Which? safety alert on children's car seat

flowerapplerabbit

born_again said:

I'm sure your 7 YO is going to love sitting facing backwards... Well it will give their friends a good laugh.

As we say in the biking world a good fitting helmet with a lower test result is better than a badly fitting helmet that has top marks.

Yes you should always make sure a car seat is fitted properly? Not sure a head and a car are comparable.

So would everyone on here stick with the original car seat and ignore the Which report? 

powerful_Rogue

flowerapplerabbit said:

born_again said:

I'm sure your 7 YO is going to love sitting facing backwards... Well it will give their friends a good laugh.

As we say in the biking world a good fitting helmet with a lower test result is better than a badly fitting helmet that has top marks.

Yes you should always make sure a car seat is fitted properly? Not sure a head and a car are comparable.

So would everyone on here stick with the original car seat and ignore the Which report? 

Absolutely I would.

ssparks2003

flowerapplerabbit said:

Yes you should always make sure a car seat is fitted properly? Not sure a head and a car are comparable.

So would everyone on here stick with the original car seat and ignore the Which report? 

Without understanding the test methodology and the supporting data (something not normally shared by commercial companies like which) I would be inclined to stick the original tested seat, as that is tested to an agreed standard rather than a company who has set up a private test with unknown aims and goals.

flowerapplerabbit

This is all the information I can find on how they test:
Our experts have specially designed our baby and child car seat crash tests, making them more demanding than the British standard safety tests. They’re derived from tests by Euro NCAP. This is the organisation that carries out crash testing on cars to show how well they protect occupants in severe accidents. We feel our tests more accurately reflect what could happen in a real crash than the British standard safety tests. Each car seat we test endures: A front crash, equivalent to a head-on collision at around 40mph A side crash, equivalent to two cars crashing into each other at 30mph. These are repeated again and again, with the seat installed in all the different ways it can be used. We can go through as many as 15 samples of the same seat to get the final score for just one. If a car seat can be used in a number of different ways (for example, if it’s a multi-group car seat that spans different stages) or attached by different methods (Isofix or car’s seatbelt), we crash-test it in the different ways it can be used and provide star ratings for each one. Crash test dummies are wired up with state-of-the-art sensors to record the crash forces on the most vulnerable parts of the body, to help accurately indicate the risk of injury to a real baby or child in a crash.

Manxman_in_exile

Ergates said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

flowerapplerabbit said:

Came on to ask this exact same question. The minimum legal requirement only crash tests seats at 30mph, pretty poor really. Which! test at 40mph so if a car seat has failed this then it isn't a safe product, regardless of the company's obligations. They really should show a lot of good will in this situation. Am very interested to hear how you get on jjjggg333, please do let us know. 

I suppose that as the maximum speed limit is 70mph then Which? weren't doing the job properly by only testing at 40...

I suspect there comes a point where no amount of car seat design will make a crash survivable, and I suspect that point comes before 70mph.

Well quite.  That was my point...

Manxman_in_exile

flowerapplerabbit said:

...They also detail exactly why they test at 40mph not 70mph, again free to read (I'm not able to post the link): 
"We are sometimes asked why we don't crash-test car seats at 70mph.  A crash at this speed would most likely overload the vehicle structure, so the effectiveness of any safety features such as seat belts, airbags and child car seats would be severely compromised. With our crash tests we aim to find a severe enough impact that covers a large proportion of the fatal and seriously injured accidents we see, so we can make the most significant difference possible."...

I was being facetious when I mentioned 70mph, but the explanation from Which? as to why they don't test at 70mph raises other questions.

The OP (and I presume you) are both unhappy with tests at 30 mph, but are sufficiently happy with a 40 mph test to write-off the 30 mph seat in favour of the 40 mph seat.  But why stop at 40?  If some other organisation comes up with a 45 mph test next week, what do you do if the results show that the 40 mph seat is not as safe at 45 mph?  And 6 months later somebody comes up with a 50mph test that produces another different set of results?  When do you stop?

If Which? believes that a crash at 70mph "... would most likely overload the vehicle structure, so the effectiveness of any safety features such as seat belts, airbags and child car seats would be severely compromised... " then they really ought to be advising parents with children in car seats in their cars not to exceed the speed they've safely been tested at.

As a long standing member of the Consumers' Association and a subscriber to several Which? titles, I don't always take their test results at face value and I don't necessarily accept them as the last word on anything.

powerful_Rogue

Well said @Manxman_in_exile

Goes back to my earlier point, surely the car the seat is in makes a massive difference.

Would a Swedish seat fair better in a Secma Qpod then a UK legal requirment seat in a Ford Fiesta?

sheramber

Presumably , since the seats are only tested safe up to 40 mph  you do not drive above 40mph.as you  would be putting your child at risk.

jjjggg333

sheramber said:

Presumably , since the seats are only tested safe up to 40 mph  you do not drive above 40mph.as you  would be putting your child at risk.

[eye roll]

Aylesbury_Duck

jjjggg333 said:

sheramber said:

Presumably , since the seats are only tested safe up to 40 mph  you do not drive above 40mph.as you  would be putting your child at risk.

[eye roll]

Why the eye roll?  It's a perfectly reasonable point and a logical extension of your argument  You're unhappy with a car seat because you only consider it safe at up to 30mph based on a test report. You're now using a seat you perceive to be safer because it's been tested at up to 40mph or whatever speed it was tested at.  Why on earth would you then drive at a higher speed, if safety of the seat is your priority?  You're undermining your own argument.

As I see it, it's all down to the currency of the safety standards, testing methods and latest knowledge.  The history of car safety is full of features that at one point were considered acceptably safe and an improvement on an older standard.  Take lap-only seat-belts as just one example.  Perhaps better than no seat-belt at all, but we're then superseded by the safer three-point seat belt and then inertia reel belts.  Would owners of a car with lap belts be entitled to a refund or exchange just because a new safety standard emerged since purchase?  No.  Would it be practical for them to do so out of goodwill?  No.

Your new seat may be inherently safer at 30mph, and who am I to question your motivation to seek the safest option - I'd do the same - but expecting a manufacturer to offer refunds or exchanges because a new test emerges, a test that wasn't required at design or manufacturing stage, is either going to put them out of business or prices up to a non-viable level.  What happens when you discover a new type of test exposes a previously unknown risk with your new car seat when it's exposed to a side-impact crash at an angle of 80 degrees at 41mph, for example?  Back to the manufacturer for a refund?