Principal Investigator: Julie Mansfield, PhD, The Ohio State University

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THIS PROJECT?

Far-side impacts – meaning a child passenger is restrained on the opposite side from where a vehicle is struck in a crash – are not as widely studied compared to near-side impacts. This project investigated far-side impacts for children restrained in rear-facing (RF) CRS, forward-facing (FF) CRS, and boosters in a variety of installation methods with and without misuse.

HOW WAS THE RESEARCH CONDUCTED?

We completed 20 far-side impact crash sled tests. We looked at several installation methods for each type of CRS, including proper installations and misuse conditions, such as using the seat belt in emergency locking retractor (ELR) mode where the seat belt is not locked or using the lower anchors and the seat belt together to install the CRS. Boosters were installed with a seat belt only or installed using LATCH.

WHAT WERE THE RESULTS?

For the RF and FF CRS, the seat belts in unlocked ELR mode surprisingly performed similarly to the properly installed (belt locked) CRS. It seems like the seat belt did its job in switching into locked mode when a crash was detected. Installing boosters with LATCH reduced the movement of the booster itself but did not affect head excursions, indicating a similar safety benefit across both acceptable installation methods for boosters.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR INDUSTRY?

We hope these data will help manufacturers prioritize which types of misuse to educate their consumers on, in terms of the greatest safety risk to child occupants. We were pleasantly surprised at how well all the child restraints performed despite the cases of misuse we studied. However, it is important to remember that real world misuse of child seats can look quite a bit different from a controlled lab setting.

IAB Mentors

Emily Burton, American Honda Motor Co., Inc.; Susan Mostofizadeh, American Honda Motor Co., Inc.; Jonathan Gondek, Calspan Corporation; Michael Kulig, Calspan Corporation; Emily Thomas, Consumer Reports; Jennifer Stockburger, Consumer Reports; Mark LaPlante, Graco Children’s Products Inc.; Justin Robinson, Graco Children’s Products Inc.; Jerry Wang, Humanetics Innovative Solutions Inc.; Curt Hartenstine, Iron Mountains; Nick Rydberg, Minnesota HealthSolutions; Erin Hutter, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Steve Gerhert, Nuna Baby Essentials, Inc.; Jennifer Pelky, Toyota USA; Julie Kleinert, Technical Advisor