How dangerous is it for a child in a booster seat to ride in the front seat of a car that doesn't have air bags?
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
You're talking belt-positioning booster in a car with shoulder straps but no airbags?
Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
Not Bob, but I'd only do it if I had no other choice, and push the seat back as far as it will go.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I don't understand your question, KQ.
I'm talking about kids in booster chairs sitting in the front with shoulder straps but with no air bags. The alternitive being sitting in the back with shoulder straps and no air bags.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
The back is recommended if it is at all possible. I was inquiring about what kind of booster we're talking about; belt-positioning boosters (which don't strap into the car, but just position the child and the straps to be in the correct alignment) are currently the only kind recommended. I agree with romanylass, I'd only do it if there was no alternative.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Rear seats are safer than front seats, for all ages and sizes of people.
If the front seat position is airbag equipped, and there is no shutoff, then it is actively dangerous to put a child (or small adult) in that seating position.
Booster seats are a good idea for children who are still too small to have the shoulder strap fit well. There are other methods of adjusting the belts, but booster seats are currently the only NHTSA recommended way. There are some states that require booster seats.
So... Booster seat, yes Back seat, yes
Front seat -- as romanylass and kq have said, only if there is no alternative, and definitely NOT if there is an airbag that can't be shut off.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Bob, can you roughly quantify the benefit, say with respect to the difference in chances of death and serious injury based on location?
I'm mostly just curious; I've always wondered about it.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Also, why face infant seats backwards?
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Because if they saw how bad their parents really drove, they would be scarred for life.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Infant seats face backwards because if there is a crash or sudden stop, they provide more support and cause less trauma to the neck and spine than front-facing seats. That is why your child should stay rear-facing not only until age one and 20 lbs., but until they reach the weight or height cutoff for your car seat to be rear-facing, if at all possible.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Do NOT face infant seats backwards in the front seat of a car with airbags. Do NOT face infant seats backwards in a rear seat of a car with airbags for rear seat passengers.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
What if a car has side airbags?
I have a nephew. He's too old for carseats (nine), but his father made sure he knows never to sit in a front seat with airbags.
-pH
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
How much less safe is the front seat than the back seat? My kids love to ride in the front with Mommy or Daddy.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
adam, do you seriously not know what Bob does for a living? Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Bob is THE traffic consultant for DOT.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Try googling "Robert Scopatz"
Actually, I never did that before. Some really cool stuff!
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
The first result is "Robert Scopatz for President."
Hear hear! Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
I agree! I'd vote for Bob for President in a heartbeat!
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I hadn't done that either, rivka. That is some cool stuff.
Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
I've always wondered about this whole back seat business too, but it seems like everyone in this thread is just repeating that it's the recommendation, and I don't even know whose recommendation it is!
Posted by Artemisia Tridentata (Member # 8746) on :
Aft faced seating would be the safest for all passangers. Society would never accept it. Does anyone remember the "Janus"? I think it may have been manufactured by BMW. It was a two seat auto with the second seat facing backwards. THey may have sold about 12 in this country. We won't even stand for aft faced seating in passanger aircraft where it makes even more sense.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Bob's real name is ROBERT?
Okay, that's just frikkin' weird, man.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
Is it true that kids should stay in booster seats until they're eight? Because my mom told me that, and kept me in one until I was 6 and all of the other kids got out of them at 3 and it was very embarrassing.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Not only is Bob's first name Robert, but he's a doctor, too.
Now, I knew that, but it's still odd to see it in print.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I was not able to find the research on seating position as it relates to safety for ALL people. I found some great stuff on Child Safety, though. Some of it is VERY graphic (medical photos) so you may want to not look...
Some Graphic stuff It's not dead bodies, but there are pics of injured children used to illustrate the medical nature of various types of injuries resulting from belts or improper use of restraints, etc.
On the question of differential safety of being in the rear seat versus front seat, as I said, I couldn't find the data, but I know it's out there. In the meantime, there's a logical exercise:
Almost ALL single vehicle crashes involve damage to the front end of the vehicle (true except for some rollover crashes and the rare high-speed backing crashes). Having more space between you and the point of impact (the front of the vehicle) is an added margin of safety. Especially if things are intruding into the vehicle.
