Highway Safety Board Proposes Child Seat Side-Impact Rule

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 01/22/2014 at 18:55 • Filed to: safety

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Reacting to a directive from Congress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Wednesday that it would propose changes to a federal vehicle safety standard that would require new child car seats to be safer in side-impact crashes. The new rule would apply to car seats sold in the United States that are designed for children weighing up to 40 pounds. The current standard addresses only how well car seats must protect children in front crashes.

The announcement was made by David Friedman, acting administrator of the safety agency, at the SAE International Government/Industry Meeting at the Washington Auto Show.

"In the big picture, this is a great thing," said Jennifer Stockburger, director of operations at the Consumer Reports Auto Test Center, whose responsibilities include the child-restraints program. As it stands now, parents have only marketing claims to go by, and a federal standard would give consumers more assurance that all car seats comply with the same minimum level of performance, she said.

The agency estimates that the regulation will save five lives and prevent 64 injuries each year. The proposed rule will be published in The Federal Register, and members of the public and manufacturers will be able to submit comments for 90 days. Then, the agency will consider whether to adopt the rule as-is or with changes.

Under the proposed rule, car-seat manufacturers would have to show that child-safety seats can keep a child's head from hitting the door when the car is struck in the side, and reduce the crash forces transmitted to the head and chest. The tests would be conducted using a sled test designed to simulate a T-bone crash in which the front of a vehicle traveling 30 miles an hour slams into the side of a small passenger vehicle traveling at 15 m.p.h. The tests would be conducted using an existing crash-test dummy that represents a 12-month-old child, as well as a side-impact dummy, still to be developed, that would represent a 3-year-old. ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

Ntovorni > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 18:56

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Yeah yeah a life is a life...but 5 per year that's it??

Also curious if this will have any impact on design with the door impact being involved.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 18:59

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I'm all for thinking of the childrens, but this yet another thing that will perpetuate our addiction to too-large-than-what-is-needed vehicles.

I can only imagine how bulky these new seats will be, and I have no doubt they will not fit into the backseat of small cars.

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 19:02

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"The agency estimates that the regulation will save five lives and prevent 64 injuries each year."

You do with they could be a little more specific. Seriously this is both a great thing, and a not so great thing. Great because I love my kids and want them to be safe. Not so great means the car seats are already expensive...and if they make me buy news ones...so help me.

That being said, the industry as a whole recongized this is a problem and has done things to mitigate this on its own. Now it will just cost more for them to do it, but the results will at least be closer together.

We bought our car seat for many reason, one of which was the side impact protection system if offers.

Tekamul > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 01/22/2014 at 19:03

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As it is, fitting rear facing child seats is pretty hard in most vehicles. I couldn't fit one in a forester in any position except the middle seat.
Forget civics and foci

HammerheadFistpunch > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 01/22/2014 at 19:04

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I remember chatting with Doug DeMuro about this, people without kids have no idea how much car it takes to fit modern car seats in. They are huge!

GhostZ > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 19:07

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EDIT: I am an idiot for not reading the whole post through, I thought it was demanding child-seat-friendly side impact systems be built into cars.

Yeah, this actually doesn't look so bad, and let's look at the numbers:

If the regulation costs even 10 cents more per car seat (it won't, it would be higher) then (assuming 10 million seats a year, give or take 2 million in each direction) then that's $1,000,000 spent on side-impact car seats per year. That's... actually not bad, in terms of what's the "Best good we can do with our money". It's probably closer to $10,000,000 per year, but even then, each infant saved will easily make that up in the good that person does over their lifespan. I'm okay with this.

HammerheadFistpunch > Tekamul 01/22/2014 at 19:12

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hmm, I didn't have any problems with my Foz, but i did have to scoot my seats up/

GhostZ > Ntovorni 01/22/2014 at 19:15

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Check my other post (which I edited). It would have to cost the manufacturer greater than a few dollars per seat to not be worth saving the lives, assuming the children do not make it to elementary school. If they do, and then they make it to the working world, the cost would easily cover itself 100 times over. It would be really hard not to make a long-term positive effect from these regulations, even at only 5 children per seat.

Now, if they were demanding changes to all cars to save senior lives, that's a very different story.

Manuél Ferrari > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 19:22

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How long until they require side airbags in the car seat?

Manuél Ferrari > Manuél Ferrari 01/22/2014 at 19:22

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I was joking by the way. Forgot to use the sarcastic font

f86sabre > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 01/22/2014 at 19:49

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I think you could do this without expanding the foot print of the seat beyond current limits. You would add padding around the head and jest area though. Kind of like the seat shown in the picture. That said, I think the headrest is too high in the pic shown to be as effective as it could be in a crash.

Icemanmaybeirunoutofthetalents > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 19:51

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Anything to make things sadder for kids. Given they're far more vulnerable to injury than adults it makes sense to design safety with them in mind. Increase in cost? Not much of a big deal in the long run really.

