When everyone (including me) was in a tizzy about the recent Consumer Reports tests of infant car seats, Luke was the voice of reason, saying in his comment that we should all take the reports with a grain of salt.
Thanks to my cousin ReeSeSPcS for pointing out the USA Today article, in which Consumer Reports admitted that their tests had been poorly constructed:
Consumer Reports said Thursday it had received information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing that the speeds at which its side-impact tests were conducted were higher than the 38.5 mph reported.This should settle some of the initial pandemonium about car seats in general, since we now longer have to worry that 10 out of 12 seats failed the tests. Still, I find it remarkable that two of the seats still managed to perform well at DOUBLE the speed. If safety is your primary concern, then you can feel even better about buying a Graco Snugride.
In fact, the NHTSA said the crash tests were conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at more than 70 mph — twice as fast as the magazine claimed, said NHTSA administrator Nicole Nason.
I hope you have all learned a valuable lesson: Listen to Luke. He knows what he's talking about.
3 comments:
That's quite a relief since as I was chauffering my car-seated children around the other day I was thinking about how often I drive over 40 mph (both legally and otherwise)and I wondered why they tested car seats at such low speeds when the high speeds seem so much scarier. I'm glad to know that they do test at higher speeds. Thanks for the updated information.
I just wanted to share these crash videos because I think they are cool. Though you don't see any kids or infants in these...
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I can see I'm behind on reading your blog or I would not have told you to recheck Consummer Reports. You are ahead of me, though I just found out yesterday...Saturday 1-19-07!!
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