Almost all multiple vehicle crashes involve 2 vehicles (3, and 4 are "common" but after that it's rare to see more vehicles in teh crash). That means, basically that you're guaranteed to have at least ONE (representing usually 1/2 of all vehicles in the crash) with front end damage so the situation for everyone in that vehicle is the same as for single vehicles. Back seat is further from point of impact.
Then, there's the cars that are struck. They get sideswiped, t-boned, rear-ended, off-set collisions, head-ons, etc. Only in a small subset of rear-end and T-bone crashes are the people in the rear seat at greater risk than the people in the front of the vehicle. Those situations with "increased risk" for rear-seaters would depend a lot on where the vehicle is struck and what kinds of vehicles are involved in the crash.
In other words, the argument can be made based on physics and the most common types of crashes alone. And from that, rear seat is logically the best spot for precious cargo, like favorite aunts and small children.
Oh, and someone asked about side airbags. Check them out first. If it's a "curtain" airbag that descends with force down the plane of the window, the advantages in a side impact crash are likely to outweigh the negatives. That side impact is the one case where a rear seated passenger faces increased risk compared to front seat folks. Intrusions (stuff coming into the car...glass shattering, etc.) are a problem in these crashes. If the airbag is situated such that it could blow the kid sideways or downward with force, that's bad. But if it is situated so that it provides an effective cushion in a side impact, that's probably really good.
Research on it -- I'd have to check. I suspect it's mostly with crash test dummies at this point.
I don't know of vehicles with rear seat airbags in the back of the front seat (i.e., positioned to blow backwards from the back of the front seat. Do some manufacturers have that? If so, I suspect they must have shut offs for them because there's no way they should put that there and not allow for the situation of a child in a safety seat being placed behind it. If I had that setup, I'd opt to put the child seat in the middle of the rear seat (if the vehicle has a bench seat) so that the airbag wouldn't be right in front of the kid.
Final thought: There's some funny things circulating on the internet about how we all rode around in cars with metal dash boards, in the front seat, and no safety glass when we were kids. No seatbelts either until the early 1960's, and often not in back seats until the 70's. And look! We're all fine. So all this stuff is nonsense and coddling kids, etc.
What we have to keep in mind is that crashes are fairly rare phenomena. Crashes that are severe enough to kill someone are more rare. The chances of getting in a crash on any given trip are quite low. Still, we end up with about 40,000 deaths from motor vehicle crashes each year, and it's the leading cause of accidental death for several age groups, and in some age groups, it is THE leading cause of death (not just from accidents).
I believe that things are safer now than they ever have been. The vehicles are better, the roads are better, the attitudes are better. But we still have things we can do to improve safety.
Putting kids in the right place, in the right size car seat, installed and used properly is offers a better margin of safety than the current alternatives.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
As far as I'm aware, the rear seat airbag is also a curtain-type airbag which expands downward from the ceiling, separating the front and back passenger sections.
Perhaps it was "too much of a a good thing" -- ie presented a hazard of its own under foreseeable circumstances, such as tilting the front seat backwards -- cuz it doesn't seem to be a common option even in high-end luxury cars.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by mackillian: Not only is Bob's first name Robert, but he's a doctor, too.
Doctor Bob! Doctor Bob! Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
"Doctor, we've lost the patient." "What? Hw was under the sheet a minute ago!"
quote:Do NOT face infant seats backwards in the front seat of a car with airbags. Do NOT face infant seats backwards in a rear seat of a car with airbags for rear seat passengers.
...which means that children under one year and 20 lbs. should not ride in cars with these features at all (unless the airbags can be disabled.)
Posted by whiskysunrise (Member # 6819) on :
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Infant seats face backwards because if there is a crash or sudden stop, they provide more support and cause less trauma to the neck and spine than front-facing seats. That is why your child should stay rear-facing not only until age one and 20 lbs., but until they reach the weight or height cutoff for your car seat to be rear-facing, if at all possible.