Tekamul > HammerheadFistpunch 01/22/2014 at 19:54

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Which gen? Mine was a 2000, with a brittax boulevard seat. Once the seat was level, the most I could muster was 3 clicks back from front if it was directly behind.
It was the main driver behind buying a Mazda5

Xentron Holy Reaper of Worlds > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 19:55

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Or, you know, you could pay attention to the road and other drivers...Or is that asking too much?

ttyymmnn > Xentron Holy Reaper of Worlds 01/22/2014 at 19:59

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Some see the role of government as protecting people from themselves.

Xentron Holy Reaper of Worlds > ttyymmnn 01/22/2014 at 20:05

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The Government: A Legal Straight Jacket for the General Public.

HammerheadFistpunch > Tekamul 01/22/2014 at 20:11

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Mine was a 2005 with a peg perego. Doesnt fit great in my land cruiser well either.

DasWauto > ttyymmnn 01/30/2014 at 09:10

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Hey ttyymmnn,

This post became the subject of a little talk about plagiarism last night because of the direct copying/pasting of text last night.

I've seen you make posts in this manner plenty of times and have always been confident that your only intent was to share relevant content with Oppo, never claiming it to be your own. My opinion hasn't changed.

The concern is a valid one though and I think it can be alleviated quite easily. It might be best not to paste the entire article as that removes any need to actually click the link and benefit the original author. Further, a little intro/disclaimer explaining what the subject is and where it came from should appease any worries anyone has about plagiarism. Putting the text in quotes or indenting it with the quotation function of the editor is probably not a bad idea either.

I'll make a quick little note/psa to everyone about this subject later on this morning so that everyone is aware of the concern and how to avoid it.

Cheers.

ttyymmnn > DasWauto 01/30/2014 at 09:57

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I understand completely.

It raises a couple of questions, though. Yesterday, I posted an article about the 75th anniversary of the Stratoliner. I had come across an article from Boeing, and basically rewrote it, calling out highlights of the poiece. I still cited Boeing as the source at the end of the article. As someone who has written a doctoral thesis, I know the importance of citing sources and avoiding plagiarism, but how does one generally handle that in the blogosphere? I like your idea about using the indent quote, but I've never quite been able to figure out how that works. I've looked a bit at the style of Sploid and other Gawker sites, where they basically rewrite somebody else's stuff then say, "Read it about it on xyz." Does Jalopnik or Gawker have any style guidelines about quoting, rewriting and author citation?

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Gamecat235 > ttyymmnn 01/30/2014 at 10:09

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We're in a really odd situation here. If we take from any source, we probably should be citing them, even it's transformative. The odd part is that we (Oppo) are in the role of commenters or (at best) bloggers, and as we are not gaining anything from these endeavors, fair use gets really really wonky.

As best as I can tell, there are only some standard legalese statements in the TOU , but no real guidelines. I'd say play it as safe as possible and cite all sources (sometimes up front, if relying heavily). Like Das, I have no concerns about your pieces.

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Additionally the "quote" feature can be handy for having a visual aid to show which sources are taken directly.

DasWauto > ttyymmnn 01/30/2014 at 10:13

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Writing and citing as you did for that Stratoliner piece should be totally acceptable as far as I'm concerned, encouraged even.

As for how to go about it in the blogosphere, your guess is as good as mine. Having written a thesis you've got significantly more experience in appropriately citing sources than I do and I think that good practices in writing should transfer directly to the internet.

To indent a quote I think I just type (or paste) text, highlight it and click the quote button.

Success. :D

Jalopnik/Gawker doesn't have a style guideline that I'm aware of so going about it like you did in that Boeing piece or as I suggested in my original reply and using your own best judgement should suffice.

ttyymmnn > Gamecat235 01/30/2014 at 10:16

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Ten years at Kinko's taught me a thing or two about (c) and Fair Use. And honestly, I do feel a bit uncomfortable taking a whole article verbatim, and have always been careful to cite. That's the academic in me. I have certainly never claimed authorship, but I guess if it's under my username then authorship could be implied.

In the case of this story, perhaps a self-written synopsis with a "Read more @" tag would have been best, with quotes where necessary. That seems like a good way to go in the future.

Sorry to have stirred the pot. I certainly don't want to get anybody—least of all me!— in hot water.

ttyymmnn > DasWauto 01/30/2014 at 10:19

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Roger wilco.

I probably wouldn't get into so much trouble if I had a real day job and spent less time on Oppo......

Gamecat235 > ttyymmnn 01/30/2014 at 10:22

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I have zero concerns about you, and your approach, we know you here, some of us would probably recognize your "voice" even if it wasn't attached to your username.

I think that taking the cautious approach is the best thing we can do. And to be honest, if someone were going to stir the pot, as it were, I would rather it be someone who we trust, can understand their motivations, and who we know. And as an added bonus, already is aware of these things. =)

ttyymmnn > Gamecat235 01/30/2014 at 10:29

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Thanks.