points move with the seat as it is adjusted providing optimized protection. Despite having been built and tested in the 1960s and 1970s, seat-integrated seat belts did not make there way into United States production vehicles until 1990 and were relegated to a few expensive luxury and sport models. Some U.S. automobile manufacturers were offering seat-integrated seat belts in their vehicles sold aboard around the same time period.
In an attempt to provide children with more comfortable belt fit, parents commonly purchase aftermarket seat belt adjusters. Many parents are not familiar with the hazards associated with seat belt adjusters. These adjusters lower the shoulder belt in an effort to move the webbing off of the occupant's neck. However, they can also cause the lap belt to rise above a child's hips, increasing the potential for abdominal injury. These products do not have to meet federal safety requirements and testing their efficacy is difficult because there are no abdominal sensors or corresponding injury criteria for child dummies used in government compliance testing.
In August of 1999, the federal government proposed that the manufacturers of seat belt adjusters be required to warn that the devices are not to be used by young or small children. A final rule on this issue is expected from NHTSA in the early part of 2003.
Despite years of proposed rulemaking and petitions, NHTSA regulations for seat belt fit had not required the incorporation of either adjustable anchorages or seat-mounted belt systems. In 1992, NHTSA, after a Congressional mandate, proposed rules for belt comfort and convenience that eventually led to a requirement that lap/shoulder belts offer five centimeters of adjustment in the shoulder belt or that the belts be integrated into the seats. The rule became effective for vehicles built after September 1, 1997.
Child Restraint Systems: Recent Upgrades to Child Restraint Standard
The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 213, Child Restraint Systems, is the only standard applicable to child safety seats and booster seats. However, the standard is limited to the protection of children who weigh up to 50 pounds. Under the current standard, child restraints are tested in a 30-mph frontal sled test. The standard places limits on head and knee excursion, as well as on head and chest forces.
In the summer of 2002, NHTSA proposed a number of revisions to FMVSS 213 in response to requirements set out in the Transportation, Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act. The TREAD Act was passed in the Fall of 2000 in the wake of the Firestone tire/Ford Explorer tragedy. By November of 2002, the TREAD Act instructed NHTSA to initiate rulemaking to improve the safety of child restraints. The proposed upgrades include improved test dummies, updated test procedures, new and revised injury criteria, and extension of the standard to cover children up to 65 pounds, up from the current requirement which covered children up to 50 pounds.
In opposition to the proposed new rulemaking, child restraint manufacturers argued that child restraints are currently very effective. Although the manufacturers claimed to support an upgrade, they expressed concern that such a dramatic upgrade would increase costs to the degree that some parents could not afford to purchase restraints. They also suggested the proposed requirements might adversely affect the ease of correct use and installation.
The auto manufacturers noted that current child restraints are very effective as currently designed and that the focus of any new regulation should be on reducing misuse.
A number of safety researchers argued that lap belts and shield boosters should be banned, and that there should be better regulations for booster seats and their ability to properly fit or position the belts on the child. They also stressed the importance of incorporating the 10-year-old dummy into tests as soon as possible and that the requirements should apply to children up to 80 pounds. Additionally, Consumers Union stressed that seats should not be recommended for children greater than the weight for which the seat has been tested.
NHTSA also recently issued an Advance Notice of Proposed rulemaking seeking comments on the possibility of developing a side impact protection standard for child restraint systems. The agency requested information about the injury mechanisms of children in side impacts, the crash characteristics associated with serious and fatal injuries to children in child restraints, test procedures, suitable test dummies, and injury criteria. Specifically, NHTSA asked for information about limiting head excursion in a 20 mph side impact test and limiting the Head Injury Criteria (“HIC”) in a 15 mph side impact test, as well as countermeasures to prevent lateral movement of the child restraint and retention and protection of the child's head. A supplemental proposal is expected in 2003.
On November 19, 2002 with the passage of Anton’s Law, NHTSA will be required to evaluate injury criteria for children over 50 pounds, to look at how to improve seat belt fit for children over 50 pounds in booster seats, and to assess the options for children whose only restraint in the back seats are lap belts. The legislation also requires NHTSA to develop a 10 year old child test dummy and to study the benefits of built-in child safety seats and booster seats. Up until the passage of this legislation, booster seats marketed for children weighing more than 50 pounds was totally unregulated and not required to meet the testing requirements of FMVSS 213
Child Restraint Systems: New Labeling Requirements
As required by Congressional mandate in the TREAD Act, NHTSA amended the current requirements for child restraint labels and the written instructions that accompany child restraints in a final rule on October 1, 2002. This final rule attempts to simplify child restraint instruction by changing the format, location and content of the existing labeling requirements. The final rule takes effect on October 1, 2003.
The new requirements include:
In the meantime, Transport Canada is conducting a study into performance requirements for label permanence, font, color-coding, and harness slot labeling. NHTSA plans to work with Transport Canada on a future proposal regarding further changes to the labels.
Child Restraint Systems: The Future
During the past two years there have been giant leaps forward for the safety of our children who are involved in automobile collisions – both in terms of new regulations and in improved technology such as the LATCH system. However, despite recent changes there are still continued problems which consumer advocates argue can be fixed with cost effective solutions. Until such improvements are made there will be continued battles for better child safety systems. These battles are expected to continue through both the civil justice system in continued litigation against manufacturers, and in the halls of our government to improve regulations and standards for child safety.
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