How safe is your child's seat?

Every parent wants to ensure their children are safe in cars but alarming figures from the RACV show that up to 70 per cent of child restraints are fitted incorrectly, putting child passengers at serious risk of injury or death. This was one of the factors highlighted in a recent report from the RACV in Victoria, titled Safety Innovation for Australian Child Restraints, that sets out the measures necessary to improve child safety.

Robyn Seymour, the road user programs officer at the RACV who was involved in the research for the report, says the incorrect fitting or inappropriate use of child restraints remains one of the biggest problems to be tackled in reducing the incidence of child deaths.

"Research shows that there are large numbers of children who are either in the incorrect child restraint or their child restraint is incorrectly fitted, and for 25 per cent of those, the faults are significant enough that the child is likely to sustain serious injury or death in a crash," Seymour says.

While this may include incorrect fitting of the child restraint or twisted belts Seymour says the biggest problem is children graduating too early from a booster seat to using an adult seat belt. Booster seats are generally designed for children in the age range of about three to eight, and although some are deficient in terms of design, those that have separate attachments to the vehicle seat can offer significant benefits.

"Compared to children in dedicated child restraint systems, children in adult seatbelts are 3.5 times more likely to sustain a significant injury," Seymour says. However she believes there is still a lot of work to be done to improve the performance of booster seats with the addition of bigger side bolsters and anti-submarining measures.

Legally, the only requirement in Australia is that a child under the age of one must be restrained in a dedicated child restraint. Over that age it is basically the driver's responsibility to ensure that passengers under 16 years of age are properly restrained in a seat belt or approved child restraint, with no specific requirement for using a dedicated child restraint.

Although most Australian parents use child seats or booster seats for a few years there is no legal requirement to use them, but it is recommended that children don't use just an adult seat belt until they are over 32kg.

In addition to the issue of fitting or inappropriate use, Seymour says the other main areas that still need to be addressed to reduce the incidence of child deaths and injury are: improving side impact protection, and introducing new systems and technology to offer increased protection, particularly for older children.

 For a long time Australia has had among the most stringent requirements for child seats in the world and while some car-makers have complained about the cost of adapting new imported models to meet specific Australian Design Rule (ADR) requirements, there is evidence to suggest they have had an impact on minimizing child deaths.

Presently the safety performance of child restraints is governed by two basic standards: one that applies to the actual child seats -- AS/NZS 1754 – which was first introduced in 1973, and the other that dictates how child seats must be anchored to the car, or Australian Design Rule 34. This latter ADR refers to the placement of three anchor points and the requirement for a 'top tether', commonplace in Australia since the mid-80s, but only now being adopted in the US and Canada.

The Australian standard for the child restraints -- convertible or fixed -- incorporates the crash test parameters that every new seat must undergo before it can be sold here, and it is in this area that improvements are being made to help address side impact.

"Like vehicle safety, side impact is the next frontier in terms of child safety. It is about increasing the side wings on child restraints; preventing that rotation towards the intruding object and improving the protection of older children," Seymour says.

The AS/NZS 1754 standard now requires a more stringent test for side impacts, including the fitment of a door on the crash test sled, and measurement of potential head injury. Seymour says this will more than likely result in seats with bigger and stronger side wings, and every new seat manufactured after the publishing date will have to meet the revised standard.

There is still a great deal of debate as to how to reduce the rotation and lateral movement of child seats in an impact. A potential solution that was considered in Australia during a review of the child restraint standards in 2002 is the European-developed, rigid ISOFIX system. Already some European imported cars are fitted with this system, although the European Commission has yet to finalise a standard and incorporate it into the EEC regulations. A comparable version called LATCH has been introduced in the US.

The rigid system uses two points set into the car seat base into which the seat is affixed, while the US system can use five different types of connections including flexible connections to the child restraint. Seymour admits that the rigid system exhibits potential to provide an improvement in side-impact protection but there are still issues that need to be addressed.

"The research on ISOFIX is still a bit mixed, depending on the type of attachment the child seats have," Seymour says. "In terms of implementing lower attachment anchorages, something that would need to be looked at is that the rigid form is more expensive and makes the restraints heavier. If we go with the non-rigid types, which are not as costly then we have problems with fitting, and we have to make sure they are adequately tensioned to ensure we actually gain an improvement from that form of restraint."

As a result, although some cars are fitted with ISOFIX points, there are no child restraints certified for sale in Australia that are fitted with the connections. The RACV report notes another potential problem with the ISOFIX system: "The lack of an Australian Design Rule for rigid anchorage systems means they are not regulated for strength or position. Early field indicators suggest that the ISOFIX anchorages may not be strong enough, suggesting that it is prudent for Australia to wait rather than implement this system immediately," it reads.

There is no doubt that the Australian regulations are among the most stringent in the world and while there is room for improvement in both the anchorage system and the seats themselves, the existing arrangement can provide significant safety benefits if -- and it is a vital 'if' -- they are both used appropriately and fitted correctly.

CHILD SEAT SAFETY RANKED FROM 2005
Next year Australian parents will have access to individual ratings on child car seats with the aim to provide detailed information about the level of safety and ease of use of all child restraints sold in Australia.

Although the number of children aged between 0-6 being killed in car crashes has fallen -- from 83 nationally in 1989 to 35 in 2002, last year the number rose again to 51 prompting a review of how we can achieve further reductions. Part of that solution will be to provide parents with credible information on the safety offered by different child restraints.

The new child seat ratings are being developed by the NSW RTA, NRMA and RACV and will be published as part of the upgraded Child Restraint Evaluation Program (CREP). CREP was previously run by the aforementioned organisations and first introduced in 1994, but has not been updated since 2000.

According to Michael Case, chief engineer at the RACV, the three organisations were waiting for the Australian Standard for Child Restraints to be updated and published before instituting the new program. The main feature of the updated Australian Standard -- AS/NZS 1754 -- requires a more stringent test for side impact that includes a door fitted to the crash sled. "There is a commitment by those three organisations to proceed with an update of the CREP program to provide consumers with performance results," Case says.

Case says the new program will provide more information than the previous program, which merely distinguished the seats available on the market into two groups: those that met the standard and those that were a "preferred buy".

All child restraints sold in Australia must meet the AS/NZS 1754. "The problem with the previous CREP was they didn't know by how much -- if any -- the restraint exceeded the requirements of the Australian Standard," Case says. In addition to addressing this issue, Case says the new ratings will also incorporate a system for assessing the ease of use of the seat so that consumers have a simple outline of what seats are the safest and easiest to use.

The updated CREP is expected to be up and running before the middle of 2005 with the first results published later in the year, but Case says that the bulk of the results will appear 2005 -- '06. In the meantime, he says parents wanting to choose the best seat for their child should ensure it carries the AS/NZS 1754 sticker; is the right size for their child with high side bolsters for better side-impact protection, and that it suits the car it will be fitted in. It is also vital that the seat is fitted correctly without any twisted straps, and that the seat belt and top tether strap are adjusted tightly.