They are now recommending they be a year and a half.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
*nods* We kept Ems rear-facing well past a year and 20 lbs., until she hit the height limit on her seat and had to switch front-facing. (She still hasn't hit the weight limit for rear-facing, it's 35 lbs. on ours.)
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:In other words, the argument can be made based on physics and the most common types of crashes alone. And from that, rear seat is logically the best spot for precious cargo, like favorite aunts and small children.
By that argument, two adults riding in a car should not ride in the front seat. When you and Dana drive somewhere, do you both sit in the front seat?
Assuming that the answer is yes, then can I assume that it's because the difference in safety between the front seat and back seat isn't enough to warrant the bother of having to sit in the back seat?
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Also, can someone help me understand the danger to a child from an airbag? I know a tinsie bit about the danger to a rear-facing seated child because of the illustrations on the seats showing the seat breaking and hurting the child, but that's all I know.
I have zero experience with airbags. I don't know what sort of effect they have on people except for the slo-mo videos I occasionally see of dummies slamming into them.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:then can I assume that it's because the difference in safety between the front seat and back seat isn't enough to warrant the bother of having to sit in the back seat?
Not necessarily. We also sometimes ride a motorcycle, which is more of a bother and much less safe in the event of a crash.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Bev, when the airbag deploys, it deploys fast and with a fair amount of force. (It has to, to get there in time to do any good.) Adults suffer minor injuries from this (less than they’d have without it) but littler people are more breakable.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
So far, I've seen a lot of conventional wisdom in this thread that says that I should never put a child in the front seat. I already knew that this is the conventional wisdom, but I am doubtful that it really makes much of a difference.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
mph,
The incidence of injury and death in crashes is pretty low, so we probably don't have great data on this, but I'll keep looking. I'm betting the data would come from two sources:
1) crash tests 2) case studies using post-crash investigation of deaths for properly restrained children.
The problem with kids in the front seat is mostly from airbags. a rear-facing seat and an airbag is a HUGE no-no. The force from the air bag deployment is precisely the force you're trying to avoid placing on a child's neck & head.
So, don't make that mistake.
Now, larger children, WITHOUT an airbag...might be okay. It's probably a marginal improvement in safety for them in the back seat. But so what? I mean we do a lot of things to get a marginal improvement in safety. Grounded plugs are an improvement over two-pole plugs, no? But we use them because they reduce the risk of an already rare event.
All I can say is that when I drive kids around, they don't go in the front seat until they are adult size.
If there's an airbag, I don't even put small adults in the front seat. They are at risk from airbag deployment.
Also: here's a link:
Especially check out page 10 onward. If you're looking at front and side impact crashes, the front impact crashes are going to account for 73% of the injuries...
So, further from the front = good.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Heck, because of the passenger airbag, I ride in the back seat when possible when pregnant. When not possible, I'm as far back as I can go.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Well according to the FatalityAnalysisReportingSystem of the Department of Transportation, in accidents with at least one fatality in which there are both front and rear seat passengers: front seat passengers survive ~60% of the time rear seat passengers survive ~70% of the time. Which means right off the bat, any front passenger who switches to the back seat increases his/her chance of survival in a fatality-causing accident by ~16%
Since an airbag increases overall survival odds by ~14%, a front seat passenger in a car without airbags would survive a fatality-causing accident ~60/114 = ~52.6% of the time. So any passenger who switches from the front seat of a car without airbags to the back seat increases his/her odds of survival in a fatality-causing accident by ~32%.
Add that frontal-collision airbag deployment presents a hazard to short adults and children, and ya get stats that a 46% reduction in death of children in front seats -- mostly by changing their position to rear seats -- leads to an 18% reduction of all child fatalities in automobile accidents.
[ December 24, 2005, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
aspectre...not bad. That's not really a NHTSA study using FARS data -- it's somebody else's work, so I wouldn't claim that US DOT has come out with that as a firm result. It's not a bad study. I was looking for something on the NHTSA website that would get at that more thoroughly.
Problem right off the bat is they didn't appear to do any matching across seating position for age, physical size, and other possible factors that might influence survival rates. Their analysis is way too simplistic.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
If I removed the front seat altogther from my car, would that be OK? I'd just let the backseat drivers take over.
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