Booster Seat Safety Tests May Provide False Sense of Security

As a child grows, parents eventually make an investment in a booster seat to make sure the toddler is safe and secure while riding in a vehicle. While many caregivers place trust in manufacturers’ recommendations, a recent report from the U.S. House of Representatives found that trust may be seriously misplaced. 

The House of Representatives’ Economic and Consumer Policy subcommittee identified two big problems with booster seat marketing in their official report in December 2020:

• Due to little regulatory oversight, booster seat manufacturers create their own side-impact crash tests, many of which are “meaningless safety tests” that would allow almost any seat to pass. 
• Despite expert consensus that children weighing less than 40 pounds should not use a booster seat, several manufacturers started marketing their booster seats for children who weigh as little as 30 pounds. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sounded the alarm in 2001 that children under 40 pounds could be in serious danger if a booster seat was used. The NHTSA also conducted research that showed a 27 percent increased risk of moderate-to-fatal injuries when 3-year-old or 4-year-old children were placed in a booster seat as opposed to a fully harnessed car seat. 

Booster Seat Safety in Question

The congressional subcommittee reviewed documents and videos from several manufacturers of wide-selling booster seats. 

Among those looked at:

• Artsana (brand name Chicco)
• Baby Trend
• Dorel (brand name Maxi Cosi or Safety 1st)
• Britax

Because there are no standardized test so gauge the safety of booster seats, manufacturers have been left to devise their own standards and tests. 

“These tests are entirely self-designed, are not rigorous, and fail to adequately assess the risk of injury to children,” alleged the congressional report, which also noted 25 percent of children under the age of 15 who died in vehicle collisions in 2018 were victims of side-impact crashes.

In some cases, booster car seat makers boast of proprietary safety features that have not been verified to provide any extra protection at all. Britax, Artsana, and Dorel are the focus of such claims. 

Britax promotes its “Side Impact Protection surrounds your child’s head, neck and torso. We offer varying levels of side impact protection on our different harness-2-booster models,” according to the subcommittee’s report. 

The congressional report also says that because the boasted features themselves are not tested, the ads give consumers a false sense of security and that “it is unfair and deceptive to advertise a safety feature without evidence that it improves safety.”

Artsana was similarly faulted for promoting its “DuoGuard” protection that “offers two layers of side-impact protection for the head and torso.” Artsana says parents should “rest assured” but in one photograph from Artsana’s Chicco KidFit side impact test, the crash dummy’s head moves beyond the headrest. There’s no evidence that this DuoGuard feature improves safety, the report from Congress said.

Dorel’s Maxi-Cosi Rodi AP (AirProtect) booster seat claims to offer extra protection against side-impact collisions in the headrest, but again, the company’s claims are “unsubstantiated and misleads consumers into thinking the seats are actually safe.”

The congressional report shows a photograph from a Dorel side-impact test video that indicates a test dummy’s head and neck do not appear to be protected in the collision. 

Lack of Regulation And Self-Determined Benchmarks

Nearly 20 years ago, Congress asked the NHSTA to create standardized tests to gauge the safety of booster seats. Even though the NHTSA has regulatory authority over booster seats, regulators have failed to enact standardized side-impact tests. 

As a result, several booster car seat manufacturers have created their own side-impact tests with their own benchmarks, which allow them to always receive a passing grade, much like a student who writes his own test and provides any answer, which he deems is always correct. 

“The Subcommittee recommends that NHTSA fulfill its duty to regulate booster seat safety to ensure that manufacturers do not mislead parents or put children at risk in how they design and market their booster seats,” says the congressional report. 

If you’ve purchased a booster car seat with the brand name of Chicco (made by Artsana), Baby Trend, Britax, or Maxi Cosi/Safety 1st (both made by Dorel), you may have based your purchasing decision on false safety data. 

Family Receives Millions in Damages

Dorel is no stranger to accusations about its booster car seats’ failures.

In 2016, a federal jury in Texas awarded a family $34.4 million because a May 2013 crash left their child partially paralyzed. He was in a Safety 1st Summit Booster seat at the time of the accident. 

The jury found Dorel was 80 percent responsible for the child’s injuries in an initial $24.4 million verdict, and that the family was owed an extra $10 million due to what the jury deemed was Dorel’s gross negligence.  

If you purchased a child’s booster seat based upon a manufacturer’s negligent weight recommendations or falsified safety statements, you could be eligible to participate in this booster seat class action lawsuit investigation.