Journal peacefinder's Journal: Consumer Reports retracts infant car seat study 2
Consumer Reports is retracting its car seat report after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had found flaws in its side-impact testing methods.
A quick recap: Consumer Reports tried to raise the bar on child safety seat testing by putting 12 popular car seats through 35 mph frontal and 38 mph side-impact crash tests. CR chose those speeds because they are the government standard for crash testing vehicles. Currently, federal standards require car seats be tested only in 30 mph frontal crash tests.
CR found that 10 seats failed and flew off their bases. One seat, the Evenflo Discovery, failed even at 30 mph. CR demanded NHTSA immediately recall it. Evenflo strongly disputed CR's findings.
After CR came out with its report earlier this month, NHTSA asked to review its data. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the agency apparently relayed its preliminary conclusions to CR, which promptly pulled the report pending further testing.
NHTSA administrator Nicole Nason said its initial review of the Consumer Reports testing procedures "showed a significant error in the manner in which it conducted and reported on its side-impact tests. The organization's data show its side-impact tests were actually conducted under conditions that would represent being struck in excess of 70 mph, twice as fast as the group claimed. When NHTSA tested the same child seats in conditions representing the 38.5 mph conditions claimed by Consumer Reports, the seats stayed in their bases as they should, instead of failing dramatically."
Consumer Reports put out a statement saying, "Our tests were intended to simulate side crashes at the NCAP speed of 38 mph. The new information raises a question about whether the tests accurately simulated that speed, however, so we are now reviewing our tests and the resulting article.
Boo on them for screwing up, good on them for admitting the error promptly.
Until they get their studies straight, remember that it's still true that small kids in car seats are much safer than small kids with just seat belts.
Whew (Score:2)
and even with a car seat (Score:2)
There have been reports of kids as old as 12 being fatally injured in the front passenger seat, when the passenger side airbag deployed during a wreck.
Don't ask for details. This is why car dealers will disable passenger airbags on request, and probably why the new Camry Hybrid my parents bought lets the owner disable/re-enable it.