Bambini: February 2011

After a long discussion on the internet, a couple of retired National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officials weighed in on the subject of car seat life:

In short, anything past their born on date, or expiration date, they are not liable for and that is their stance.. sad but true. I will leave you with this thought. Cars in general are built with the same type of materials and yet they do not have a 6 to 7 year window before you are pressed to buy a new vehicle..even though many have done that. It's not for the same reasons but perhaps car makers rely on many turn overs and build a cheaper , less durable vehicles based on that theory. Just playing devils advocate here.

I loved what I did helping folks out but never pressed them to buy a new seat for their child. In fact we gave seats to folks who were down and out. My stance was if you had one and its webbing wasn't frayed or plastic dilapidated from sun's effects, use it. My best guesses were based on some visual indicators and some were just thrashed. I never said which car seat to buy other than one that fit the child, fit the wallet and fit the vehicle. Of course when $$ was not an object I went with a Britax.. I put both my nephews in them, for many reasons. My choices.

With fact I will say we cut folks from cars.. many DOAs. In a few instances, there where small children in the back seat, where they were supposed to be and properly secured in a properly installed car seat. One in an instance was a car seat I had installed about 4 months earlier, I knew that family. These little babies I speak of survived with very minor injuries.. if any at all. That was the positive taken away from a fatal collision, even though the future of that survivor was terribly uncertain.
I wish you the best of luck and keep you and yours safe.
dan

Your conviction has legitimacy to it. There is a huge disconnect to the manufacturers and liability issues. I think the company wants to insure the child remains safe and a car seat not be handed down through a family or a bunch of families. Being in one family from purchase and well taken care of I cannot see any reason why it cannot be used for 10 years. Think about a big wheel. And they are pretty abused toys right?

That is what I always dealt with. "We got it from so and so who we really didn't know where they got it...maybe a yard sale"?

Yes, I could look at a car seat and tell what type of shape it was in visually. It it was involved in a collision, all bets were off unless ejection occurred and it perhaps did go tumbling down the tarmac.. kind of like you, I doubt that happening.

Deterioration from ultra violet culprits do happen, I can use tires as a reference but this may be an apples to oranges comparison. It does take place with either material ..how much, I cannot say. Webbing would be least of my issues unless involved in said accident, the stretching is sometimes undefinable but damage can be done. I am confidant you understand web sizing to weight ratios and how these things are computed for safety.

Unfortunately in this litigious society they want to stay as far away from any liability as they can so these more stringent guidelines, or maybe better stated warranty ratings are put to regulation and NHTSA gets a say in how and what those regs state. Does not make it right. What it does is greases a bunch of palms from a car company who builds restraints systems into vehicles, to makers of car seats to even NHTSA who gets paid for programs to train installation specialists even at the national level where I was while involved in the programs before I recently retired from the job.

I think those are probably the last words on this subject.

Bambini

Saturday, February 5, 2011

First Birthday

Xmas

Car Seats